# This desk kills fascism

> **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: "This desk kills fascism," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/this-desk-kills-fascism/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The sign Kiriakou taped to the cell desk on which he wrote the letters from Loretto, borrowed from Woody Guthrie's guitar, torn down by a guard within hours and kept by Kiriakou ever since.*

- **Origin:** Woody Guthrie's 'This machine kills fascism', written on his guitar in the 1930s
- **Written on:** A page from a legal pad, taped to Kiriakou's cell desk
- **Time displayed:** A couple of hours
- **Fate:** Torn down and crumpled by a guard; retrieved and mailed home

**"This desk kills fascism"** was the sign Kiriakou wrote on a page from a legal pad and taped to the desk in his cell at [FCI Loretto](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/fci-loretto), a play on "This machine kills fascists," which the folk singer Woody Guthrie had stencilled on his beat-up old guitar.[1][2]

## The manuscript

The sign was a response to an escalating attempt to deprive him of the means of writing. Roughly twelve hours after finishing one [letter from Loretto](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/letter-from-loretto), Kiriakou was summoned to the Special Investigative Service office, where an officer returned an envelope containing the first 20,000 words of his book — which he had not realised was missing since a cell shakedown. The officer who had taken it claimed the manuscript had "made threats against staff"; the SIS officer said he had read it himself and believed it contained no such threats, and returned it in its entirety, though Kiriakou assumes a copy was made.[3][4]

## The desk

The staff were, in his account, furious about the letters he was writing, and the next move was against the furniture: they would take his desk off the wall so that he could not write.[5][4] He had warning. A friendly guard told him what was coming, and the bolts were stripped before the attempt was made — Kiriakou has said in his earlier tellings that he paid another prisoner a bag of tuna fish to strip the screws, and in a later one that he had stripped them himself as a preemptive measure.[5][2][4]

Either way it held. Two hours after the warning the guards arrived with a drill, tried to take the desk off the wall, could not, and eventually walked away.[5] A work order was issued to chip the desk off the wall, and Kiriakou went to the unit manager, who promised the desk would stay. It did.[4][6]

## The sign

Kiriakou then took a legal pad, wrote *"this desk kills fascism"* on it and stuck it to the desk. It hung a couple of hours, until one of the officers making the daily count — a count run five to seven times a day — tore it off, crumpled it into a ball and threw it at him.[7][1] That reaction was the point: *"which is really what I wanted him to do."*[7] He flattened the page out and mailed it home to himself, and keeps it as a reminder that he was not alone in what he went through.[7][1]

## The print

The page had an afterlife. In prison Kiriakou took a couple of art classes, found he had something of a knack for it, and made a screen print of the page — a hundred copies.[7] He sold the prints through his website to raise money for his attorney's fees.[8] By April 2022 he said he had nine or ten of them left.[9]

His broader characterisation of the episode is that crude, amateurish attempts to deprive him of his rights do not originate with a low-level correctional officer but come from higher up, from officials who should know better.[6]

## See also

- [FCI Loretto](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/fci-loretto)
- [Letter from Loretto](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/letter-from-loretto)
- [Doing Time Like a Spy](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/doing-time-like-a-spy)
- [Diesel Therapy](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/diesel-therapy)

## Sources

1. S2E9 Killing Fascism (2026-07-13), at 38:33. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6a4eaf521c8f5a97d879ac70/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-07-13-dead-drop-s2e9-killing-fascism/
2. Interview with CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou (2020-05-15), at 41:51. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6GK5GOzv1Q&t=2511s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-05-15-choo-radio-network/
3. S2E9 Killing Fascism (2026-07-13), at 36:58. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6a4eaf521c8f5a97d879ac70/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-07-13-dead-drop-s2e9-killing-fascism/
4. S2E9 Killing Fascism (2026-07-13), at 37:29. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6a4eaf521c8f5a97d879ac70/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-07-13-dead-drop-s2e9-killing-fascism/
5. Art and documentary (2023-03-28), at 24:47. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzTHekWvcic&t=1487s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-03-28-art-and-documentary-art-and-documentary/
6. S2E9 Killing Fascism (2026-07-13), at 38:02. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6a4eaf521c8f5a97d879ac70/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-07-13-dead-drop-s2e9-killing-fascism/
7. Art and documentary (2023-03-28), at 25:18. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzTHekWvcic&t=1518s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-03-28-art-and-documentary-art-and-documentary/
8. Interview with CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou (2020-05-15), at 42:22. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6GK5GOzv1Q&t=2542s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-05-15-choo-radio-network/
9. EXCLUSIVE! MUST SEE LIVE INTERVIEW WITH LEGENDARY CIA WH (2022-04-09), at 1:12:33. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwegyuWY758&t=4353s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2022-04-09-will-turbitt/

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