The Bolivian visa line is the episode John Kiriakou uses to describe how the pressure on him reached his household before any charge was filed.
The summons
The agency called his wife — then a serving CIA officer, whom he had met at the agency — into the office of security. “They have a camera on, and the security guy says: this is not an investigation, it’s an inquiry, but we’re going to tape it.” The opening question was “what do you think should be done with people who leak classified information?” Kiriakou calls it “a totally loaded question.”[1][2]
The op-ed
The pretext was a piece he had written in the Los Angeles Times arguing that the United States should be cautious about Iran’s inroads into Latin America and should improve its own relations there, because the Iranians were improving theirs. One sentence dealt with Iranian travel to Latin America. He had had the op-ed cleared by the CIA’s publications review board before publication.[1][2]
His wife said so. “And the guy tells her: and we really appreciate that, but there’s a line in there that is top secret. And she said, well, that’s impossible, my husband doesn’t have access to top secret information. And he says: but you do. So she said, I think I’ve said enough — and she got up and walked away.”[3]
The line
“It was that Iranians no longer need visas to travel to Bolivia.”[4]
She was very upset and telephoned him. He told her to take it easy, and where he had got it: “I got it from the Bolivian foreign ministry’s website. It’s on the website. And why on earth would it be secret anyway?”[4]
He also gave her two things she might pass back. “Number one, apparently nobody in the CIA speaks Spanish. Secondly, they apparently have a source who’s selling them press and calling it intelligence.” His summary of the reception: “so they were upset about that.”[5]
What it told him
Asked whether the agency was by then out to get him, he agreed — “at that point they were out to get me” — but drew the line where he drew it at the time: “I didn’t think that this would result in any kind of criminal charges.”[5]