The following is a transcript of an interview with Paul Whelan on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that aired on Oct. 20, 2024.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And we’re joined now by Paul Whelan. Paul, it is good to see you in person. Good to see you here at home. It’s been a little over two months. How are you and why are you sharing your story with us now?
PAUL WHELAN: Well, thanks for having me Margaret. I think it’s important for me to share what’s happened to me and why it happened, so that others in, you know, similar lifestyles, traveling the world, working abroad, don’t fall into the same trap that I did.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Is your advice don’t go to Russia if you’re an American?
PAUL WHELAN: Well it’s not only my advice. The State Department says don’t go to Russia. And if you’re in Russia, you know, please come home. It’s not a safe place for American citizens right now, and it’s not- not friendly for French and other European citizens either.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, let’s talk about some of what happened to you. I know you said you were woken up like every two hours by the guards during your nearly five and a half years being held. Are you sleeping now? Are you able to make it through the night?
PAUL WHELAN: It’s better. The Russian government wanted to put pressure on the United States by treating me badly. Sleep deprivation is considered torture. What the Russians did in Lefortovo Prison, it’s the FSB prison in Moscow. They kept a light on 24 hours in my cell. So sleeping was very difficult. At the labor camp for four years, they would come every two night- or every two hours to my bed at night, and they would wake me up. They’d shine a light in my face and take a picture. At first, they would ask me, you know, what my name was, things like that. But it turned into harassment. So for that four year period, every night, every two hours, I was woken up. Getting off that sleep pattern has been very, very difficult. So now you know, I’m sleeping better than I was, but it is still tremendously difficult to sleep for six or eight hours at a time.
MARGARET BRENNAN: That transition home is hard for many people who’ve been through similar experiences to you. Let’s- let’s start at the beginning. For people who are learning your story–
PAUL WHELAN: Okay.
MARGARET BRENNAN: –I think that’s important. You were in Moscow in 2018, as I understand it, for a friend’s wedding. And Russia, I guess, has now released a video of your arrest, showing an acquaintance who worked for the FSB putting a flash drive into your hand in a Moscow bathroom. Moments later, you are arrested. Who was that man? I think his name’s Ilya Yatsenko. Who was he and did he set you up?
PAUL WHELAN: Well, those are issues that I’m not really prepared to speak about right now. I am going to write a book, and that’s a situation I’ll explain in the book.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The situation meaning your arrest?
PAUL WHELAN: My arrest, yeah.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you think though that you were targeted, that- that you were being set up?
PAUL WHELAN: Well, I was certainly targeted. I hadn’t done anything. I hadn’t committed espionage. I was accused of being a brigadier general with the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, the DIA. I certainly, you know, was never a general, and I never worked for the DIA, and I was never a secret agent. So the case they came up with was, you know, materially false. I was obviously set up. Soon after being arrested, I was told that I was being held and that because of Maria Butina being arrested–
MARGARET BRENNAN: The Russian spy.
PAUL WHELAN: Yeah, the Russians wanted to do a trade.
MARGARET BRENNAN: For that Russian spy being held here in the United States. As I understand it, at the time you were a global head of security for an auto parts firm. You have a background in the Marines, you have a background as a police officer, and you had begun corresponding with Russians. You traveled to Russia on a fairly frequent basis. Did it ever enter your mind that there was reason to suspect that you were a spy?
PAUL WHELAN: Well, you know, since an early age, I’ve been traveling the world. At 17, I started traveling through Europe, you know, on a Eurail pass. I’ve been to China many, many times. I’ve been to Africa, the Middle East, South America. I’ve been all over the place and I’ve always looked at the State Department advisories as to where to go, where not to go, you know, what to do, what not to do. You know, with Russia, you know, I followed that advice. I had taken my parents to Russia to see Moscow. It was safe for tourists, you know, on Red Square, using proper hotels and whatnot. There wasn’t a fear that non-state actors would come after us, you know, the mafia, the criminals. The problem, though, is, you know, you can never tell what a rogue regime is going to do, and that’s what the Russians are. And they came after me. They said I was a spy, and then obviously they held me as a hostage. And that’s- that’s an important part to bring up, is that I was a hostage. We use the term wrongfully detained. We say arbitrary detention. But I was a hostage. And from day one, the Russians told me that they were holding me to do a trade with the United States.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Because they know that the American government will fight to get American citizens back.
PAUL WHELAN: Right. Yeah, who wants to leave a tourist in prison for no reason?
MARGARET BRENNAN: Were you working in any way for any government? I know you have citizenship in Canada, the U.S., Ireland, the UK.
PAUL WHELAN: Well, those are issues that I’ll discuss in the book. It’s nothing that I want to get into now. What I’d like to do is discuss, you know, the way the FSB treated me, and what happened in the labor camp, the corruption, things like that.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But you do- but you do think you were targeted by the FSB, which is part of Russian intelligence. In fact, the part of Russian intelligence Vladimir Putin is said to feel strongly about because he actually ran that agency.
