George Tenet Quotes

The alternative deterrent was to maintain an army of over 2 million men overseas in both Europe and Asia, and the cost was much greater than the then perceived cost of nuclear weapons. At the time no one figured the cost of coping with the radioactive material and waste as well as the cleanup of nuclear bomb factories like Hanford. These costs were still not known byt the 21st century.

Dr. Snyder was the youngest physicist at Los Alamos working on the Atom Bomb Manhattan Project. His rocketry skill was used to fire probes into the highly radioactive area to obtain samples and measurements immediately after the test bomb was exploded.

This was one of the great blunders of the Central Intelligence Agency in American History. As the Central Intelligence Agency was writing this report the Russians were landing missile components in Cuba. Within days the Cuban Missile Crisis would erupt. The Central Intelligence Agency also missed the Communist Takeover in China, the fall of the Berlin wall, the implosion of the Soviet Union, the Hungarian Revolution, the Iran Revolution, the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, and the Arab Spring just to list a few of the most dramatic events about which they failed to have any information in advance. At the same time they claimed that there were nuclear weapons in Iraq leading to the Iraq war and claimed the Soviets were on a track to have a better military and stronger economy—see {635791}.

3 days later, President Truman, announced that the Russians had successfully developed an atomic weapon. This quotation gives us another example where the Central Intelligence Agency failed to predict and/or warn America about a crucial event. Others included the North Korean invasion of South Korea, the Arab Spring, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the fall of the Berlin wall, and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Only three days later the Russians detonated their first atomic device.

At the time the USSR was our ally. Neither the military or the state department focused in gaining intelligence on any ally and J. Edgar Hoover had for years focused on intelligence about communists in the United States but not in Russia and the rest of the world. These other agencies treated Souers with disdain or ignored him, but this memo showed the importance of Truman’s idea of having an independent intelligence agency to inform the President.

The immediate crisis had been averted and no more nuclear missiles would enter Cuba. But we had no leverage to get the few that were already there removed and it would be politically very difficult for the Kennedy administration to get the public to accept ANY nuclear missiles in Cuba. Hence, Stevenson’s statement. See {634554}. Neither side had great intercontinental ballistic missile capability at the time, and we had placed a large battery of missiles in Turkey very close to the Russian border. This gave the U. S. a major military advantage. We could deliver many more nuclear warheads to Russia than they could to the United States. The Russians with this proposal hoped to even the capability. The military advisers and the security and State Department advisors all thought that the U. S. should not give up its nuclear superiority. However, we had no international legal basis for denying the Cubans the right to locate any weapons on their soil, so to prevent the Communists from having nuclear missiles in Cuba we would have to use force which could easily escalate into a nuclear war. Kennedy and McCone both thought that since we had intercontinental ballistic missiles in production and coming on line and would not need the Turkey Missiles to strike all over Russia. So giving up our missile advantage for a short time would not expose us to any undue risk. The other advisors worried that the production of the ICBMs could be delayed—weapons systems were (and are) notoriously longer in production than estimated or planned. They also thought that the morale of the military and civilian population would suffer when they learned that we had given away our military advantage. There was a macho element in their thinking in that we would be giving in to intimidation and look like we were afraid to fight. Last, the political advisors thought that the right wing hawks would pillory the administration for its cowardice in allowing itself to be intimidated by the Russians. Their doctrine was that when faced with force, the Communists will always back down. In the final deal we agreed to remove our missiles from Turkey in 6 months and this would be done in complete secrecy and the Russians would keep the deal secret. That way, Kennedy got 6 more months of production which turned out to have been enough. The public would never know till years later and the Conservatives would not be able to publicly castigate Kennedy. Meanwhile, the conservatives would continue to believe that the Russians backed down in the face of force—the naval blockade as this was ‘proved’ their doctrine when the Russians had not backed down at all. The strategy and tactics of the Kennedy administration are still analyzed and argued about today with many Americans just realizing that we did not intimidate the Russians with force or the threat of force to remove their Cuban missiles.

Kennedy was a relatively new president and the Bay of Pigs Operation was prepared and planned by the CIA under the Eisenhower Administration. The president assumed that the intelligence was correct and there would be an uprising of the Cuban people when as soon as the landing took place. That was all wrong and the Cubans actually supported Castro and the operation was a disaster. Kennedy never trusted the CIA after that.

Dreadnoughts were huge battleships. Britain had the dominant navy of the world and controlled the seas. A European war would be a land war where a navy would be of little use. Hence, Britain would not want to get involved in such a war where she could not use her greatest military strength. He was wrong about this and so much else. Britain entered WWI when Germany invaded Belgium fulfilling her treaty obligations. The Germans intelligence operators and analysts were well aware of the treaty obligations, but had little understanding of English culture and tradition. The German aggression against a small power like Belgium was morally offensive to many in Great Britain, and Britain had a tradition of fighting for moral principles. The Germans would never militarily disadvantage themselves for the sake of a treaty obligation to a small nation, and they did not believe that the British would be so different and fulfill their treaty obligations even though their strongest military asset—their navy would not be very helpful.

Actually the United States has a long history in interfering with foreign elections throughtout Latin American Countries, Europe, Asia,, and Africa. Russia also has been trying to tilt elections recently in Eastern Europe and befroe the COld War the International Communist Party was involved trying to swing elections since shortly after the Russin Revolution. Before that the Czars agents were involved in many foreign elections. But the United States and Russia historically are relative newcomers and rank amateurs in interering with foireign elections when compared with Germany and France and the Champion--Great Britain who controlled much of the world and very often promoting democratic values like elections throughtout the world and then workign to manipulate those elections. Japan and Chine did much less of this historically. Instead they just conquored other counties and placed their puppets in charge. What was new in teh 2016 Russian interference in the American Election was the fact that it was done by hacking computers. Putin had accused Hillary Clinton of Interfering with the Russian election when he last ran for President by funing Russian organziations that oppo

The CIA completely missed the collapse of the Soviet Union as well as many major events that a first class intellegance agency would have predicted.

The U. S. Counterintelligence team identified several KGB agents who were stealing American technology in various forms. Gus W. Weiss of the National Security Staff devised a plan where instead of arresting the Russian agents, FBI agents posed as mid-level science and technology workers who could be bribed to turn over American technology. Then they provided technology that did not work which the Soviets then proceeded to engineer and fabricate the techniques which never worked correctly. By the time the Russians found out they had wasted much effort and money at spying and engineering.

Ironically, at the time she wrote this column, Mrs. Roosevelt was being accused of being a communist by some Southerners who associated her strong views against racism and segregation. Some in the North thought she was a communist because of her active role in the New Deal, Yet here she was, willing to use military force to prevent Soviet expansion.

The Scientific Project that developed the Atomic Bomb. The Scientific Project that developed the Atomic Bomb

The Scientific Project that developed the Atomic Bomb. He was a strong advocate for disarmament and that was being debated at the United Nations. He was critical of Bernard Baruch’s tactics but it soon was clear to almost all that the Russians were not interested in a serious UN supervised disarmament. Oppenheimer was profoundly disappointed when it was clear that disarmament was being blocked by the Russians and their veto. After that he didn’t trust the Russians, and concentrated on trying have US policies that would not goad the Russians into an arms race. This quotation is particularly important because in an effort to discredit his views on nuclear policy some politicians accused him of being a security risk with the innuendo that he was a communist and even a Russian agent.