Dewey Clarridge was a senior CIA operations officer, and John Kiriakou’s assessment of him separates stature from conduct.
“Dewey Clarridge is a legendary figure in CIA operations. He was a giant from the 1980s. A giant who was prosecuted, actually, for his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair.”[1]
On the Saudi bomb
Shown an old interview in which Clarridge said flatly that the Saudis already had nuclear weapons — “several” — Kiriakou treated the claim as credible on the strength of the man: “whether you like Dewey Clarridge or not, whether you like Dewey Clarridge’s politics or not, he was a serious operator at the CIA. And if he says that the Saudis have a nuclear bomb, I would believe that the Saudis have a nuclear bomb.”[2]
His own reasoning runs in parallel: “one of the first things I learned when I joined the CIA in January of 1990 was that the Saudis had long been seeking a nuclear bomb,” and “I always assumed, as Dewey Clarridge did, that the Pakistanis shared those nuclear bombs with the Saudis. I believe that was the quid pro quo.” The detail is set out in the Saudi nuclear programme.[1][3]
On the cocaine
Asked whether Clarridge had been involved, in his official capacity, in the importation of cocaine into the United States, Kiriakou’s answer was short: “I believe that he was. You know, I’ve researched the daylights out of this.” What he thinks the agency did is set out in CIA drug facilitation.[2]
The Saudi bomb claim
Explaining what the parties to the Mecca Agreement bring to it, Kiriakou reaches for Clarridge’s last public claim. Noting that Saudi Arabia has “actively sought nuclear weapons since the 1980s”, he adds that Clarridge — “a former deputy director for operations at the CIA, who has since passed away” — gave an interview on MSNBC shortly before his death “in which he said that he believed the Saudis already had a nuclear bomb, that they had purchased it from the Pakistanis.”[4][5]
Kiriakou reports the claim as Clarridge’s belief rather than endorsing it, and uses it to size the pact: Pakistan is a declared nuclear power, and if Clarridge was right, the agreement binds two.[4][5]