PAUL WHELAN: Well, the- the FSB runs Russia. You know, the foreign ministry has absolutely no control, no power at all. The FSB does run Russia. Yeah, yeah, we have to be clear about that. So when the FSB picked me up, it- they weren’t just, you know, a couple beat cops that saw an American and thought they’d grab somebody. This- this sort of thing comes down from Putin.
MARGARET BREANN: Do you think that he thought you were a spy, or that it was all made up out of whole cloth?
PAUL WHELAN: You know, I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if lower level people made up stories that were embellished as, you know, people up the chain of command thought they had a good story to tell, and then somebody said, ‘Hey, let’s act on it.’ And after they acted on it, they figured out that I was just a normal guy, a tourist that, yeah, I’d been in the Marines, and, yeah, I was a police officer, but I was just a normal person, a tourist. I traveled the world, and there was nothing special about me. The problem for the Russians is they kept hyping me up, saying ‘he’s a brigadier general.’ You know, ‘he’s a secret agent, he’s with the DIA.’ We asked them for proof of any of that. And of course, they never, you know, they never showed any they never came up with anything because it’s not true.
MARGARET BRENNAN: It took a while for the U.S. government to give you that wrongfully detained designation that you mentioned. That is recognition by the U.S. government that you were being accused of something you were not guilty of, that you are just being held for political reasons, essentially. Why do you think it took so long for them to publicly say that?
PAUL WHELAN: I think at that time- well, if we- if we back up a step and talk about wrongful detention, you know, generally, it’s a- it’s a tin pot dictator, it’s a banana republic, it’s some little warlord who wants to gain favor with the United States that takes a U.S. citizen hostage, generally, tourists, missionaries, things like that. The Russians hadn’t done this since 1986. They took the bureau chief for the U.S. News and World Reports hostage for three weeks because the United States had arrested a spy. They charged him with espionage and a- and a trade was conducted. At first, I think people were shocked as to what the Russians were doing and it did take a little while for the, you know, the gears of the U.S. government to turn over and, you know, do the right thing by declaring me wrongfully detained. I’m sure people looked into, you know, the situation with the- the Americans being held in Russia, and looked into the situation with the Russians being held in America, and they figured out very quickly what the Russians were up to. You know, the Russians had been asking for people back for many, many years. The U.S. had said no. The Chinese had taken a group of Canadians hostage after Canada arrested a few Chinese and that ended up in a trade. And you know, Putin publicly said, well, this is a good idea, you know, if China can do it, why can’t we? It’s successful. So they did.
MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s hostage diplomacy, what you’re referring to.
PAUL WHELAN: That’s hostage diplomacy. But, you know, I go back to saying, you know, it is a hostage taking. It’s no different than a Mexican drug cartel. It’s no different than any rogue criminal enterprise taking somebody and sticking them in a closet and holding them for a ransom.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And you think it can happen to anyone with a blue American passport?
PAUL WHELAN: It can happen to anyone. It can happen to anyone.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So when you were taken, about a year into your detention, your employer, BorgWarner, they restructured and they laid you off.
PAUL WHELAN: Right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: That must have hit you really hard as you were sitting in Russia in detention. How did you deal with that?
PAUL WHELAN: If you can call an act by an employer un-American, that was un-American. What- what really bothered me wasn’t so much losing my job, but that BorgWarner continued to do business in Russia while I was being held prisoner there. They refused to cooperate with the U.S. government. They refused to cooperate with people that were trying to help me. Even now, they won’t speak to people who contact them. It- it’s a situation where they- they quickly lawyered up. They supported me for a little while, but as you said, they laid me off, and since then, they haven’t done anything to support me or my family. They could. They could do the right thing and contact me and we could work something out. But, you know, as the director of security, one of the things that I managed was kidnap and ransom. They had a kidnap and ransom insurance policy. We had a critical event management program. We had things in place to deal with this sort of situation. And the first thing that we- we always stressed was cooperation with the government and advocacy, you know, for the employee, as well as cooperation with the family. You know, simple things like sending the parents flowers, making sure that the family is included in discussions and events. You know, keeping them, you know, in- in that family as, you know, Marine Corps families do, right? Keeping them in that family so they know that the employer is backing up their employee. But, yeah, it was un-American, and I still don’t have an explanation from them as to why they did what they did, but it- it’s one of those sour things that just kind of, you know, stays in the back of your throat.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah, were you working on business in Russia for them?
