Lee H. Hamilton Quotes
Moving from general intelligence to specific targets is the most difficult part of the intelligence business.
Lee H. Hamilton, U. S. Congressman (Democrat, IN), Vice-Chairman 9-11 Commission, Interview, NBC Meet the Press, April 4, 2004
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The argument here is that secret intelligence, comes from sources and people whose views and claims are not subject to the test of public scrutiny representing a narrow information sample. Publicly available information, while it does not include secrets that the enemy wants to keep secret, does represent vetted and processed information with challenges and contradictions also publicly available. Proponents argue that it is more reliable. Secret intelligence has produced some of America’s worst debacles. An example is the Bay of Pigs. Secret intelligence assured Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy that the majority of Cuban people was hostile to the Fidel Castro government. If freedom fighters would land in Cuba, the vast majority of Cubans would join them. When the invaders landed, most Cubans were so outraged that their country was being invaded that there was massive public support for Castro’s troops who quickly captured the invaders who were waiting for the popular uprising.
He was appointed by President Nixon to head a "blue ribbon panel" to review the Department of Defense, and announced the conclusions:
The CIA did not have a long tradition. It was created after WWII when the OSS was are espionage organization had been disbanded In the early days of the Cold War, the CIA went rogue and engaged in covert activities without the knowledge and approval of the President and his cabinet. General Maxwell Taylor conducted a thorough investigation and the agency was brought under control. There hav been several more incidents since then and every few years there have been additional scandals of unauthorized operations which were harmful to American interests and values. In a democracy it is always hard to control a secret organization. Actually, at the beginning of WWII, we had almost no espionage capability and President Roosevelt had a series of friends who provided him with intelligence until William Donavan had time to establish the OSS which did such a wonderful job.
His concern was well placed. For over half a century thereafter, the tail did wag the dog, and while there have been many successful covert operations, the risk and current pressure siphoned off talent and management attention from intelligence—the Central Intelligence Agency’s primary job.
even though in this case the objective The State Department, the Defense Department and most important President Kennedy had decided to get rid of Diem. Most of the Central Intelligence Agency thought that this was a very unwise policy, because Diem was a known risk, and the people who would replace him and their talents and policies were unknown. The negatives of Diem—the facts that he, a Christian, was persecuting the majority Buddhists, was totally corrupt, and not a very good leader was less distressful to the CIA than to the President and the other agencies as the intelligence agency frequently not only tolerated “offensive” allies, but actually employed them including war criminals. Another importance of this quotation is that it shows that it was by no means certain that the CIA would always follow the orders of the President and the government policy makers. Colby, who was not the agency director at that time but was the head of the South East Bureau, was one high level official who argued that the policies should always be followed even if they were unwise or foolish. Another importance of this quotation is that it illustrate a common error that administrations are frequently forced to make: making a policy decision to eliminate a problem while not having much of an idea of what the alternative or consequence would be when the policy is implemented. The Syrian Civil War in 2013 was a good example. The Government side appeared to have used Chemical Warfare on Civilians and public opinion demanded that we do something. However, having a no-fly zone or any of the alternatives to prevent (punish) the government for the Chemical Warfare would strengthen the rebel side which was made up of numerous factions—some of which were known Islamic fundamentalist terrorists and jihadists. If the balance of power were tipped toward the rebels, the consequence for the American national interests were unknown—just as the consequence of ousting Diem was unknown and turned out to also be bad and was probably worse.
See {634917} for a recent example of lying under oath to the Senate.
Lee Herbert Hamilton is an American politician and lawyer from Indiana. He is a former member of the United States House of Representatives and a former member of the U.S. Homeland Security Advisory Council. A member of the Democratic Party, Hamilton represented the 9th congressional district of Indiana from 1965 to 1999. Following his departure from Congress, he has served on a number of governmental advisory boards, most notably as the vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission.
