David Ignatius Quotes

Secrecy now beclouds everything about the Central Intelligence Agency—its cost, its efficiency, its success, its failures.

The CIA was set up by me for the sole purpose of getting all the available information to the President. It was not intended to operate as an international agency engaged in strange activities.

The men and women of the CIA are a national treasure.

When I was younger, I actually wanted to be a CIA agent. Really. I even did the online questionnaire.

Secrecy now beclouds everything about CIA—its cost, its efficiency, its successes, and its failures.

Bureau of Secret Intelligence.

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

I know CIA like the back of my hand.

I have great respect for the people in intelligence and CIA. I don't have a lot of respect for in particular one of the leaders. But that's OK. But I have a lot of respect for the people in the CIA.

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.

We need to make is to strengthen the position of the director of the CIA.

Well look, CIA is an agency that has to collect intelligence, do operations. We have to take risks and it's important that we take risks and that we know that we have the support of the government and we have the support of the American people in what we're doing.

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.

The skills of the British intelligence community are a great national asset.

It [the CIA] was not intended as a Cloak & Dagger Outfit. It was intended merely as a center for keeping the President of what was going on in the World…I never wanted the CIA to act as a spy organization. That was never the intention when it was organized.

CIA will not develop operations to penetrate another Government agency, even with the approval of its leadership.

A chief of station is the head of all intelligence operations in any given country.

I never worked for any secret service, certainly not the Israeli secret service.

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 was with the CIA for only three years. I worked in the Directorate of Operations, which is now called the National Clandestine Service. It's the part of the organization where the spies live. I didn't have much experience beyond the training.

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

As an old man who remembers the intellectual exhilaration and the pleasure of having done good work that characterized the CIA when it was young, I wonder if it might not be better to speak and think in terms of restoring its culture.

The Secret Intelligence Service I knew occupied dusky suites of little rooms opposite St James's Park Tube station in London.

I had been involved in U.S. intelligence in Berlin, Germany, while in the military and had worked with a contact with the Central Intelligence Agency office there.

From the outside, the CIA seems pretty exotic, but from the inside, it's a big, bureaucratic place. Think 'post office with spies.'