A former CIA operative has revealed the agency pursues people with a certain mental disorder as it makes them the best agents.
John Kiriakou, who had a 14-year career as a CIA officer, said the agency ‘actively seeks to hire people who have sociopathic tendencies,’ but avoids individuals with a full-blown disorder.
A ‘sociopath’ is someone who lacks empathy, disregards the feelings of others and may manipulate or harm people without remorse, often for their own personal gain.
‘Sociopaths are impossible to control,’ said Kiriakou. ‘They slip through the cracks because they have no conscience and they pass the polygraph very easily because they don’t feel guilty.
Someone who has some of these qualities tend to rise to the highest levels of the CIA.
‘People who have sociopathic tendencies do have a conscience but are still perfectly happy to work in moral legal and ethical gray areas,’ said Kiriakou.
Kiriakou admitted that he falls into the category of having sociopathic tendencies, explaining how he was ‘happy to break into people’s houses and plant bugs.’
The former officer used the idea that he was part of the good guys and that his country needed him as a way to feed his sociopathic tendencies.
John Kiriakou, who had a 14-year career as a CIA officer, said the agency ‘actively seeks to hire people who have sociopathic tendencies,’ but avoids individuals with a full-blown disorder
The CIA has admitted that spies have pathological personality features that help them with their espionage efforts, such as a sense of entitlement or a desire for power and control.
While employed by the CIA, Kiriakou was involved in critical counterterrorism missions following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. He was involved in the capture of terrorist Abu Zubaydah.
However, he refused to be trained in so-called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques.’
Kiriakou has claimed that he never authorized or engaged in these techniques.
After leaving the CIA, he appeared on ABC News where he said the CIA waterboarded detainees and labeled the action as torture.
The interview led to Kiriakou being arrested in 2012 and charged with one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act for allegedly illegally disclosing the identity of a covert officer.
He was also charged with two counts of violating the Espionage Act for allegedly illegally disclosing national defense information to individuals not authorized to receive it, and one count of making false statements for allegedly lying to the Publications Review Board of the CIA in an unsuccessful attempt to trick the CIA into allowing him to include classified information in a book he was seeking to publish.
He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
After leaving the CIA, he appeared on ABC News (pictured) where he said the CIA waterboarded detainees and labeled the action as torture
Jim ‘Mad Dog’ Lawler, who spent 25 years at the CIA, said he would do virtually anything that’s legal to get people in foreign countries to be spies for the US, but admitted to being extremely empathic
‘A CIA psychiatrist told me one time that the CIA looks to hire people with sociopathic tendencies–not sociopaths because sociopaths have no consciences,’ said Kiriakou, speaking to The Real News Network.
When asked if he thinks that is what the CIA saw in him, he responded: ‘I think they probably did.’
Kiriakou provided a question he was asked during the CIA hiring interview.
‘They said, ‘You know that Mr X has something in his house that you need, whether it’s a file or whatever. You need it. And you work on him to recruit him so that eventually he turns that file over to you.’
‘But he’s not recruitable. And in the end, when you ask him for the file, he tells you, no. What do you do?’
‘I said, I break into the house and take the file.’ Seemed like a perfectly logical answer to me.’
The former CIA officer explained that because he believed he was part of the good guys, Mr X was surely a bad guy, such as a Russian scientist.
Another former CIA agent, Jim ‘Mad Dog’ Lawler, has echoed Kiriakou’s remarks about sociopathic tendencies in the agency.
The CIA has admitted that spies have pathological personality features that pave the way to espionage, such as a sense of entitlement or a desire for power and control, but noted that a calm temperament or strong sense of responsibility are desirable
Lawler had a 25-year career with the agency as a nuclear weapons expert and spy.
He was a specialist in the recruitment of foreign spies, and he spent over half of his CIA career battling the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
During his career, Lawler served as chief of the A.Q. Khan Nuclear Takedown Team, which resulted in the disruption a nuclear weapons network led by Abdul Qadeer Khan.
The network was active in the 1980s and 1990s and involved countries including Iran, Libya, and North Korea.
Lawler recently said the CIA wants people who are dangerously on the line or straddling the line of being a sociopath.
‘A good friend of mine he was an operational psychologist at the CIA and he would review the criteria for hiring more folks like me and he wondered you know how much sociopathy are we dialing in to, he said while speaking on the Julian Dorey Podcast.
‘What I did is rather sociopathic. I’m manipulating people. I’m exploiting people. I found out doing it against foreigners was as hell of a lot of fun.
‘Its that sociopathic part where we enjoy breaking people’s laws because that’s what we do we break foreign countries laws. We are convincing people to become Traders.’
He also explained that he would do virtually anything that’s legal to get people in foreign countries to be spies for the US.
Lawler admitted that he had only used his ‘special skills’ three times, including to avoid a traffic ticket and get an upgrade to first class on an airplane.
The former CIA officer shared that he is also extremely empathic, which is the complete opposite of a full-blown sociopath.