PAUL WHELAN: Well, I was- technically between Christmas and New Year’s so it’s a period that the whole company has off. A lot of the- the automotive industry retools between Christmas and New Year’s. So it’s, you know, it’s not personal vacation, but it’s time off. But in my position, you know, 24 hours a day, I was dealing with issues around the world. We were operating in 23 countries. It was a holiday for us, but it wasn’t a holiday in China. You know, there were things happening. I was answering emails, phone calls, doing conference calls. I was actually being productive for the company on the day that I was arrested. So for them to, you know, turn around and say, ‘well, yeah, we did pay for your visa. We knew you were going there. We had no problem with this sort of travel’ and then to kind of, you know, lawyer up and put it in a box and, you know, seal it shut for so long, that’s not the right thing to do, and no CEO should ever tolerate that from, you know, his management or her management staff.
MARGARET BRENNAN: It’s just a contrast with other Americans who were detained: the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, the WNBA star Brittney Griner. They had advocacy behind them. Did you feel that you were just there alone?
PAUL WHELAN: Left out to dry? Yeah. BorgWarner left me out to dry. Yeah. BorgWarner left me out to dry. They- they could have done a lot of things to help me and my family, and they just didn’t bother to and they haven’t explained why.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So at a hearing before your trial, you publicly called on then President Trump to help you. You said, ‘Mr. President, we cannot keep America great unless we aggressively protect and defend American citizens wherever they are in the world.’ And you called on him to make clear in a tweet what he wanted to happen. That- that never took place. Do you know why the Trump administration wasn’t able to bring you home?
PAUL WHELAN: You know, it’s another issue that would take a long time to explain, and I’ll go into it in my book. But at that time, Mike Pompeo, Mike Bolton [sic], many members of Congress were behind me, and they were working towards a resolution. I’ll tell you that the Russians kept changing the goalposts. They would propose doing this or doing that, and then they would change their mind and want more. You know, the ransom kept going up. You know, they started with, you know, a fairly moderate ransom, and then when the U.S. said, ‘yeah, we’re interested in trying to resolve this,’ that- that ransom turned into a king’s ransom, and it kept- kept changing and changing and changing.
MARGARET BRENNAN: When you say ransom, you mean a prisoner swap or do you mean–
PAUL WHELAN: Yeah. Yeah.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Prisoner swap. We did speak to members of the Trump administration who were trying to help you and to- to get you home, but they didn’t take up that Russian press report that Viktor Bout, the so-called merchant of death, the arms dealer, was what Vladimir Putin was really looking for here. Did you know that that was a proposal at the time to swap Viktor Bout for you?
PAUL WHELAN: Yes, the FSB told me very, very quickly.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Really?
PAUL WHELAN: That I- I- well yeah, they told me that I shouldn’t do anything rash and that I shouldn’t worry. The U.S. wanted Maria Butina, Viktor Bout, and Konstantin Yaroshenko. They wanted those three. Putin feels quite impotent in the world when the U.S. long arm of justice can reach out and grab his citizens and bring them back to the U.S., try them, convict them, and put them in prison. He hates it and so his answer was trying to get Bout and Yaroshenko back. When he failed- and then, especially with Butina being arrested, he resolved to hostage taking. But the- yeah, the FSB was very clear as to what they were doing when I was arrested.
MARGARET BRENNAN: How did you hear that Viktor Bout was potentially to be swapped for you? Were you listening to the news? Were people telling you over the phone? How did you learn about this?
PAUL WHELAN: You know, this is an interesting story. I’m- I’m sitting in the factory at the labor camp.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You- you worked in the factory at the labor camp.
PAUL WHELAN: Yeah, we- we made winter coats, so I did the buttons and buttonholes and for four years I did that. I had two machines. You know just like on a suit coat or, you know, any sort of jacket. I could never get the- the button and buttonhole, you know, to match up. It was always kind of just off center. I don’t know why, maybe their materials, but I was sitting in the factory, you know, working at my machines, and I was told to go to the warden’s office. I thought it could be a phone call or- or some sort of communication from our side saying that they worked out a deal. So, you know, I was a little bit leery, but also, you know, a little bit excited to go. I went to the warden’s office. When I got there, I was a little surprised to see five FSB officers standing there. A few of the prison guards were there, and then one that I knew spoke a little bit of English. The warden was there, and he had a phone, and he said, you know, Paul, there’s a- there’s a call for you. It’s the Americans. And so again, I thought, well, maybe this is it.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What year is this?
PAUL WHELAN: This was 2022, yeah, it would have been the same day that- that Brittney was released.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Brittney Griner.
PAUL WHELAN: Yeah.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, let’s- let’s back up a little bit to- to go through the timeline. So you go through this trial around the same time you- there were other Americans taken by the Russian government, including Trevor Reed, another former Marine.
PAUL WHELAN: Right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Did you know that he was in prison?
PAUL WHELAN: Yeah, I did. You know it’s a funny story with Trevor, because- excuse me, he was actually at a camp near me, and we had the opportunity to communicate through the prison communication network.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What’s that?
