Thomas Gage Quotes
Pontiac ... keeps two secretaries, one to write for him, and the other to read the letters he receives, and he manages them so as to keep each of them ignorant of what is transacted by the other.
Chief of the Ottawa Nation of Indians
Thomas Gage, 1721-1787, English General and Royal Governor of Massachusetts, Letter to Lord Halifax, 1764
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Arguably, in the intelligence world, most of the classified documents are not truthful because there are many different work products that are designed to obtain all points of view. There have been major areas were NONE of the documents on a subject were true as they were all based on faulty assumptions or ignoring critical information. None of the classified intelligence documents even hinted at the breakup of the Soviet Union for example. By number, most of the documents in the FBI secret files are raw intelligence reports and are full of unverified opinion—including biased and self-serving statements.
CREEP in the Nixon Campaign
This radical reform did not make much headway. The “need to know" standard used specific knowledge to signify the status of different officials and was intended to minimize the likelihood of intelligence leaking as few people saw the whole picture and understood the implications. But that was the great weakness in that the major purpose of intelligence is to analyze the information and guide the nation’s policies and responses to events and situations. Without all the information available so many intelligence and other officials are unable to ‘connect the dots’ and see the picture emerging. The attack of September 11 was a classic example where much of the information that was known never was conveyed to most people and so no one had a big enough picture. By the time one could establish a ‘need to know’ it was too late to utilize the conclusions even if they were reached in time.
The main reason that the English or American Freedom of Information Act is not used so much by individuals is that the executive agencies make the process of obtaining documents very difficult and then when the government stonewalls, the requestor has to spend a great deal of time and often engage an attorney. The result is that few individuals can spend the time or money and the field consists mostly of media and non profit organizations which have staff and resources.
The “wrong” people to Helms. Were Americans who disagreed with his methods and politics—especially members of Congress who wanted to make the CIA more accountable for its actions. If nothing is ever written down and everything is secret, there is no practical way of holding the agency accountable in a democracy. Helms was later convicted to perjury for lying to Congress.
Referring to appearances of impropriety with reference to the Lincoln Savings & Loan scandal:
Adams was then in the Continental Congress and he and other patriots were learning as much about military methods as possible. For many, secrecy was an entirely new concept. Rush ran the hospitals for the Revolutionary Army and talked to many officers and enlisted men, and also observed much of the British military practices.
The leaks not only did not stop, but they became worse than ever.
He was the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
General Thomas Gage was a British Army general officer and colonial official best known for his many years of service in North America, including his role as British commander-in-chief in the early days of the American Revolution.
