# The beer and the couch

> **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: "The beer and the couch," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-beer-and-the-couch/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*What John Kiriakou says he did with the CIA's spot-assessment training after leaving the agency. He still sizes up strangers within moments of meeting them, but the question is no longer what they can do for him: it is whether he would want to have a beer with them, and whether, if he were down on his luck, they would let him sleep on their couch.*

- **Trained method:** Spot, assess, develop, recruit, the asset acquisition cycle
- **The old question:** What can this person do for me?
- **The new questions:** Would I want a beer with them? Would they let me sleep on their couch?
- **His reason:** "Life's too short"

**The beer and the couch** is the pair of questions [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) says he now puts to strangers, using training the [CIA](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia) gave him for an entirely different purpose.

## What he was taught

CIA officers are actively trained to make a spot assessment. Kiriakou describes the four-part [asset acquisition cycle](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/asset-acquisition-cycle), spot, assess, develop, recruit, and walks through it as it would run at a party: he spots you, approaches, says his name is John and that he works at the American embassy, and assesses you on your response.[1]

The question governing all of it, in that role, was fixed: *"What can this person do for me? What classified information can this person give me?"* If the answer was promising, the development began, dinners, lunches, wives becoming friends, holidays together, expensive gifts, and at the end of it, recruitment as a paid asset.[1][2]

## What he does with it now

Kiriakou says he still finds himself doing it, but not in the way the CIA taught him. Like everybody he is very busy, and he wants to genuinely like the people he is around: *"Life's too short."* At sixty-one, on what he calls the backside of his life, he does not want to spend the remaining time with people who are not good human beings.[2]

So the assessment survives and the criterion is replaced. The two questions he asks himself on meeting someone are whether he would like to have a beer with this person, and whether, if he were down on his luck, they would let him sleep on their couch for a night. He concedes it sounds crazy. If the answer is no, he moves on.[3]

## See also

- [Asset acquisition cycle](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/asset-acquisition-cycle)
- [Central Intelligence Agency](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia)
- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)

## Sources

1. John Kiriakou Podcast: Inside FBI Recruiting, CIA Secrets & Human Behavior (2026-07-03), at 15:34. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkAf70JgQBI&t=934s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-07-03-the-jk-report-john-kiriakou-podcast-inside-fbi-recruiting-cia/
2. John Kiriakou Podcast: Inside FBI Recruiting, CIA Secrets & Human Behavior (2026-07-03), at 16:06. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkAf70JgQBI&t=966s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-07-03-the-jk-report-john-kiriakou-podcast-inside-fbi-recruiting-cia/
3. John Kiriakou Podcast: Inside FBI Recruiting, CIA Secrets & Human Behavior (2026-07-03), at 16:36. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkAf70JgQBI&t=996s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-07-03-the-jk-report-john-kiriakou-podcast-inside-fbi-recruiting-cia/

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