In Pakistan after 9/11, Kiriakou spotted a motorcyclist in a red helmet shadowing him across three different sightings — the CIA's definition of confirmed surveillance. Armed with a plan to kill the follower that afternoon, he paused and asked his Pakistani intelligence counterpart directly if they were surveilling him. The answer saved a man's life.
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Returning to his Pakistan posting, Kiriakou describes developing a surveillance detection routine after noticing a red-helmeted motorcyclist — no one in Pakistan wore helmets — consistently staying in his blind spot across multiple sightings. By the CIA's own definition of surveillance (multiple sightings at time and distance), this was confirmed surveillance. He logged it in a database, took evasive routes, and armed himself with a plan: shoot the follower that afternoon. He paused at a safe house meeting to ask his Pakistani counterpart General Mohammed directly, 'Are you following me?' The general denied it, and the surveillance ceased. Weeks later Kiriakou learned the Pakistani intelligence service had assigned their worst surveillance officer to watch him because they thought nobody could be 'that nice' without ulterior motives. The near-miss — killing a friendly surveillance asset — was prevented by a single question. He closes with a reflection from his psychiatrist friend that he shows no PTSD from his career, which the psychiatrist considers 'not good.'
Factories that replaced coal engines with electric ones in the early 1900s got only 6% efficiency gains. Those that redesigned their entire factory around electricity got a 3x productivity improvement. Swapping AI tools into your existing structure will give you 6%. Rebuilding around AI will give you 10x.
Lebanese terrorists backed by Iran were holding American hostages throughout the Reagan presidency. Reagan had loudly campaigned against negotiating with terrorists — putting him in an impossible position that his team quietly decided to ignore.
During the Iran-Iraq War, the US openly supplied Iraq with weapons, training, and intelligence. At the same time, Oliver North was secretly funneling missiles to Iran. The US was playing both sides of a shooting war.
Oliver North traveled to Iran under the alias 'William P. Goode' with a fake passport. CIA Director William Casey allegedly gave him cyanide pills so he could kill himself rather than be tortured if captured. He returned safely and the deal moved forward.
The Pentagon sold missiles to the CIA for $3,700 each. The CIA sold them to Richard Secord at cost. Secord sold them to Iranian middleman Ghorbanifar for $10,000 each. Ghorbanifar charged Iran even more. The profit — including $3 million in interest in one Swiss account — was diverted directly to fund the Nicaraguan Contras.
America secretly transferred 2,000 missiles and missile parts to Iran in 8 shipments over more than a year. Only 3 of 7 hostages were released. Three more were taken. The net result was zero freed hostages and a full-blown constitutional scandal.
On October 5, 1986, a CIA Contra supply plane flew a weapons drop at 2,500 feet in broad daylight. A Sandinista soldier shot it down. The only survivor, Eugene Hasenfuss, had borrowed a parachute from his skydiving brother. He was captured, paraded in front of cameras, and told the Sandinistas everything he knew.
The CIA supply operation used a front company called Southern Air Transport, widely known to be a CIA cover. Crew members of the downed plane carried their Southern Air Transport employee IDs in their wallets. One also had a business card directly linking him to Oliver North's office in Washington.
When the scandal broke, Oliver North and his secretary Fawn Hall conducted what became known as a 'shredding party,' destroying a day's worth of documents. The full truth of Iran-Contra may never be known because of what was fed through that shredder.
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