Richard Helms Quotes

We want our spying agencies spying on foreigners. That’s why we have them.

[Referring to the CIA:] We coexist. They work, and we work.

Are there topics of sufficient import to the nation's well-being to replace the Soviets as the focus of U.S. intelligence?

No one would argue that it's in the United States' interest to have independent knowledge of the plans and intentions of foreign countries. But we need to think about where to draw the line on these kind of operations so we're not always attacking our allies, the people we trust, the people we need to rely on, and to have them in turn rely on us.

Reasonable people can disagree about the authorities the NSA should have, when it's appropriate for the CIA to use drone strikes, and how assertive U.S. foreign policy and intelligence should be.

A major theme in all my books is that the CIA is not only the first line of defense but they should also be the first line of offense.

Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.

I've always been baffled by critics of the CIA, who are horrified that it does illegal things. That is the purpose of an intelligence service: to perform illegal acts.

Any foreign policy that is formulated in secret intelligence will always get the nation in trouble… secret intelligence always gets it wrong. It is a sample of a small part of the world---a picture of the world that is dramatically skewed.

I thought that you guys [the CIA] had people everywhere, that you knew about everything, and now you don't even know anything about a raggedy-ass, little fourth rate country. All you have to do is get some Chinese coolies from a San Francisco laundry shop and drop them over there and use them.

The United States should serve as a weight, not the weight on the scale of foreign affairs.

Politically, foreign policy never matters until it matters, and then it matters a lot.

I think it's important for the president of the United States to be aware of the intelligence information that we have.

One of the things that distinguishes the CIA from the State Department is that the CIA is both asked to, and authorized to, steal secrets. So if the question is whether the CIA steals secrets, the answer is yes.

I was in government for 13 years and in that time only once met the head of the German security services, and that was because he was an old friend. Otherwise, I carefully avoided having anything to do with these people. They are unavoidable but not really necessary.

Before I was elected to represent southwestern Texas in the U.S. Congress, I spent almost a decade as an undercover officer in the CIA. I served in places where Russia has geopolitical interests, and learned that Russia has one simple goal: to erode trust in democratic institutions.

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.

I joined the CIA in 1985 as an operations officer in the Clandestine Service.

Under the 1991 Intelligence Authorization Act, US intelligence agencies cannot engage in covert actions abroad without a presidential finding that these operations are important to US national security.

SIS, the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, also has no executive powers and operates abroad on CIA lines, but with a tiny percentage of the budget and a tiny percentage of the personnel.

Let's remember, the CIA's job is to go out and create wars.

You know, as director of the CIA, I got an awful lot of intelligence about all the horrible things that could go on across the world.

Throughout my career, I had the great fortune to experience firsthand as well as to witness what it means to be a CIA officer.

I think all governments engage in intelligence gathering vis-a-vis other governments.

I've been called a spy of Israel since 1996, and since I made my documentary film in 2000 the FBI has investigated me as an agent of Iraq. The FBI has also opened up an investigation into my wife calling her a KGB spy.