# The Vietnam speech

> **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 Vietnam speech," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-vietnam-speech/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*A paid speaking engagement John Kiriakou described in February 2026, booked by a New York speakers bureau for the morning of 10 August, addressing three hundred Australian investment bankers at their annual convention in a country he had never visited and had always wanted to.*

- **Date given:** "The morning of the 10th of August"
- **Audience:** 300 Australian investment bankers, at their annual convention
- **Booked by:** Gotham Artists, a speakers bureau in New York
- **Travelling with:** His brother-in-law
- **Route:** Meeting in Washington, flying to Vietnam via South Korea
- **Length of trip:** About five days
- **On the list:** The Hanoi Hilton and the tunnels, "Yes and yes"
- **Prior visits:** "I've never been to Vietnam. I've always wanted to go"

**The Vietnam speech** is a paid engagement [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) described on 25 February 2026, when a viewer asked him to shed some light on it in the same message that asked about [Frank Snepp](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/frank-snepp).

*"The speech in Vietnam is going to be on the morning of the 10th of August."*[1]

## The booking

Kiriakou named the intermediary and the audience without prompting. *"I'm represented right now by a speakers bureau in New York called Gotham Artists and they booked this speech for me to give to 300 Australian investment bankers at their annual convention."*[1][2]

The pairing is an unusual one on its face, a former CIA officer prosecuted under the Espionage Act addressing a bankers' convention in Hanoi, and Kiriakou treated it as a windfall rather than an incongruity.

## The trip

He was taking family. *"My brother-in-law is so excited that he's going to go with me. We're going to meet in Washington. We're going to fly to Vietnam through South Korea. And take a couple of extra days for ourselves."*[2]

The reason for the extra days is that he had never been. *"I've never been to Vietnam. I've always wanted to go. And uh I think this is going to be a blast."*[2]

Asked whether the Hanoi Hilton or the tunnels were on his list, he took both: *"Yes and yes. Yes to both."* His only complaint was the length of the visit, *"I only regret that I don't have more than you know 5 days"*, because otherwise he would have had suits made, at about a hundred dollars apiece.[3]

The corpus records the engagement as described rather than as completed; Kiriakou gave the date five and a half months in advance and no later account of the trip appears in the source material.

## See also

- [Frank Snepp](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/frank-snepp)
- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)
- [Central Intelligence Agency](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia)

## Sources

1. DeProgram (Ted Rall) (2026-02-25), at 47:17. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI7gFn7KjzI&t=2837s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-25-deprogram-ted-rall-deprogram-ted-rall/
2. DeProgram (Ted Rall) (2026-02-25), at 47:48. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI7gFn7KjzI&t=2868s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-25-deprogram-ted-rall-deprogram-ted-rall/
3. DeProgram (Ted Rall) (2026-02-25), at 48:19. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI7gFn7KjzI&t=2899s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-25-deprogram-ted-rall-deprogram-ted-rall/

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