Robert Littell Quotes

When I blew the whistle on the whole thing, it was [William J.] Casey who, I felt, regarded what I had done as treason.

I was working for the CIA and prohibited from speaking publicly.

Since real spies are so good, you never really know what actual spying is. But I do think spying is a lot more dangerous than we are led to believe.

Intelligence agencies keep things secret because they often violate the rule of law or of good behavior.

When you work for DC, it's sort of like working for the CIA. You have a vow of silence.

Anyone who tells you he deals with the CIA is either a fool (for admitting it) or a braggart.

Our agency (the Central Intelligence Agency) is the last refuge of organizational privacy available to the U. S. Government.

I am unable to tell a quarter of a billion Americans what we are doing on their behalf, because if I did, it would become the table of contents of the training manual of the enemy.

If you are completely transparent, then you have no intelligence service.

In intelligence work, there are limits to the amount of information one can share. Confidentiality is essential.

I will not, nor will I ever, publicly divulge sensitive intelligence sources and methods. For when that happens, our national security is endangered and lives can be lost.

In the '60s - and right up to the present day - the identity of a member of the British Secret Services was and is, quite rightly, a state secret. To divulge it is a crime. The Services may choose to leak a name when it pleases them.

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

Secrecy is as essential to Intelligence as vestments to a Mass, or darkness to a spiritualist seance, and must at all costs be maintained, quite irrespective of whether or not it serves any purpose.

The United States is the only country in the world that has ever released the operations files of its intelligence agency.

I learned serving under William J. Casey, that the Clandestine Service is the heart and soul of the agency [the CIA]. It is also the part that can land you in jail.

Follow the money, and one arrives at a basic fact: the CIA’s edge is paramilitary.

I would be a terrible CIA officer in real life.

As ever, I caveat with saying that I don't write about the factual content of my C.I.A. experience. Ever. People who are working hard to save lots of lives depend on me to keep my mouth shut.

'Mission' was a mind game. The ideal mission was getting in and getting out without anyone ever knowing we were there.

I would never jeopardize classified information. I served my country well and loyally, and I had to sue the C.I.A. on First Amendment grounds.

Everybody has a hacking capability. And probably every intelligence service is hacking in the territory of other countries. But who exactly does what? That would be a very sensitive piece of information. But it's very difficult to communicate about it. Because nobody wants to admit the scope of what they're doing.

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.

When you're in the CIA, you anticipate the possibility that you'll be betrayed by a foreign government or a source, but you never anticipate that it would be by your own government.

I was in the CIA for nine years. I am intimately familiar with the information classification system. I used it every day on the job. Like every other one of my colleagues at the agency, I approached the handling of classified information with immense care because I understand the ramifications.