PAUL WHELAN: Yeah, that’s something I’ll get into in my book, but basically, we were able to pass notes back and forth to each other so we were in communication. And, you know, knowing that he was there and doing what he was doing, you know, gave me some strength and helped me get through, you know, my ordeal, and I think him knowing that I was close by and doing the same helped him too.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So other prisoners helped the two Americans connect, even though they were in different camps?
PAUL WHELAN: Right. The- the labor camp that I was in was an international camp. It was mainly Tajik, Uzbek, Turkmenistan citizens, Kyrgyz. We had a few–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Central Asian countries.
PAUL WHELAN: Yeah, yeah, a few Cubans and some Africans, but, you know, we were fairly close knit family. They were a lot younger than me, for the most part, minor drug crimes, things like that, which get a long sentence in Russia. Most of them under 25, so they would look at me in my 50s as- as an older guy. They’re quite respectful. It’s cultural and traditional in- in that part of the world. So when there were things that needed to be done, I- I would ask people, ‘hey, how do we do this?’ And they’d say, ‘well, here’s how we do it. Here’s what we can get done.’ So it did enable, you know, Trevor and I to communicate back and forth.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So in 2020 we’ll fast forward to then, you’re sentenced to 16 years in a Russian labor camp. You’re about 300 miles east of Moscow, as I understand it, in this camp. The U.S. ambassador at the time, John Sullivan, called your trial a “mockery of justice.” Throughout this period of time, there’s the COVID pandemic, the world is shutting down, the facilities must have been freezing cold. Your family, in public disclosures at the time, said you’d lost a tremendous amount of weight. How did you cope? How frightening was that?
PAUL WHELAN: From day one, I was being told that there would be a trade, a political solution to this situation. But as it dragged on, you know, it- it did play with my mind. There was a- there was a psychological piece to this, that even though now, you know, I seem like I’m doing okay, I’ve put back on some of the weight that I lost. You know, I see a picture of me from the prison, or I see a picture of me from court that’s on TV, and that takes me back to being in that court or being in the prison.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You have PTSD.
PAUL WHELAN: Yeah, it’s- it’s a form of PTSD, and it’s- it’s common, you know, with- with people that have been in this situation, it’ll go away probably over a few years, but it’s- it’s hard to, you know, compartmentalize and block out that- that portion of what I went through.
MARGARET BRENNAN: No one could. That’s traumatic.
PAUL WHELAN: I think it’s very difficult. And, you know, you throw in the piece with the sleep deprivation and some of the other shenanigans. You know, holding books, holding mail, not letting me, you know, experience my own language. You know, not letting me hear my own language. You know, even though it’s against the law for them to try to force me to speak Russian, things like that. In the camp, we didn’t speak Russian very much. We spoke Tajik. So my Tajik is actually much better than my Russian now. And of course, we spoke Tajik because most of the people were from Central Asia, and that’s what they spoke. I know a little bit of Uzbek now, but it also meant that the- the prison administration had no idea what we were talking about.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Are you able to be in contact with any of those prisoners who are still inside?
PAUL WHELAN: I am. I have close communication with their family members. So there are ways for me to- on- you know, my mobile phone, using Instagram, Facebook, different things like that, to communicate. Russia doesn’t allow Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram. They’re blocked, like in China. So, you know, people there have to use a VPN, so it’s- it’s easy for me to contact people in say Tajikistan or Uzbekistan and Cuba, and get messages back and forth that way.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So fast forward to 2021. New president, President Biden, Vice President Harris, are inaugurated, and so you wait, and then in 2022 the world changes dramatically. Not only is WNBA star Brittney Griner taken in mid-February of that year, Vladimir Putin shocks the world by invading Ukraine. How much of this were you hearing in terms of what was happening outside the prison?
PAUL WHELAN: I was fortunate. The ambassadors and the consular teams from my four countries, America, Canada, Ireland and England would come and visit me on a regular basis at the labor camp. I received a lot of information from them. You know, I did get mail from home. A lot of supporters around the world were sending letters in. A lot of that came through, you know, the consular officials. I was able to use telephone legally. There was a phone in the prison control room that I could use with a phone card to call my family. So I got some information from them. I was in touch with government officials from my four countries overseas, including Roger Carstens, the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs. And I would also speak with the family members of prisoners in the prison and get their take on things that were happening around the world. So I- you know, I had a fair amount of information coming in the, you know, the Russian media is just propaganda. It’s, you know- oh yeah- there’s a forest fire in Russia. Oh yeah, well, Canada has those too, you know, it’s not just Russia. There’s a car accident in Russia. Oh yeah, America has car accidents too. It’s not just us. It’s- it’s that sort of thing. It’s all propaganda. And they didn’t report much on the war. And they didn’t report much on the war because they were losing, and that was interesting for us. Information came in very, very slowly, but when the Russian government started taking prisoners from our camps to go to the war, then we knew they were really in trouble.
MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s when mercenaries, the Wagner group, this- this Russian group, was going into the prisons and telling convicts, you can get out if you come fight in Ukraine. Did you lose people you knew to that fight?
