John Kiriakou

I worked for a deputy director at the CIA.

I was his assistant, my last headquarters position.

And he had a mantra that he used to repeat every single day, that the job of the CIA is to recruit spies, to steal secrets, and then to analyze those secrets so that the president can make the best informed policy.

That was the bottom line.

The tech and the fancy stuff, that's all layered on top of it.

But the bottom line is we recruit spies to steal secrets.

And then when you're in the field, actually...

in the act of recruiting a spy to steal a secret.

There's a process there that we called the asset acquisition cycle.

It was spot, assess, develop, recruit.

So you and I are at a diplomatic cocktail party.

I go up and introduce myself, just like I'm going to introduce myself to the other 50 people in the party.

But you happen to be from...

you know, North Korea or China or Russia or Cuba.

So you, I'd like to get to know.

And I'm going to invite you to lunch.

So I'm assessing your ability to have information that I would find useful.

And then I begin developing you.

That's the fun part, actually.

And that's the longest part of this, where we're going to start with lunch.