Edward Lucas Quotes

Since real spies are so good, you never really know what actual spying is. But I do think spying is a lot more dangerous than we are led to believe.

There is only one law of espionage—there are always going to be spies.

You couldn't trust anyone or anything that belonged to the world of espionage.

The human spy, in terms of the American espionage effort, had never been terribly pertinent.

I saw a limit to what I was giving as kind of a scam I was running on the KGB, by giving them people that I knew were their double agents fed to us.

I've known several spies who have wanted to become novelists. And novelists who became spies, of course.

I love the combination of the words 'spies' and 'Balkans.' It's like meat and potatoes.

The only thing I ever withheld from the KGB were the names of two agents whom I personally had known and handled and had a particular feeling for.

Perhaps my information hurt the Soviet Union more than it helped. I have no idea. It was not something I ever discussed with the KGB officers that I was dealing with.

An intelligence service is the ideal vehicle for a conspiracy [against its own government]. Its members can travel about at home and abroad under secret orders, and no questions are asked. Every scrap of paper in the files, its membership, its expenditure of funds, its contacts, even enemy contacts, are state secrets.

Intelligence without counter-intelligence is useless.

What the Hell do those clowns do out there at Langley? Get the CIA jerks working on Cambodia.

Nobody [at the CIA] had any idea of who was doing what where

I would be a terrible CIA officer in real life.

I really wanted to be a spy. I guess it's a bit like acting, where you play a role.

Exposing the activities of a foreign intelligence service renders them ineffective, since it removes plausible deniability, which is the hallmark of covert intelligence operations.

The necessity of procuring good Intelligence is apparent & need not be further urged-All that remains for me to add, is, that you keep the whole matter as secret as possible. For upon Secrecy, Success depends in most Enterprizes of the kind, and for want of it, they are generally defeated, however well planned & promising a favourable issue.

Since real spies are so good, you never really know what actual spying is. But I do think spying is a lot more dangerous than we are led to believe.

You could say that all novels are spy novels and all novelists are spy masters.

We knew we were talking about spies. I knew he knew I knew. I was digging my own grave.

In my head, I think I'd make a perfect spy, but in reality, I don't think I'd fare very well.

I am always up to steal secrets from smart people.

Since that time I have had continuous contact with the persons who were completely unknown to me, except that I knew they would hand whatever information I gave them to the Russian authorities.

You can't come forward against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and be completely free from risk.

The broad outlines of the Double Cross deception have been known since 1972, when Sir John Masterman, the former chairman of the double agent committee, controversially published his account of the operation in defiance of official secrecy.