PAUL WHELAN: Yeah. From my camp, 450 went. I knew all of them. Some of them are dead. Some have arms and legs missing. They’ve all got some sort of, you know, PTSD. They went through a traumatic experience. They were used on the front lines to walk through minefields. They were used as cannon fodder. You know, they would be sent out in front of patrols to try to draw the enemy fire. I mean, that’s what Russia is doing with these people, and they’re all young. Putin has thrown away a generation of his youth in the Ukraine. For nothing.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Are you in contact with some of those convicts who went out on the battlefield?
PAUL WHELAN: Yeah, yeah–
MARGARET BRENNAN: — And that is what they’re sharing with you?
PAUL WHELAN: Interestingly, and I’ll go into this in my book again. The- the prisoners from the camp that went to the front line, they had communication, and they would communicate with us, and the communication from them, I was passing back to the four governments–
MARGARET BRENNAN: How?
PAUL WHELAN: Through illegal cellphones.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You got a cellphone into the Russian labor camp?
PAUL WHELAN: Yeah, yeah, we had burner phones.
MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s pretty incredible. And the guards didn’t know about it? Or they just looked the other way?
PAUL WHELAN: They looked the other way. A Russian prison guard gets three, four hundred dollars a month. You give them a carton of cigarettes and you can do just about anything you want. Russia is corrupt from the bottom up and the top down. It’s- it’s the sort of society they have and the prisons, you know, it’s a direct reflection of the society. So while they take hostages at the top, at the bottom, the prison guards are taking, you know, blocks of cigarettes, cartons of cigarettes, that’s the currency.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So on the outside, news organizations like CBS were learning about what was happening to you through your family. You have a twin brother named David who would write letters, emails to reporters, documenting what you were sharing with your family about your experience. Your sister visited D.C. 20 times in the first three years. It’s pretty incredible to think of just ordinary Americans trying to shake the White House and the Kremlin into action. Have you been able to process that and- and what your family went through?
PAUL WHELAN: You know, it’s incredible. And, you know, I look at my parents who lived through World War Two, they’re quite resilient. We were brought up to go out and do things, not to sit at home and cry about failures. As I said, I traveled the world. My brother traveled the world, David. Andrew, my other brother, he traveled the world. My sister has traveled. It was in our nature to stand up and say, hey, look, this isn’t right, and try to do something about, you know, ongoing problems, either in our communities, in the country, what have you. So when the Russians took me, you know, that’s what my family did, they stood up and said, this isn’t right. What are you going to do about it? And obviously, you know, there’s the Hostage Recovery Act, there’s SPEHA. There are these- these teams of people, the State Department, the hostage fusion cell, which includes the FBI and the national security team. They are there, and their job is to get back people like me. And you know, in the end, they did. They did a hell of a job.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But you went through so much before you saw freedom. Trevor Reed, that other prisoner we talked about, he was freed in exchange for a Russian drug dealer. American diplomats told us Trevor Reed got out because the U.S. feared he was going to die in prison, but you were left behind. That had to hurt.
PAUL WHELAN: Devastating, devastating. I was told a deal was in the works. I was told that I would be home soon. Trevor and I would be getting on a plane, flying out of Russia.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Together?
PAUL WHELAN: Together. And we would land, you know, somewhere near Washington. We’d go to Texas, to the reintegration center and unfortunately, I was sitting in the factory working and on the radio, the Russian radio, I heard that a deal had been made and a trail- trade had taken place for Trevor to go home and Konstantin Yaroshenko to go home also. And so I- all I could do was just sit back and try to process what I had just heard in Russian, and what I obviously understood, and the people working with me had stopped, and they were looking at me, like, what does this mean? And all I could do is just, you know, keep on working. And then later, I got to a phone, and I was able to call Roger Carstens, and I asked him some pretty direct questions.
MARGARET BRENNAN: He’s the hostage envoy.
PAUL WHELAN: Yeah, I asked him some pretty direct questions.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What did you say?
PAUL WHELAN: Basically, WTF, yeah. Why am I here? I was glad that Trevor went home. That’s not a problem. I was glad that Trevor went home, especially because he- he was suffering some medical conditions. He had you know some issues, and basically the Russians and the U.S. said that- that Trevor going home and Konstantin going home was a humanitarian exchange. And I said, ‘okay, that’s fine, but what about me? I’m still here. What are you going to do?’ You know, I asked to speak to Secretary Blinken. And of course, he and I had several long winded phone calls from- from prison.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Between the State Department and the prison?
PAUL WHELAN: Yeah
MARGARET BRENNAN: You’re speaking with the Secretary of State. Did he apologize?
