Covert Action Quotes

False flag operations seem to be a standard method of getting into a war.

Every intelligence operation carries risks.

Plan and conduct covert operations which are conducted or sponsored by this government against hostile foreign states or groups or in support of friendly foreign states or groups but which are so planned and conducted that any US Government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorised persons and that if uncovered the US Government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them. Covert action shall include any covert activities related to: propaganda; economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition, and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation groups, and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened countries of the free world

We conclude that his [Patrice Lumumba’s] removal must be an urgent and prime objective of our covert action..

We shouldn't send CIA spooks to overthrow governments.

I'll find places to grab as I walk and talk, sometimes even walking backwards because I have more control that way. People have no idea that I'm doing this.

I think soon after I became director of the CIA - President Obama pulled me into the Oval Office and said: 'Look, I just want you to know that your top priority is to go after Osama bin Laden.'

Unseen in the background, Fate was quietly slipping lead into the boxing-glove.

Covert action should not be confused with missionary work.

Nowadays wars are not declared. They simply start.

I wouldn't even know - and I spent three years in the CIA - I wouldn't even know how you'd start a covert action program in a place like Iran. It would be extraordinarily difficult.

I think it's important for black people in general to be aware of what's going on and do what you got to work around it. Not bow down to it publicly.

My literal responsibility as director of the CIA with regard to covert action was to inform the Congress - not to seek their approval; to inform.

We have the ability to take him out and the time has come to exercise that ability…a few covert operators can do the job.

The pornography of tough-mindedness, covert action, and preparedness for "peace through strength" has had a predictably hypnotic effect on the legislative branch, turning it from legal watchdog to lapdog.

Quiet diplomacy is far more effective than public posturing.

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.

I have one anecdote about the FBI breaking into an embassy in Washington, and under Hoover, they had this sort of ruse whereby they didn't want to recommend a break-in that might be a big flap and cause all kinds of problems.

President Obama has never summarized the Obama Doctrine with such clarity, but here is what it would look like: 'I will undertake any military attack against our enemies, regardless of the risks and collateral damage, so long as it is over by the time I have to announce it.'

In covert operations, quality is much more important than quantity. A small number of competent people can be much more useful than a large number of incompetents.

I needed to hear the world but didn't want the world to know I was listening.

In covert action you always have to think of the endgame before you start it. We didn’t always do that.

After the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the Obama administration steadfastly refused to say which element of the U.S. military had participated in the assault. Until Vice President Joe Biden decided to talk about it on national television, that is.

Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals we dare not present to them.

Intelligence services exist to do things that are illegal abroad. They exist to tell lies.