Muse

Hi, I'm John Kiriakou, and welcome to Human Intelligence, the only show where espionage, politics, and scandal meet for martinis at noon and nobody bothers to clean up the mess. We have a little fun here. What we're telling you, though, is 100% fact. We're not making any of it up, and it has all been covered in the media. Sure, maybe we don't present it in the most sympathetic of ways, but it's all true. I guarantee it. So buckle up. We're ready to go. As I've mentioned in our previous episodes, when I was first recruited into the CIA in 1990, I was assigned to an analytic office that did long distance psychological evaluations of foreign leaders. What made those leaders tick? What should we expect from them in, say, trade negotiations? What should we expect of them in times of war and peace? Well, we can apply those same skills when we look at other similar cohorts. There isn't a ton of difference between leaders of countries, leaders of companies, or leaders of militaries, for example. And when literally every one of our 435 members of the House of Representatives and 100 members of the Senate believe that they should be president of the United States, well, their psychological pathologies are easy enough to discern, too. There are a lot of books out there, available online, available in bookstores that talk about the psychological makeup of CIA officers, politicians, and business leaders. Interestingly, there are striking similarities. Much of the analysis of the typical CIA officer, politician, or business leader says the same thing that New Mexico State University professor Peter Johansson said in his paper entitled, Who is James Bond?, which found that successful intelligence officers have what he called a specific triumvirate of personality traits, the stratospheric self-esteem of narcissism, the fearlessness, ruthlessness, impulsivity, and thrill-seeking of psychopathy, and the deceitfulness and exploitativeness of Machiavellianism, unquote. That, in my own personal view, is a little harsh. An actual psychopath or sociopath, according to Dutton, seeks reward at any cost, flouting consequence and elbowing risk aside. That's not really what our friends at the agency on Capitol Hill or on Wall Street necessarily do, but they are all ridiculous risk takers. One of the ways in which that manifests itself is adultery. We used to have a joke at the CIA that when you went into a conference room for a meeting, that you should never touch the table because you didn't know who was having sex on it the night before. The CIA has long had the highest divorce rate in all of government.

It's over 75%. I worked for a deputy director for operations who had been married three times, and all three of his wives had been his secretary. before he married them. I remember once, near the end of my career, my boss had recommended me for a major promotion. It was a nice gesture, but I knew that I wasn't going to get it, even though I had just returned from a highly successful operational tour in Pakistan as the chief of counterterrorism operations there. Why didn't I think I'd get promoted? Because I was up against a headquarters-based officer who was banging the head of the promotions committee. Sure enough, he got promoted, and I didn't. Even my boss was outraged. Thank God that he was senior enough to give me a promotion with the stroke of his pen a few weeks later. But so much for performance-based promotions. Early one morning, when I was serving in Pakistan, I was on the phone with my then-girlfriend, who later became my wife. She was a senior CIA officer, and I like to start off each early day with a phone call home, just to hear her voice and to ask her how her day had been. At the time, Washington was like 11 hours behind Islamabad. At that same time, I had five old men working for me. All five of them had been the chief of Near Eastern operations at one time or another. And one of them had been the associate deputy director of the CIA. They came back as contractors after the 9-11 attacks because they were patriots. Well, one of them overheard me whisper, I love you on the phone when I was getting ready to hang up. And then when I hung up, he asked me, so are there wedding bells in the near future? I said that I wasn't sure because I had just gotten divorced from my first wife. And I said, I don't want to be a two-time loser. He got mad and he said, loser. He yelled into the next room. Hey, Jim, how many times have you been married? Jim shouted back. have four. Bill, how many times have you been married? Five for me. Dave, how many marriages for you? He said, I have three, and my third wife gets a pension from the German government because she was a member of the Hitler Youth. Honest to God. Between them, they had 18 marriages. It was ridiculous. All I could say was, oh my God, I don't want to end up like you guys. I often used to marvel at my CIA colleagues, too, when we were on official travel, usually under deep cover and in dangerous locales. All they wanted to do was either screw other CIA officers in the local station or find a cat house where they could choose a woman from a menu. It always seemed so dirty and disgusting to me. But how about this? 20 years ago, at the height of the Iraq War, a doctor from the CIA's Office of Medical Services had to fly to Baghdad because so many CIA officers were banging each other

