# Blackmail in agent recruitment

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "Blackmail in agent recruitment," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/blackmail-in-recruitment/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*What John Kiriakou says CIA career trainees were taught about blackmail: that the agency does not use it, not on moral grounds but because a long-term agent relationship requires mutual trust and coercion cannot produce it. He allows two exceptions — the pre-Church Committee past, and cases where the objective is simply to stop a target doing something, which can also be handed to a friendlier service.*

- **What trainees were told:** The [CIA](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia) does not recruit through blackmail
- **Stated reason:** Long-term recruitment requires mutual trust
- **Exceptions Kiriakou allows:** Pre-[Church Committee](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/church-committee) practice; short-term 'don't do X' objectives
- **Outsourcing:** May be handed to a friendly service 'who might not be as friendly as you are'

**Blackmail in agent recruitment** is a subject [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) addresses from the training room rather than from operations: what [CIA](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia) career trainees were explicitly told, and where he thinks the teaching stops being descriptive.

## What the instructors said

*"In my training, I was told the same thing. When you're trying to recruit an asset, you want that recruitment to be over the long term. And in order to have a successful long-term recruitment, you need to be able to trust each other. Even if you don't like each other, you have to at least be able to trust each other."*[1]

The rule followed from that: *"my instructors were very clear in saying that we cannot get long-term working relationships going on the right track if we start with blackmail. It's just not something that we would do."*[2] The justification offered was operational — that blackmail is an unreliable and high-risk tool for managing assets — rather than ethical.[1]

## The exceptions he volunteers

Kiriakou does not present the teaching as a complete account of agency behaviour. He concedes the historical case immediately: *"certainly they did it in the past, pre-[Church Committee](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/church-committee)."*[2]

And he separates recruitment from suppression. Where the objective is not cooperation but inaction — where you simply need a target not to do something — *"yeah, sure. Blackmail threats."* He adds the further step: *"maybe even you outsource it to another intelligence service, another friendly intelligence service, uh, who might not be as friendly as you are."*[3]

His summary of the doctrine as day-to-day policy is unchanged, and carefully bounded: *"as a matter of day-to-day policy, we were told that blackmail wasn't going to be done."*[3]

## See also

- [Asset acquisition cycle](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/asset-acquisition-cycle)
- [Church Committee](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/church-committee)
- [Recruitment attempts on Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/recruitment-attempts-on-kiriakou)
- [Central Intelligence Agency](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia)

## Sources

1. CIA Veterans & Deep State (w/ Barry Eisler) (2025-11-20), at 05:46. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-qsocM6Khc&t=346s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-11-20-american-exception-cia-veterans-deep-state-w-barry-eisler/
2. CIA Veterans & Deep State (w/ Barry Eisler) (2025-11-20), at 06:19. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-qsocM6Khc&t=379s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-11-20-american-exception-cia-veterans-deep-state-w-barry-eisler/
3. CIA Veterans & Deep State (w/ Barry Eisler) (2025-11-20), at 06:49. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-qsocM6Khc&t=409s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-11-20-american-exception-cia-veterans-deep-state-w-barry-eisler/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/blackmail-in-recruitment/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt