Tom King Quotes

I was working for the CIA and prohibited from speaking publicly.

In the '60s - and right up to the present day - the identity of a member of the British Secret Services was and is, quite rightly, a state secret. To divulge it is a crime. The Services may choose to leak a name when it pleases them.

The United States is the only country in the world that has ever released the operations files of its intelligence agency.

Our agency (the Central Intelligence Agency) is the last refuge of organizational privacy available to the U. S. Government.

I am unable to tell a quarter of a billion Americans what we are doing on their behalf, because if I did, it would become the table of contents of the training manual of the enemy.

If you are completely transparent, then you have no intelligence service.

Most people don't know what goes on in the intelligence services. Certainly I had very little idea what went on in GCHQ. For me it was a job, a chance to use my languages.

Most of the secrets the CIA has are about people, not machines and systems, so I didn't feel comfortable with disclosures that I thought could endanger anyone.

In intelligence work, there are limits to the amount of information one can share. Confidentiality is essential.

When you work for DC, it's sort of like working for the CIA. You have a vow of silence.

When people ask me if I have worked for the C.I.A., I often answer: what good to you is my answer? Because if I did, I might not say so.

The National Security Agency plays so highly specialized a role in the defense and security of the United States that an outsider can actually describe its activities. They are guarded not only from the public but from other government agencies as well. The Civil Service Commission, which audits all government positions, is not allowed to know what NSA employees do.

The CIA claims that secrecy is necessary to hide what it's doing from enemies of the United States ... the real reason for secrecy is to hide what the CIA is doing from the American people.

Everything the CIA does is secret and it is secret particularly from the Congress.

I learned serving under William J. Casey, that the Clandestine Service is the heart and soul of the agency [the CIA]. It is also the part that can land you in jail.

I was in the CIA for nine years. I am intimately familiar with the information classification system. I used it every day on the job. Like every other one of my colleagues at the agency, I approached the handling of classified information with immense care because I understand the ramifications.

How can it be a spy satellite if they announce on television that it's a spy satellite?

Libby was advised by the vice president of the United States that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA in the counterproliferation division. Libby understood that the vice president had learned this information from the CIA.

I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of [CIA] sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors.

The men and women of the CIA are a national treasure.

You know, as director of the CIA, I got an awful lot of intelligence about all the horrible things that could go on across the world.

Throughout my career, I had the great fortune to experience firsthand as well as to witness what it means to be a CIA officer.

When you're told to go brief a United States senator on a covert operation, you go do it. And you trust the information isn't going to leak.

As an old man who remembers the intellectual exhilaration and the pleasure of having done good work that characterized the CIA when it was young, I wonder if it might not be better to speak and think in terms of restoring its culture.

Our plans for 'Superman?' I can't say. This is the most super secret thing ever. It's like working for the government, like I'm on a covert mission.