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. 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. ‘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.

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