James R. Clapper Quotes

By 'intelligence' we mean every sort of information about the enemy and his country - the basis, in short, of our own plans and operations.

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.

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

It is only the enlightened ruler and the wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for the purposes of spying, and thereby they achieve great results.

By the late '70s I had come to question the point of a great deal of what we were doing, in terms of the CIA's overall charter.

Prior to the present war [WWII], the United States had no foreign intelligence service. It never has had and does not have a coordinated intelligence service.

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.

The manner in which intelligence indicators were handled in the Cuba situation may well be the most serious flaw in our intelligence system, and one which, if uncorrected, could lead to the gravest consequences

The operational tail will wag the intelligence dog. The top people will be forced to take up all their time in the direction of operations and will neglect intelligence.

Bill Stephenson taught us all we ever knew about foreign intelligence.

If you walk into the front hallway of the CIA, you will see, on your left, a statue of William 'Wild Bill' Donovan. Bill Donovan was the person who created the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, which was America's spy agency during World War II and then kind of morphed into what's now the CIA.

I spent close to a decade as an undercover officer in the CIA and have spent most of my adult life collecting intelligence and protecting sources and methods.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Andrew Warren was a rarity in the CIA's Clandestine Service - African-American, fluent in Arabic, and relatively young for an agent who'd already spent nearly a decade chasing terrorists in Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq and Algeria, so deep undercover that few of his friends or family knew the nature of his work.

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.

Simply stated, the need for accurate intelligence and prescient analysis from CIA has never been greater than it is in 2013 - or than it will be in the coming years.

Even when I was at CIA, I'd go to visit foreign leaders and I'd say, 'You know, I'm not a diplomat. I'm just an old CIA guy'... I said, 'If I wanted to be diplomatic, I'd have been a diplomat.'

Richard M. Helms, the first director of Central Intelligence to rise from the ranks, was fond of saying that the CIA had been founded to make sure that there would never be another Pearl Harbor. Underlying this mission impossible was the wishful supposition that an America that knew everything could prevent anything.

My understanding is that what was provided was general order of battle information, not operational intelligence. I certainly have no knowledge of US participation in preparing battle and strike packages and doubt strongly that that occurred.

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