Gina Haspel Quotes

Since the attack on the United States on September 11 2001, and the US retaliation in Afghanistan and Iraq, there must be few people who have not felt a twinge of nostalgia for the cold war.

The war against terror is every bit as important as our fight against fascism in World War II. Or our struggle against the spread of Communism during the Cold War.

I don't think Israel can accept an Iranian terror base next to its major cities any more than the United States could accept an al Qaeda base next to New York City.

I don't think Russia could start a war by attacking any of the NATO member states.

What you get in the Cold War is 'the wilderness of mirrors' where you have to figure out what's good and what's evil. That's good for John le Carre, but not me.

Among all the upheavals of war with al Qaeda, the surest indicator of the historic stakes is the ongoing rotation of top U.S. government managers - scores at a time - into a bunker deep underground and far from Washington.

The unthinkable occurred: two communist countries went to war with each other.

Bob Gates is really emblematic of the modern CIA. He joins it in 1968, just a day before the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia. And, of course, he rises very quickly. In less than six years, he's on the National Security Council staff, at the closing weeks of Richard Nixon's presidency and then on into Gerald Ford.

I have no spy stories to tell, because I saw no spies. Nor did I understand, at that time, any opposition between American and Russian national interest.

I don't think that anyone seriously fears that the world can be blown to pieces all together. But what one can fear and rightly so are regional things, like in the Middle East, India, Pakistan, the Korean Peninsula, borders in Africa, etc.

James Forrestal is the most dangerous man in America. If he is not removed from office, he will cause another world war.

A missile is a missile. It makes no great difference whether you are killed by a missile from the Soviet Union or Cuba.

In World War Two, in the OSS, we knew what our motivation was: to beat the goddamn Nazis. In the Cold War, we knew what our motivation was: to beat the Goddamn Russians. Suddenly the Cold War is over, and what is the motivation? What would compel someone to spend their lives doing this kind of thing?

Either Al Qaeda is a threat worth acting against or it is not. CIA leadership has to decide which it is and cease these bi-polar mood swings.

I don't believe Russia would attack a NATO country or NATO as such, no matter which country we are talking about.

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.

And most worryingly, it wouldn't surprise me if Putin ends up starting a major military conflict with the West at some point in the future to save his own skin as head of state in Russia.

"World War III, was the Cold War".

After the Berlin Wall came down and Communism was on the run, I looked around and wondered what the next threat to the United States would be.

I tried to contribute to the defeat of the Soviets. If I contributed 1%, it is 1% of something enormous.

We're fighting an enemy that is far different than any we have got before. It's a nontraditional kind of war, and I think we need to step back, recalibrate how we go about protecting our borders and protecting our people, and resetting our position in the world.

I don't think there's any question that America is safer as a result of the bin Laden operation.

The new century has brought on its own terrible dangers, which although not reaching the apocalyptic potential of the Cold War, still have the capacity to shake our world.

All War Departments are now Defense Departments. This is all part of the doubletalk of our time. The aggressor is always on the other side.

Nineteen-seventy-nine had been a year of American setbacks around the globe. Before the year began, Cuban troops were already roaming Angola, and a pro-Communist regime ruled Ethiopia.