John Kiriakou describes Gust Avrakotos — the officer made famous by Charlie Wilson’s War, and portrayed in the film by Philip Seymour Hoffman — as a father figure and one of the most controversial men in the CIA: a man who “killed a lot of Russians, a lot of medals, promotions, couldn’t get along with anybody. Everybody hated Gust and Gust hated everybody. But he was a sweetheart deep down. You just had to know how to deal with him.”[1]
The story he offers as evidence of what “knowing how to deal with him” meant is an argument about a dead policeman.
The remark
The two were working the 17 November task force together. Kiriakou mentioned offhandedly that the group’s second victim — the former chief of the Hellenic National Police, Mallios — had been a torturer during the junta.[2]
The reaction
Avrakotos grabbed him by the lapels and slammed him against the wall. “Mallios was my friend.”[2]
Kiriakou’s answer, as he gives it: “you better get your hands off of me, old man, or I’m going to make you sorry.”[3]
When Avrakotos let go, Kiriakou did not retract the substance. “What’s wrong with you? Mallios was a torturer. I’m sorry if he was your friend, I’m sorry he got shot in the head, but he was a torturer. And keep your hands to yourself next time.”[3]
The aftermath
The outcome was not an apology but an assessment. Afterwards, Kiriakou says, Avrakotos told him: “I really respect you for the way you reacted.”[3]
“So anyway, we were friends.”[4]
The friendship mattered operationally. It is the reason Kiriakou telephoned Avrakotos when he could see no way to reach the incoming intelligence representative of a hostile state, and it is the reason he was given the manoeuvre that became the broken side-view mirror — a trick Avrakotos said he had used himself in the 1950s.[4]
Kiriakou does not resolve the disagreement about Mallios in the retelling. He states his own view of the man as a fact and reports Avrakotos’s as an affection, and lets the two stand alongside each other.