PAUL WHELAN: He explained, and he let me know that, you know, the United States was coming for me. They were doing everything they could, that the Russians kept changing the goalposts, especially when Krasikov was arrested, the assassin from the FSB in Germany. And they- they were literally doing everything they could. He’s a good man, and, you know, I’ve met with him personally since my release. I think that he and his team were doing everything that they could at their level to get me home. You know, whether other people at higher levels really were, I don’t know. You know, I hear talk about red lines and people saying, ‘well, we can’t cross red lines to get Paul home.’ Well, who drew those red lines?
MARGARET BRENNAN: What do you mean red lines?
PAUL WHELAN: You know, things the U.S. would and wouldn’t do to get me back.
MARGARET BRENNAN: People they would trade or not trade? Is that what you mean?
PAUL WHELAN: People, maybe sanctions relief, other things, you know, would they come to get me? Would they arrest Russians so that they had a pool to trade, things like that? So I knew that- that Antony Blinken was doing the right thing. And, you know, I was confident that his team was doing what they could to get me home. And you know, I was confident that the United States would get me home. They don’t leave people behind. But it’s a slow slog. It’s difficult, and with the Russians constantly saying that I was extremely valuable, it just made it that much more difficult.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So that’s April, and then months later–
PAUL WHELAN: Right. I’m still there.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You’re still there. And Brittney Griner, a WNBA star who’d been picked up on, you know, drug charges, was freed in exchange for Viktor Bout.
PAUL WHELAN: Right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The merchant of death. Your twin brother David said it was “a public disappointment,” but he feared it would be a “catastrophe” for you and he wrote at the time, ‘How do you continue to survive day after day when you know your government has failed twice to free you from a foreign prison? I can’t imagine he retains any hope that a government will negotiate his freedom at this point’ Your family was really worried about your well being.
PAUL WHELAN: Well, I was too. I was too.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Was that your lowest point?
PAUL WHELAN: That was. And, you know, I started to explain earlier that I had been working in the factory, I was called to the warden’s office, the FSB’s there, etc, etc. There’s a phone call for me. I pick up the phone. It’s the White House. It’s one of the- the- the officers with the- the DHS, and he basically tells me that, you know, Brittney Griner was going home, that the trade was for Viktor Bout. And you know, I asked him point blank. I said, so ‘what else do you have to trade?’ And he said ‘nothing.’ I said, ‘You gave up your negotiation platform. There’s nothing else. How do you now get me back?’ And he said, ‘Well, you know, we’re going to reconvene tomorrow to discuss that.’ And I said, you know, I said point blank to him, ‘you realize what you’ve done, that you’ve abandoned me here. You have no one to trade. They don’t want anyone else.’ And he said, ‘Yes, yes, we realize that.’ And I said, ‘well, you know, you know, say hello to Brittney. I’m glad she’s going home.’ You know, she shouldn’t have been there at all ever. I mean, she shouldn’t have been arrested. I shouldn’t have either. Trevor shouldn’t have either. I was glad that she was going home, just as I was glad Trevor was going home. But I said, you know, to the gentleman on the phone, ‘you have got to do more. You have got to do something.’ And you know, that was my complaint all along. And when I was in court, I, you know, I’d hold up my signs and say you’ve got to do something, take some action. And that’s one of the problems with- with the U.S. policy on hostage diplomacy. We’re- we’re fairly good at getting people back, okay, but that’s- that’s not the deterrence that’s needed. The U.S. government has got to have a policy where they deter countries like Russia and China from taking our citizens in the first place.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So they just don’t refill the coffer with the next American. You said to CNN at the time that leaving you behind the first time put a target on your back.
PAUL WHELAN: Yeah.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The second time, signed a death warrant.
PAUL WHELAN: Right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What did you mean by that?
PAUL WHELAN: Well, a target on someone’s back means that they’re free game. If they have a target on their back, hey, you can go after that person. You know they’re not protected.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Who? You were afraid for your wellbeing in the prison?
PAUL WHELAN: Oh, yeah. People in the prison, fellow prisoners, the FSB prison guards, somebody who wanted to make a name for themself, you know, someone whose father had been in the Soviet Army. And, you know, hey, if I hit this American, or do something to this American, then, you know, that’s- that’s farther than my grandfather got, right? The Russians are really paranoid about us, and there are a lot of good Russians. There are a lot of good people in that country, but they are paranoid about us, and it’s- it’s due to propaganda. But having a target on your back is not a good thing. When I said that the president had signed the death warrant, what I meant was that now it was no holds barred. Anybody could do anything they want.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Did that happen?
PAUL WHELAN: Yes and no. The people that I were- that I was in prison with, were quite respectful. They knew Russia. They0 from their own experiences, had to deal with the Russian courts, with the Russian police, with the Russian FSB. They knew that what was happening was political, and they were quite protective of me. Now there was an incident last year, a new prisoner, who was about my age from Turkey. He didn’t like the fact that the U.S. was helping Israel. He was Muslim, and I’m working at one of my machines. He’s on the other side of a table, and he leaned over and hit me on the side of the face. It wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t the worst hit in the world that I’ve ever taken, but it showed me that, you know, some of the inhibitions had- had lessened, right?
