Misinformation Quotes
Most CIA Directors have not had this extreme attitude, but because Casey did, journalists, members of Congress, other government officials and even Presidents have often distrusted the CIA and their personnel more than was necessarily warranted.
The quotation was given by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld just prior to the war with Iraq, 2003.
He was parodying Lincoln’s famous quotation: {609284}.
This is a very important historical quotation in that it shows the extensive degree of anti-Catholic prejudice that existed in America in the late 1930s. Most of the anti-Catholic feeling was based in the absurd but real belief of millions of Protestants that the Pope was trying to control America. Then there was the fear and that American Catholics would take political direction from the Vatican and the Catholic bishops. The perception of the Church was hundreds of years out of date. Most of the anti-Catholic bias reduced along with anti-Semitism in the remainder of the 20th century as Americans became much more religiously tolerant. By the 21st century, religious prejudice still existed but it was limited to a small group of Americans whose views were generally condemned by the American mainstream of thought and opinion.
