Murray Walker Quotes
I don't make mistakes. I make prophecies which immediately turn out to be wrong.
Walker, Murray. Unless I'm Very Much Mistaken. HarperCollins, 2002.
He was the leader of the team that followed to invading troops into Iraq to find the nuclear and other WMDs that the CIA had said were deployed and ready to be used. They found none. Worse for the CIA, there were not even any development programs ongoing. The CIA Director was furious with Kay for admitting the CIA gross error. Kay was given minor assignments thereafter even though he was the best WMD analyst we had.
The public and the educators were outraged and no sooner was the school closed, than immigration had people moving to New York created a need for more high school capacity. La Guardia was one of the few politicians who tended to admit his mistakes, go on and fix them and then do some other “good stuff.” Others argue that he was so popular so he could admit to anything and get away with it. This was perhaps true, but one of the reasons for the great popularity was extreme honesty and candor and a minimum of hypocrisy.
Some ascribe the remark to Joseph Fouche. See Dean Acheson for a later use of this concept in describing the Vietnam War.
We all have 20-20 hindsight, and sometimes well analyzed decisions turn out badly as the result of unfortunate circumstances.
Graeme Murray Walker OBE was an English motorsport commentator and journalist. He provided television commentary of live Formula One coverage for the BBC between 1976 and 1996, and for ITV between 1997 and 2001.
