# Learning to dive in the embassy pool

> **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: "Learning to dive in the embassy pool," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/learning-to-dive-in-the-embassy-pool/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*John Kiriakou's brief diving history, offered when the Nordstream sabotage discussion turned to the physics of deep water: lessons in the pool of the American embassy in 1991, one dive in the Red Sea at Sharm el-Sheikh in about 1992, and never again after that.*

- **Lessons:** In the pool of the American embassy, 1991
- **Only open-water dive:** Red Sea, Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt
- **Year given:** "Like 92"
- **Times since:** None, "I never went again"
- **Context:** Raised during a discussion of the Nordstream sabotage

The detail surfaces in an unlikely place. Arguing that the official account of the [Nordstream sabotage](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/nordstream-pipeline-sabotage) defied the physics of deep diving, [Ted Rall](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ted-rall), a diver himself, broke off to ask John Kiriakou whether he dived.[1]

## The answer

Kiriakou's reply supplies a small, dated piece of his own biography: "I took lessons in the pool of the American embassy in 1991. And then I went diving once, in the Red Sea at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in like '92. And then I never went again."[1][2]

Three facts sit inside it. The instruction took place in an embassy swimming pool rather than a commercial dive school, an unremarkable arrangement for diplomatic personnel overseas, and a reminder that the compound supplied recreation as well as offices. The single open-water dive was in the Red Sea. And the interest ended there.

## Why it was asked

The question was not idle. Rall was building an argument that the pipeline, lying at something like 280 feet, was beyond the reach of the recreational divers the official story implicated, that a recreational limit is around 130 feet, that pressure and air consumption scale so steeply with depth that a diver at 260 feet would have seconds on the bottom, and that placing charges in that time is not possible.[2]

He contrasted this with genuinely deep work, describing a relative who had been a professional diver in the French Navy installing nuclear devices at depth using submersibles and mixed gases, the kind of operation, in his phrase, that only a state can mount.[2]

Kiriakou agreed with the conclusion rather than the technical demonstration: the sabotage required not merely real expertise but state expertise and capability.[3] On the physics he offered only his own thin credentials, which is why the biographical detail appears at all.

## Note

Kiriakou's substantive position on who carried out the Nordstream attack, and his view of the man arrested for it, is treated separately.

## See also

- [Nord Stream pipeline sabotage](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/nordstream-pipeline-sabotage)
- [The Nordstream Patsy](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-nordstream-patsy)
- [Ted Rall](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ted-rall)
- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)

## Sources

1. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-08-28), at 25:39. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86XYgK4nal0&t=1539s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-28-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/
2. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-08-28), at 26:12. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86XYgK4nal0&t=1572s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-28-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/
3. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-08-28), at 22:02. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86XYgK4nal0&t=1322s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-28-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/

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