# John Rendon

> **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: "John Rendon," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-rendon/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*Self-described "professional propagandist"; organizer of the pre-distributed American flags waved by Kuwaiti crowds on the 1991 Kuwait Liberation Day; in 2008 hired John Kiriakou (alongside Karl Rove) to produce op-eds attempting to rehabilitate the U.S. travel ban imposed on Indonesian general Joko Widodo.*

- **Self-description:** Professional propagandist
- **Notable operation:** Pre-distribution of American flags for [Kuwait Liberation Day](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/kuwait-liberation-day), 1991
- **Notable client engagement (2008):** Rehabilitation campaign for Indonesian general Joko Widodo, banned from the United States on human-rights grounds; worked with [Karl Rove](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/karl-rove) and Kiriakou

**John Rendon** is a U.S. private-contractor specialist in political and military propaganda, self-described to [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) as a *"professional propagandist."* His best-known operation in Kiriakou's account is the pre-distribution of small American flags to Kuwaiti citizens before the [1991 Liberation Day](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/kuwait-liberation-day) — so that the U.S. armored column rolling down central Kuwait City was greeted by a million flag-waving residents in a country that had moments earlier been destroyed by Iraqi occupation.[1][2]

## The 2008 Widodo engagement

In 2008 Rendon hired Kiriakou and [Karl Rove](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/karl-rove) to work on a campaign to rehabilitate the reputation of Indonesian general Joko Widodo — a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of Indonesia who had personally killed six pro-democracy college student protesters by stabbing each in the heart in front of the others, and who was as a result banned from entry to the United States on human-rights grounds. Kiriakou was hired to write op-eds presenting Widodo as misunderstood and to place them in major U.S. newspapers. *"He paid me $25 grand to write four op-eds."* No newspaper would publish them. Widodo dropped out of the Indonesian presidential race, was subsequently elected vice president, and never had the U.S. travel ban lifted.[3][4][5][6][7]

## See also

- [Kuwait Liberation Day](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/kuwait-liberation-day)
- [National Endowment for Democracy](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/national-endowment-for-democracy)
- [Operation Mockingbird](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/operation-mockingbird)

## Sources

1. Mossad, Terrifying CIA Technology, Blackwater & The Most Secret CIA Unit (2025-08-31), at 1:51:53. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3FxH39oYsA&t=6713s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-31-dalton-fischer-mossad-blackwater/
2. Mossad, Terrifying CIA Technology, Blackwater & The Most Secret CIA Unit (2025-08-31), at 1:52:26. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3FxH39oYsA&t=6746s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-31-dalton-fischer-mossad-blackwater/
3. Mossad, Terrifying CIA Technology, Blackwater & The Most Secret CIA Unit (2025-08-31), at 1:52:56. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3FxH39oYsA&t=6776s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-31-dalton-fischer-mossad-blackwater/
4. Mossad, Terrifying CIA Technology, Blackwater & The Most Secret CIA Unit (2025-08-31), at 1:53:27. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3FxH39oYsA&t=6807s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-31-dalton-fischer-mossad-blackwater/
5. Mossad, Terrifying CIA Technology, Blackwater & The Most Secret CIA Unit (2025-08-31), at 1:54:30. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3FxH39oYsA&t=6870s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-31-dalton-fischer-mossad-blackwater/
6. Mossad, Terrifying CIA Technology, Blackwater & The Most Secret CIA Unit (2025-08-31), at 1:55:01. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3FxH39oYsA&t=6901s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-31-dalton-fischer-mossad-blackwater/
7. Mossad, Terrifying CIA Technology, Blackwater & The Most Secret CIA Unit (2025-08-31), at 1:56:03. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3FxH39oYsA&t=6963s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-31-dalton-fischer-mossad-blackwater/

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