that they had begun passing around a CIA-specific sexually transmitted infection. A VD, venereal disease, that appeared only among CIA officers. The doctor flew out there to tell them, cut it out and wear a condom for God's sake. But that kind of behavior is absolutely common, not just at the CIA, but on Capitol Hill as well. And do you think it's odd that Elon Musk has at least 14 children by at least four women? Because they don't in business circles. Well, let's take a look at the way things are on Capitol Hill. Here's just a little whiff from the 1980s onward. Representative Bob Bauman, a Maryland Republican, was charged with soliciting sex from a 16-year-old male prostitute. He blamed alcoholism when he was arrested, but he was defeated for re-election. Representative John Hinson, a Mississippi Republican, resigned in 1981 after getting caught giving a male Library of Congress employee a blowjob in a house bathroom. Representative Tom Evans, a Delaware Republican, was caught on a golf trip to Florida with a stripper who described herself as a lobbyist. She described herself to a journalist saying her lobbying techniques were unusually tactile, voters threw Evans out in the next election. Representative Buzz Lukens, an Ohio Republican, was caught having sex with a 16-year-old girl. He spent 30 days in jail, was fined 500 bucks, and didn't run for re-election. The Democrats are guilty, too. Representative Austin Murphy, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, lost re-election after acknowledging having fathered a child out of wedlock after a political opponent filmed him leaving his girlfriend's house in the morning. Representative Mel Reynolds, an Illinois Democrat, resigned from Congress after being convicted of statutory rape for having sex with a 16-year-old campaign volunteer. He was later also convicted on 12 felony counts of sexual assault, obstruction of justice, and solicitation of child pornography. Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich cheated on his first wife with his second wife, cheated on his second wife with his third wife, and incidentally, he asked his second wife for a divorce just as she was coming out of surgery for breast cancer. Representative Ed Schrock, a Virginia Republican, left Congress after his second term after being caught on tape soliciting sex from several different men, despite having aggressively opposed various gay rights issues, including same-sex marriage and gays in the military. Representative Anthony Weiner, a New York Democrat, admitted to sending sexually explicit pictures of himself to women over Twitter. None of the women had requested pictures. Weiner ended up going to prison for 21 months for sexting a 15-year-old girl.

It would be too much of a cheap shot to make fun of the man's name, being Weiner, and having to go to prison for something like this. So, I won't make that joke. Dennis Hastert, the longest-serving Republican Speaker of the House in American history, pleaded guilty in 2015 to something called bank structuring. That is when you structure withdrawals so that they don't come to the attention of the IRS. So if you want to take money out at the $10,000 mark, the bank has to tell the IRS they fill out a form. So Hastert repeatedly withdrew $9,900. An alert bank teller said, huh, I think he's trying to hide something. This may be money laundering. So the bank reported him anyway. And in the investigation that followed, authorities found that Hastert had been paying off underage boys whom he had sexually assaulted. This next one's a classic. Senator Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican. fathered a son out of wedlock while married. It turned out that the child's mother was the daughter of prominent Republican Senator Paul Laxalt. So things must have been pretty darn uncomfortable on the floor of the Senate after that one. Let's look at a current congressman about whom allegations of sexual impropriety have been rumored, but nothing proven. Does he fit the standard that the CIA has determined for somebody who might engage in this type of behavior? Representative Dan Crenshaw is seen by many as a genuine American hero. The Texas Republican was a longtime Navy SEAL who saw combat in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He served elsewhere around the world, and he lost an eye even, thanks to an improvised explosive device. His wife, who was his high school sweetheart, stuck by him. She nursed him back to health. She campaigned next to him. She supported him at every step of the way. So why then would he text a journalist saying, what are you wearing in the middle of the night, followed by, I want to f**k you. What's the psychology behind somebody like this? Is it that Crenshaw is so personally weak that he can't control himself like a normal human being? Or is it that Crenshaw's personality type is that he's that consummate risk taker, that he needs constant excitement and adrenaline in his life? Is it that perhaps he has sociopathic tendencies? Or maybe he is a sociopath, which doesn't permit his mind to experience regret or remorse. Let's be honest, most of this boils down to good old-fashioned narcissism. Today is my day. It's for me, maybe tomorrow will be your day, or maybe it'll be the dog's day, but definitely not today, because today is all about me.

