Philip D. Zelikow Quotes

Whenever you're faced with an explanation of what's going on in Washington, the choice between incompetence and conspiracy, always choose incompetence.

I was a guy who trusted the government. Now, I don't trust a damn thing they do.

The U.S. Government hasn't maintained secrecy regarding UFOs. It's been leaking out all over the place. But the way it's been handled is by denial, by denying the truth of the documents that have leaked. By attempting to show them as fraudulent, as bogus of some sort. There has been a very large disinformation and misinformation effort around this whole area. And one must wonder, how better to hide something out in the open than just to say, 'It isn't there. You're deceiving yourself if you think this is true.' And yet, there it is right in front of you.

Our government has become incompetent, unresponsive, corrupt. And that incompetence, ineptitude, lack of accountability is now dangerous.

I believe conspiracy theories are part of a larger conspiracy to distract us from the real conspiracy. String theory.

Just because we don't understand why they'd cover up something doesn't mean they aren't," Bobby said, and we both turned to look at him. "Now you just sound paranoid," I said. "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you," Bobby said with an expression so serious that I couldn't help but laugh.

If the government is covering up knowledge of aliens, they are doing a better job of it than they do at anything else.

The government is so out of control. It is so bloated and infested with fraud and deceit and corruption and abuse of power.

Government is dysfunctional.

There's a few conspiracy theories that I believe in, but not too many.

Everything government touches turns to crap.

Whenever the government says, 'It's time to move on,' that means there's something they don't want you to know about.

Distrust of government isn't baseless cynicism. It's realism.

We all have a right to know, and if the government has been suppressing information about other life forms, that's the cruelest hoax of all.

It now becomes clear why the Bush Administration has been vigorously opposing congressional hearings. The Bush Administration has been engaged in a conspiracy of silence.

The Federal government does not have any information about extraterrestrial life to conceal, and there are no secret projects for me to investigate.

We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course. Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic.

As I watched some of the Watergate hearings I kept asking myself what all these people—[John] Dean and others—were doing there in the first place. Was there really an honest job that needed doing?

How can we account for our present situation unless we believe that men high in this government are concerting to deliver us to disaster? This must be the product of a great conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man.

No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine.

The Watergate burglary was both illegal and stupid

The wronger a conspiracy is, the better it is.

Of course, if you assume a big enough conspiracy, you can explain anything, including the cosmos itself.

To this day I have serious doubts as to whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

Secrecy helps give oil wealth its democracy-repelling powers: citizens are satisfied with low taxes and seemingly generous benefits only when they do not realize how much of their country’s wealth is being lost to theft, corruption, and government incompetence.