Robert M. Gates Quotes

I joined the CIA in 1985 as an operations officer in the Clandestine Service.

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

I was with the CIA for only three years. I worked in the Directorate of Operations, which is now called the National Clandestine Service. It's the part of the organization where the spies live. I didn't have much experience beyond the training.

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

The CIA was completely different from its image; it was liberal, nonviolent and honorable.

When I blew the whistle on the whole thing, it was [William J.] Casey who, I felt, regarded what I had done as treason.

The CIA was set up by me for the sole purpose of getting all the available information to the President. It was not intended to operate as an international agency engaged in strange activities.

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

I spent over ten years in the Central Intelligence Agency as an undercover operations officer serving overseas after 9/11 where I carried out covert operations against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, as well as other countries who are 'hostile to liberty,' as I like to say.

Breaking a cardinal rule of spy craft, I actually let it be known that I wanted to work for the CIA.

From the outside, the CIA seems pretty exotic, but from the inside, it's a big, bureaucratic place. Think 'post office with spies.'

Anyone who tells you he deals with the CIA is either a fool (for admitting it) or a braggart.

It was given for all purposes to which a secret service fund should or could be applied to the public benefit—for spies, if the gentleman pleases.

Secrecy now beclouds everything about CIA—its cost, its efficiency, its successes, and its failures.

Secrecy now beclouds everything about the Central Intelligence Agency—its cost, its efficiency, its success, its failures.

I never worked for any secret service, certainly not the Israeli secret service.

One of the things that distinguishes the CIA from the State Department is that the CIA is both asked to, and authorized to, steal secrets. So if the question is whether the CIA steals secrets, the answer is yes.

When I did counterintelligence investigations, they rarely saw the inside of a courtroom. That wasn't the goal of them.

I know CIA like the back of my hand.

SIS, the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, also has no executive powers and operates abroad on CIA lines, but with a tiny percentage of the budget and a tiny percentage of the personnel.

We need to make is to strengthen the position of the director of the CIA.

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.

When I was younger, I actually wanted to be a CIA agent. Really. I even did the online questionnaire.

A major theme in all my books is that the CIA is not only the first line of defense but they should also be the first line of offense.

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.