Except with narcissists, every single day is their day. Your birthday, it's still about them. Your mother's funeral, somehow that's about them. A hostage situation, guess what? They are emotionally the hostage. So can you show a little empathy? When it comes to cheating, it's not just about sex. Please, that would be so straightforward. No, for the truly gifted cheater, it's about the drama, the excitement, the high stakes, the rush of doing something thrilling and forbidden while pretending to be a loyal spouse who just can't make it home in time for dinner. Again, I'm not a psychologist, but I'm also not a moron. I worked with CIA officers who could lie with a straight face under polygraph conditions. When I worked on Capitol Hill, where the lying is more transparent, but somehow more shameless, and you know what I saw in both places? A startling number of people who treated adultery like it was just another networking opportunity. You cheat too? Wow! So do I. We should grab drinks and compare mistresses. Adultery isn't a fluke. It's not a whoops, a one-time thing. It's a neon sign blinking warning, emotionally damaged person ahead. People who cheat repeatedly are often trying to patch a psychological pothole with duct tape made of flattery, sex, and whatever self-esteem they can extract from a three-day affair with someone who thinks CIA stands for cute, intoxicating, and available. And you'd think dysfunctional people would repel each other like magnets, but they don't. Dysfunction is actually kind of a kink. Two broken people can find each other across a crowded room like pheromone-based tinder. And when they do, they don't fall in love. They fall into validation. It's not about the connection. It's about the conquest. They want to feel powerful. They want to feel wanted, even if it's by someone that they wouldn't let house sit their fish. Let's talk brass tacks here. CIA officers and politicians are basically the same breed. They love secrets, they can't manage a normal relationship to save their lives, and they believe the rules are for other people, preferably the ones that they're cheating on. Put enough unchecked ego, testosterone, and access to classified printers in one room, and what do you get? not leadership, you get an orgy of terrible decisions, scandalous NDAs, and a mysterious rash no one wants to claim. The psychology behind adultery, a 500-word deep dive, tells us that what really drives people to cheat, beyond the bad jokes, the power suits,

is a rich psychological minefield under that. affair. At the heart of it is narcissism, the deep belief that one's needs, wants, and impulses must be met immediately, regardless of the cost. Narcissists often feel entitled to excitement, admiration, and sexual attention, and they'll seek it wherever it's most immediately gratifying. Partners become mirrors. Once the reflection gets boring, they go looking for a shinier mirror. Then there's attachment theory. People with anxious or avoidant attachment styles, often shaped by childhood trauma or emotional neglect, can struggle to maintain intimacy without also feeling suffocated, unworthy, or vulnerable. I challenged a friend of mine who cheated on his first wife with his second, on his second wife with at least a dozen women, and on his third wife before finally divorcing her and marrying his fourth. And I said to him, because I loved him, what kind of f***ed up childhood did you have? Cheating becomes a way to feel close to someone without the vulnerability that true intimacy demands. It's connection light without the emotional calories. Add in a dash of low impulse control, and you've got a recipe for disaster. Especially in high-stress, high-power environments like intelligence agencies, or political office, or big Wall Street banks, or Fortune 500 companies, where temptation is constant and accountability is mostly optional. When somebody already believes the rules don't apply to them, cheating becomes not just possible, it becomes practically logical. But there's also a quieter psychological driver. Validation seeking. Many chronic cheaters aren't confident. They're actually very insecure. They tend to be overachievers. They don't feel loved or admired enough, even when their partners bend over backward. Affairs become like a hit of dopamine, a high that temporarily silences self-doubt and affirms, yes, I'm still desirable. unfortunately like all addiction fueled highs the crash is inevitable and that's why cheaters cheat and they continue to cheat there's also the idea of self-sabotage people sometimes cheat not because they're unhappy in their relationship but because they're terrified of being happy if they've grown up believing that love will always be taken away they may subconsciously blow up a good thing just to avoid feeling out of control. Better to cheat and choose the ending than wait for happiness to disappear. And let's not forget power dynamics. Cheating can feel like a reclamation of power,

