John Kiriakou has told several personal anecdotes unrelated to his intelligence career.
Andy Warhol
As a college senior with four unplanned days in New York, Kiriakou — who grew up near Warhol’s hometown of Pittsburgh — decided to track down Andy Warhol. He found the Factory and met Warhol, whom he describes as quiet and meek but friendly enough to give him an autograph.[1]
The Congo anecdote
At a conference in Washington, Kiriakou recounts a conversation with the vice president of the Congo, who told him: “The Americans always promised us democracy, but the Chinese always gave us food. What do you think we needed? We didn’t really need the democracy.”[2]
The Zelle suspension
After writing a paid, roughly 4,000-word article about his trip to Cuba for ScheerPost, Kiriakou says his payment was sent via Zelle with a memo line referencing the article’s subject — Cuba. This triggered a sanctions-compliance suspension of his Zelle account; his appeal was then misdirected to an address in Arlington, Texas, rather than his actual home in Arlington, Virginia.[3]