Most Replayed Moment: Ex-CIA Reveals What Spies Know About Human Nature

At nine, I announced I’d be a spy. At George Washington University, a professor praised my union-boss profile, revealed he was CIA undercover, and sent me to testing.

Did your wife know you were applying?

Yeah—almost all she got to know. They said tell nobody, but I told the polygraph, “She’s my wife.” Dumpster surveillance left me smelling like garbage; she suspected something else. We divorced.

I aced the tests and got Iraq analysis. When Iraqi forces massed near Kuwait, we warned invasion was likely within two days. Reports go to flash—embassy walls breached, war, wake everybody up.

CIA wants people comfortable in legal and moral gray zones. For recruitment, a hook is a vulnerability; about 95 percent of foreign recruits take cash for secrets. Others answer to family, ideology, revenge, love, or excitement.

That feels different from startups: people leave better-paid jobs for something small, scrappy, exciting—a hero’s journey.

Sure, but that’s building a life, not betraying a country. Incentives include green cards or vanished tax bills. CIA doesn’t recruit Americans, though it may debrief travelers from North Korea.

Overseas, friendship—not coercion or sexual blackmail—got information from a foreign official who became an ambassador. They teach lying and detecting it, but trust makes better sources. The CIA has missed major events; privacy is gone.

After I criticized CIA torture and secret prisons, they charged me with espionage, drained me legally, then offered a lesser plea. Agencies buy metadata, posts expose us, and governments intercept devices. Be very, very careful.