especially for people who feel controlled, ignored, or emasculated. In affairs, they're suddenly the center of attention. They call the shots, but it's a mirage. The power they think they're gaining is actually a symptom of deeper disempowerment. In the end, adultery is rarely about the sex. It starts about the sex. But in the end, it's about ego, fear, control, and unmet emotional needs dressed up in hotel bathrobes and secret text messages. And the more a person denies these truths, the more likely they are to keep cheating. Not because they're evil, but because they're unwell and unwilling to look inward. That's also one of the reasons why the children of cheaters frequently become cheaters. And hey, if you've ever wondered why some people cheat, even when they have everything, remember, a hollow person will keep looking for fulfillment no matter how shiny their life looks from the outside. So next time you hear someone say, it just happened. Know that what they really meant was, I haven't unpacked my emotional baggage since 1998, and now it's leaking all over my relationships. Well, welcome to the real deep state. Getting back to daily life in the CIA, the CIA has a very specific, very insular culture. Want to play softball? Great. There's a CIA softball league. Want to be part of a quilting circle? No problem. You can join the CIA quilting club. Play tennis? Guess what? We have a CIA tennis league. Are you LGBTQIA plus ABCDE? No problem. We've got one of those clubs too at the CIA. They meet in the cafeteria every month. Anything you want to do in life, you can do it with all of your CIA friends. And that's because everybody's cleared. And so you can talk about classified information. That is also why the CIA actively supports and endorses CIA romances. you're sitting there hooked up to a polygraph machine and the polygrapher asks you have you revealed classified information to your spouse and your spouse is you know as my first wife was a ballet teacher I had to say no which was true I never had but my heart was beating it was racing because I thought oh my god have I said anything classified I might have I don't remember but if you're married to somebody from the CIA, you can talk about work 24 hours a day. Not a problem. They won't even ask the question. They'll say, are you married? Yeah, my wife is in the CIA. Well, I have a friend at the CIA who was married to another CIA officer. And the wife got into a position where she traveled constantly, leaving the husband to take care of the kids in the

household. But that's okay, because that's the nature of the job. Sometimes I would travel for six, eight, nine months at a time. And sometimes you will have only a one day, two days notice before you have to run out to Dulles Airport and get on a plane to God knows where. So the wife started traveling and traveling and traveling. And the husband realized something wasn't right. For example, they used to call each other every day just to say hello, hope you have a good day, miss you, and they would always close the conversations with bye, mwah. Well, first the kisses stopped, and then the calls stopped, and then the travel became even more onerous, where it was dozens of major international trips a year. Well, he finally went to see one of the psychiatrists that we have at the CIA. The psychiatrist was a friend of ours, and the psychiatrist told him, buddy, you know she's cheating on you, right? And he said, oh, come on, man, please, please don't say that. And he said, look, I'm telling you, just as a professional, I'm telling you that these are all the signs of a cheater everything that you're describing well she was cheating she had found a boyfriend interestingly enough in another country's intelligence service which resulted in the end of the job for both of them but she was cheating not because she didn't love her husband not because she didn't love her kids or the beautiful house that they had built and lived in together not because she didn't enjoy her life but because she was a narcissist and it was thrilling and she was middle-aged and she felt wanted and needed again she felt attractive again and she could call the shots now deep down she knew that this wasn't going to turn into anything so the goal was have fun now because remember today was about her not about you not about the husband today was about her maybe tomorrow will be about you maybe not maybe that'll be about her too. But she thought, I'll have fun until I'm not having fun anymore. And then I'll just go back to my husband and pretend that nothing happened. But she got caught. Well, we're going to leave it there. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Human Intelligence. I'm John Kiriakou, and we'll see you next time.