Kiriakou’s Cuba trip was his first visit to the island, made as an invited guest of the Havana International Book Fair after his first two books were translated into Spanish and added to the permanent collection of the Cuban National Library; the visit included a meeting with the Cuban president.[1] John Kiriakou says he was treated “like a king” and that Cubans, while disliking the U.S. government, expressed admiration for the American people and puzzlement over why Washington “hates them so much.”[2][3] He later described the friendliness as near-universal, noting that almost everyone he met had relatives in Florida and “loves the United States” even as they “hate our government.”[4] One of Cuba’s three vice presidents was more frustrated, telling him “all your presidents are the same” — Cuba cannot “keep the lights on,” its children lack shoes and it lacks medical supplies, yet it is cast as a threat while the U.S. keeps relations with far worse actors.[5][6]
Life under the embargo
Kiriakou has repeatedly described being struck by the toll the U.S. trade embargo takes on ordinary Cubans. He recalled eating squash at nearly every meal because the embargo restricts food imports and the country can largely only eat what it grows — a waiter joked it was simply “squash season.”[1][7] A Cuban doctor later told him the embargo’s restrictions on importing food and medication amounted to “a crime against humanity” that the world does not fully recognize.[8]
The embargo’s reach became personal when a member of Kiriakou’s delegation was bitten by a mosquito and came down with dengue fever. She was hospitalized overnight, given an IV and antiviral treatment, and assigned a doctor and two nurses; because the embargo bars Americans from using credit cards in Cuba, and the country would not accept dollars, the bill — which Kiriakou has recalled as $65, and elsewhere as $75 for a longer stay of three days and two nights — could not be paid the normal way.[9][10][11] On one telling, Cuba’s health minister personally paid the bill out of pocket in cash;[10] on another, Kiriakou — who holds Greek citizenship alongside his American citizenship, and whose Greek passport is not subject to the embargo — paid a hospital bill himself in euros he had brought along.[12] He recalled a CIA colleague once remarking that if the U.S. truly wanted the Castro brothers overthrown, the way to do it would be to open the first McDonald’s in Cuba[13] — an old joke inside the agency, where officers reportedly said opening a McDonald’s would collapse the Cuban government faster than any embargo.[14]
Kiriakou has also described the mismatch between U.S. and Cuban media access on the island: he watched Joe Biden’s State of the Union address live with Spanish subtitles on Cuban television, and found that his own syndicated TV appearances — carried via the Mexican network Aura TV — also air in Cuba.[15] He was able to pick up American AM radio stations as far away as Chicago from his hotel room, including a Chicago Cubs broadcast in English.[16] The only warning Cuban officials gave his delegation before arrival was not to bring in pornography.[17]
U.S.-Cuba travel policy
Kiriakou has contrasted the Obama and Trump administrations’ approaches to Cuba: Obama opened relations and unrestricted American travel, which Trump “completely, utterly” ended, a stance Kiriakou attributes to viewing Cubans as “Communists.”[18] Biden only partially reopened travel, requiring a Treasury Department–approved specific reason rather than restoring the fully open Obama-era policy.[19]
Present for the Havana Syndrome story
Kiriakou happened to be in Cuba, at a ceremony marking his books’ inclusion in the National Library’s collection, when the “Havana Syndrome” story broke — an affliction named for the city where it was first reported. He has said the Cuban government, to its credit, immediately invited the CIA to send investigators to Havana and look into anything they wanted, saying they had nothing to hide, but the CIA declined to take them up on the offer.[20]
Support back home
Kiriakou has said that within the CIA, support for him personally has come openly from former officers, while current officers offer only quiet, indirect support — reaching out themselves or through a mutual friend.[21]