S3E1 Whistleblowers & Spies

John Kiriakou (0:00)

This podcast, it's a Costard & Touchstone Production. As we start season three, I wanted to tell a quick story about how doing this podcast has changed my life, and in the most unexpected ways, all for the good. Literally, the biggest superstar in Greece is this singer named Konstantin Argyros. I called him the Frank Sinatra of Greece, and somebody said, oh no, no, that's not right. He's more the Justin Bieber of Greece. And I was like, okay, but he's very manly, a manly man, right? With a beautiful man's voice, singing manly songs.

I was in the Hamptons for four days of events. There were four billionaires there, and three congressmen, and it was a big, big deal. All of a sudden, I'm the featured speaker. Nobody told me I was gonna speak, but I get up and I give this off-the-cuff speech, and these titles don't mean anything to you, but they're really important to me. The International Commander of the Archons of the Order of Saint Andrew, the Protectors of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople, runs up to me, gives me his card.

Three congressmen were in this group hug. One of them told me to come up on Thursday. We're gonna call Trump together on the cell phone. I can ask him directly for a pardon. Big. So I'm like a little fangirl with Adhidos. He sings this one song. Do you remember when we were kids, You Light Up My Life was number one for 11 weeks. That's what this song is. It's been number one since the beginning of the year. I mean, there hasn't been a song this popular in a hundred years in Greece. The song is called Athina Mour, it means my Athens. Oddly enough, it's just a song about the neighborhoods of Athens and why he loves them so much. But it's just such a touching, beautiful song. They hired him to perform at this event for all the billionaires. So I'm there. And I kept saying, I can't believe I'm seeing Adhiros. I'm like standing there next to the stage, looking at Adhiros singing this song that I've loved for so long. One of the billionaires says, you want to meet him? And I said, I freaking love to meet him. I go in the green room. I never saw so many guys with machine guns in one place in the United States in my life. It was nuts. So I go through all the machine guns and into the green room. And one of the billionaires says to him, Costa, I want to introduce you to one of your biggest fans. And I said, I said to him in Greek, I'm like a fangirl. I'm old enough to be your father and I'm like a fangirl. And he goes, are you John Kiriakou?

And I said, yes. I love everything you've done. He said, I've watched your interviews in English, in Greek. I read your book. I listened to your podcast. Can I tell you, for a guy used to toiling in the shadows, whose work mostly had to be kept secret, having an artist, a singer whose work I greatly admire, greatly admire my work, I must be dreaming. To be fair though, the more dreamy part of my post prison life took a long, long time to actually come around. It's been a decade during which there were long stretches where I seriously wondered what would become of me, what would become of my family. Serving time in prison cuts you off from a lot of higher income generating jobs. To tell you the truth, it cuts you off from getting most jobs. I got turned down by everybody from McDonald's and Safeway to Uber and as a baggage handler at Reagan National Airport. If you can't pay your bills or meet your obligations, you can't get your life back.

The biggest obstacle to me getting my life back was the CIA. Though I had served my sentence and I had quote unquote paid for my crime, the CIA simply was not done fucking with me. That would never stop, not even to this day. If the agency could have had its way, I would still be in prison, serving the full 45 years that prosecutors had first put forward as a deal. Why was the agency so vindictive toward me? Because I told the truth? In a moral world, the CIA would have looked deeply at itself and understood how badly it had compromised its own mission and many of its best people. But instead of confronting its own behavior, the agency felt compelled to punish me for mine, for whistleblowing. In this third season of the podcast, in addition to returning the storytelling focus to spies and spying, we're going to focus on whistleblowers and whistleblowing. Spies make great whistleblowers and whistleblowers make great spies. In the episodes ahead, you will meet some of the best known and most important whistleblowers in the world. Yes, we'll continue to investigate what makes spies tick. But in season 3, we're going to ask what makes whistleblowers tick too. If ever we needed whistleblowers, my god, it is right now. They are the cure for corruption, and we seem to be living through corruption's golden age. Our mission this season is bigger than just telling whistleblower stories, though. By telling these stories, including the processes that whistleblowers can use to operate as safely as possible, we hope to encourage present and future whistleblowers to step forward. Corruption's golden age should become whistleblowing's golden age. Every whistleblower needs to believe in their core that the truth will set them and everybody free. We have so much in store this season. Let's get this show on the road. Welcome to season 3 of Dead Drop.