John Kiriakou spent about 15 years at the CIA, rising to the position of chief of counterterrorism operations in Pakistan. He describes how the work strained his first marriage.
His first wife wasn’t in the CIA, and didn’t know he worked for the government agency. He couldn’t tell her where he’d actually been that day or why he’d sometimes come home late. Even harmless details he couldn’t share with her, he said.
He’d come home, and she’d ask how his day was, what he’d done, and who he’d interacted with, and he recalled only giving one-word answers like “great,” “nothing,” and “nobody.”
His marriage lasted through the strain until one mission in Greece. See Kiriakou’s interview with Business Insider in the video below and keep reading to learn about his mission in Athens, Greece.
Athens was one of his most dangerous postings
Kiriakou was stationed in Athens from 1999 to 2000, which he describes as one of the most dangerous postings for American officers at the time.
Greece was confronting the revolutionary organization called 17 November, a group responsible for the assassinations of diplomats and officials. One of his main objectives was to combat that group.
The stakes were high, and he protected himself accordingly, carrying two guns — a Glock 9-millimeter in a fanny pack on his waist and a Smith & Wesson .38 on his ankle — and he kept a Buck knife in his back pocket. Before he drove to work each day in his armored, bulletproof car, he’d spend hours taking different surveillance routes just to make sure no one was following him, he said.
Courtesy of John Kiriakou
One day, while he and his wife were driving in separate cars, his wife noticed a motorcyclist following them. If Kiriakou sped up or slowed down, the motorcyclist would match his speed, he recalled. Kiriakou told his wife to drive ahead with the kids while he stayed behind and handled the situation.
“I unzipped my fanny pack so that my gun was easier to get, and I slowed down. He slowed down. When my wife was out of sight, I decided to slam on the brakes and try to hit the guy, but he was good,” Kiriakou said. Eventually, the cyclist got off to approach Kiriakou, which is when he gunned it, driving the car right into the motorcycle. “The motorcycle just goes flying, and I take off.”
The immediate question was whether it had been a terrorist attack. In the end, he said investigators concluded it was an attempted carjacking by a thief who had seen the large TV in the back of his car.
Kiriakou continued to carry out his mission in Greece against 17 November, until the day he found out he was a target.
The last night he spent in a house with his wife
The morning that British Army Officer Stephen Saunders was assassinated, Kiriakou found himself stuck in unusually heavy traffic. As Kiriakou inched through traffic, he eventually saw a car surrounded by police tape.
“There’s blood all over the interior of the windows. And I can see when I get close enough that the driver’s side window’s been shot out,” Kiriakou recalled.
Saunders had been shot while stopped in traffic and later died at the hospital. Months after the assassination, 17 November released a manifesto that said they were targeting “the big spy” that day, but that he was in an armored car and they knew he was armed, so they carried out the “revolutionary sentence” on Saunders, instead.
Kiriakou said he and his supervisors recognized the description of “the big spy” as Kiriakou, and he and his family were immediately removed from Athens for their protection.
He had just dropped his children off at school that morning before he learned about the manifesto, Kiriakou said. Colleagues picked up his wife and children, packed their belongings, and brought them to the airport. The departure was abrupt, with no time to prepare or transition.
“The night before that happened was the last night I spent in a house with my wife, and we were divorced soon after. She was just like, ‘Yeah, I’m not doing this anymore,'” Kiriakou recalled.
He eventually remarried a woman who also worked in the CIA. (They are now separated.) Kiriakou left the agency in 2004.
Kiriakou says the CIA has a high divorce rate, particularly among officers serving operational tours. He attributes that to stress, secrecy, and abrupt assignments. “The stress is just otherworldly,” he said.
The CIA did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