MARGARET BRENNAN: But the U.S. government did continue to try. And in fact, the Russians started testing out, as you mentioned, that assassin who had shot dead someone in the middle of Berlin, and the Russian government wanted him back. That was the name they were floating as a potential trade.
PAUL WHELAN: And that- and that was- they- they had made that demand before Brittney Griner was traded–
MARGARET BRENNAN: That was Vadim Krasikov.
PAUL WHELAN: Yeah, as soon as he was arrested, they said, ‘we’ll trade him for Paul.’ So when- when Brittney came home, the Russians were- were trying to get Krasikov back.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And this was extremely difficult. President Biden had to convince the German Chancellor to free a convicted assassin who shot someone dead in the light of day in the middle of Berlin. But ultimately, the German government agreed to do that. It’s one of the reasons President Biden is in Germany right now. What did you think of that trade?
PAUL WHELAN: You know, that’s an issue I’ll go into in my book. It’s- it’s complex. I’m glad the President did what he did to get Evan and I home. You know, there were a few others, Alsu, she came home. Some of Navalny’s people were released. When you’re the president, you have to make tough decisions. When you’re the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, you have to work tremendously difficult negotiations. But when you’re dealing with a rogue like Putin and a rogue nation like Russia, that’s the sort of thing you’ve got to do. And so when I talk about deterrence, it’s making sure that the Viktor Bouts of the world, the- I forgot what his name is, Ivan Krasikov, whatever–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Vadim Krasikov.
PAUL WHELAN: Vadim, yeah, Krasikov, those sorts of people stay where they belong, behind bars. But the U.S. policy has to be one of deterrence. They’ve got to do something.
MARGARET BRENNAN: They got to make the cost higher, you’re saying, so that an American is not––
PAUL WHELAN: Yeah. The Russians- the Russians, hadn’t pulled this between 1986 and 2018 when I was arrested, they hadn’t done it. Why? There was a reason. They hadn’t done it. In 2018 they felt they could, and they, right now, are arresting American citizens that live in Ukraine, that live in Russia, and that are visiting even in Kaliningrad, they’re arresting American citizens left, right, and center. So the U.S. policy has to be one of deterrence. You know, the other thing I want to bring up with that is, when we talk about wrongful detention, there are people like me, who are just grabbed off the street and held hostage. But there are people that live in Russia, or who visit Russia, American citizens who do fall, you know, foul of the law for whatever reason. Between the Russian government and the United States government there is a treaty, a prisoner transfer treaty, the Department of Justice owns it, not State, but Justice. The Department of Justice needs to do more to transfer Russian prisoners home and get back American prisoners. There’s a mechanism to do that. It’s not just what falls upon the State Department under the Hostage Recovery Act and the Levinson Act, there’s a long standing treaty that we’re not using, and part of the deterrence would be to use that treaty to do some of this trading. Because if you’re- if you’re trading the prisoners back and forth, there isn’t a need for hostage taking. Does that make sense?
MARGARET BRENNAN: It does. I want to ask you about what’s on your lapel there. You have an American flag pin.
PAUL WHELAN: I do.
MARGARET BRENNAN: When you did make it out in this hostage swap, you landed here in the United States, and it was President Biden and Vice President Harris who met you on the tarmac. You were the first off of that plane that was carrying two other American prisoners as well. What did that mean when President Biden put that flag on your lapel?
PAUL WHELAN: When I got on the plane in Turkey to come home, I didn’t realize we were going to Andrews.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Because you flew from Russia to Turkey, that’s where the swap happened –
PAUL WHELAN: Right, yeah we went from Moscow to Turkey and then Turkey to Andrews Air Force Base. I didn’t realize we were going to Andrews, and I didn’t realize the president and the vice president were going to be there. You know, I was- I had been in solitary confinement for the five days prior to leaving at Lefortovo Prison in Moscow. You know, I had on clothes that I had worn in 2018 when I’d been arrested. You know, they hadn’t been washed. They were too big for me. I was very careful coming down the- the, you know, the stairs from the plane. You know, I was- I was told I could go first because I’d been held the longest. But, you know, you- you see the the stairs come down, and the president and vice president are looking up at the plane, and I’m in the plane, and I’m looking out, and I’m looking at all the media saying, wow, okay, you know, I need to figure out how to do this really quickly. And so I came down slowly. I, you know, I waved at people that were waving at me, and then I gave the president a salute as the Commander in Chief. And I just walked down to him and started talking to him, you know, I thanked him for getting us home. You know, thanked him for, you know, what it meant to me and my family, as well as the others that were, you know, on the plane coming- coming behind me, you know, it’s, you know, it’s one of those situations you can’t really plan for very well, but President Biden, he was very, very personable. Same with Vice President Harris, you know, you saw us. We embraced, we hugged, we chatted. You know, at one point the president took the, you know, the flag lapel pin off his lapel and put it on my shirt. You know that- it was supposed to be a choreographed like receiving line, where we’d get off the plane, we’d shake hands, and then, you know, meet our family and go into the operations building at the Air Force. But that’s not what happened. And we just, you know, we kind of milled about chatting and talking to the media and whatnot. And you know that that made it real, because we were, we were with real people. Jake Sullivan was there, National Security Advisor, some of the other people that had helped get me home were there, and we- we talked, you know, we chatted. There was a funny picture, I think I’ve sent it to your team of in the operations building, there was a TV on, and I’m standing by the TV watching, and somebody said, ‘Oh, that’s, it’s just the Olympics.’ I was like, ‘really?’ Because I hadn’t seen the Olympics, and it was women’s basketball. And as I’m looking, I said, ‘Hey, look, it’s Brittney. Brittney’s on TV.’
