Covert Ops Quotes

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.

I'm a spy. It's not really... I worked for the CIA 15 years. The cover was I worked for the insurance business.

I would not put C.I.A. officers at risk by asking them to undertake risky, controversial activity again.

White Paper has effectively exposed certain aspects of PBSUCCESS ... If possible, fabricate big human interest story, like flying saucers, birth sextuplets in remote area to take play away.

I would be a terrible CIA officer in real life.

The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea.

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

It will be the CIA's mission and my own if confirmed to ensure that the agency remains the best in the world at its core mission - collecting what our enemies do not want us to know. In short, the CIA must be the world's premier espionage organization.

Decisions concerning covert actions are not often easily reached.

Regardless of moral considerations, assassination is a wrongheaded tool for a great power, because small powers can use it equally if not more effectively.

I had been given some training in my past CIA career to do just this sort of thing ... floating forged newspaper accounts, telegrams, that sort of thing.

Turns out, you can take the girl out of the spy school, but you can never take the spy school out of the girl.

Covert action should not be confused with missionary work.

The SAS is the most elite of the special forces in the world. They are not people who go out and advertise; they keep it inside. They don't want anybody to know about them.

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 Special Operations community is rooted in unconventional warfare.

Agents of disruption, subversion, sabotage and disinformation tunnelers and smugglers, listeners and forgers, trainers and recruiters and talent spotters and couriers and watchers and seducers, assassins and balloonists, lip readers and disguise artists.

The Tyranni rule fifty worlds; they are outnumbered hundreds to one. In such a position, simple force is insufficient. Devious methods, intrigue, assassination are their specialties. The net they weave across space is a wide one, and close-meshed. I can well believe that it extends across five hundred light-years to Earth.

They won't talk to you because I'm undercover.

A spy, like a writer, lives outside the mainstream population. He steals his experience through bribes and reconstructs it.

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

My favorite is when you go to Afghanistan and you meet the special forces guys, and they look like these heavily armed surfers. These guys are the best. You see guys dressed as full Afghans, but then wearing a Yankees hat.

Civil Cooperation Bureau

I was attached to the SAS from time to time, but we are forbidden - former, present, or future - to discuss any specific operations.

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.