MARGARET BRENNAN: Brittney Griner.
PAUL WHELAN: Yeah, yeah. But it was just, it was one of those incredible moments where you’re, you know, you’re finally connecting things, yeah, and, you know–
MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s surreal.
PAUL WHELAN: It is, but you know, Brittney was a great help after she came home, you know, I think probably the, you know, within days of her getting home, she- she was talking to people about how they could support me, and she had people making monetary donations, sending cards, sending letters, offering all sorts of support, her- her basketball team, all sorts of support. And, you know, those- those cards and whatnot that came to the camp, they didn’t just benefit me. They benefited all the people that I interacted with who never get any mail, because it’s, you know, in their culture, it’s very difficult. It’s just not what they do. But all these cards and things coming in, they’d never seen this. So this was kind of like a piece of America, a piece of the West, and all of my friends would take the cards and try to read them. They, you know, they’d want the card because of the picture on the front. So everything that she did, as well as others sending in cards and letters and things, that really helped me, but it also helped all the other people in the camp. And we were, you know, we were known like me and my friends and whatnot- whatnot, we were known for having all these letters and cards. And people would come and, you know, want to just look at the cards. You know, they couldn’t understand the English, but they wanted to look at the cards and see what the West was like, you know, and the Christmas cards, the Easter cards, things that in the, you know, these Muslim countries, they just don’t have. So yeah, she did a lot to help me. And, you know, I was glad she got back, and I was glad that when she got back, that she, you know, then turned her attention on, not just her reintegration, but also, you know, my release, and what she could do morally to support me.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So tell me what that- that moment was like when you’re on the plane, and you said it didn’t feel real until you were flying over England. What was it that you saw that hit home for you?
PAUL WHELAN: So, you know, we left Turkey. We’re flying over Europe. We had to go to Turkey because we couldn’t go anywhere near the Ukraine. Russian planes can’t go there. We couldn’t go anywhere else in Europe, because the Europeans won’t let the Russians in. So we’d gone to Turkey, and now we’re flying back across Europe. And we’re in a small plane, CIA plane. You can see the ground. You know, you could see everything. And I was following the tracker. There’s a- there’s a tracker, there’s a screen. So I was following our movements. And I knew we were getting close to England, and as we got closer, I saw the White Cliffs of Dover. So, you know, there was- there was absolutely no question. I mean, they are so white, they’re whiter than the White House. You can see them from a long ways up. But I knew where we were, and I knew that, you know, even though, as an Irish citizen, I’m- I’m a citizen of the EU, I knew that once we were in, you know, friendly British airspace, we would then go to Irish, we’d soon be in Canadian airspace, and then be in America. So, yeah, that was nice.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You had to have thought of your parents too.
PAUL WHELAN: Yeah, yeah. And, you know, my family members, you know, in England and Ireland, and actually in France and Poland also, you know, they were monitoring what was happening. They knew what was happening. And, you know, I thought about them knowing that I’d be flying over, you know, their homes on my way back. So, yeah, it’s still emotional to this day. It’s not every day that you’re held hostage. It’s not every day that you’re released. So there’s a lot, you know, you talk about PTSD, there’s a lot of that that comes back in a positive manner. And you know, that was one of those moments where I wasn’t expecting to see the White Cliffs of Dover, but I did, and, you know, during the war they, they guided the Spitfire pilots back, and, you know, for me, it was guiding me and Evan and Alsu back to United States. So, yeah, it’s still- it’s still one of those things that- that I think about, it’s- it’s- it’s emotional, and I’m sure it always will be, but you know, that’s one of the good memories.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Thank you for sharing your memories and for talking about this. I know takes a lot.
PAUL WHELAN: Thank you, Margaret. I appreciate being here. I appreciate the time you’ve made to share my- my story, and to get what I’m trying to say to the U.S. government and the U.S. people across.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Thank you.
PAUL WHELAN: Thanks.
