Reports Quotes
The then CIA Director, Allen Dulles, fostered a practice of “adjusting” intelligence reports to support ideological policies and theories that were then in vogue. The agents in the field knew what was wanted and many adjusted their reports to coincide with the overall intelligence and policy. The station chiefs and other supervisors often ignored reports of their agents that they knew were not exactly accurate. Copeland however, just fabricated reports and “information” from sources. The honesty and integrity of the CIA intelligence operations have varied from time to time and depended much on the CIA Director at the time. Allen Dulles, though brilliant and able, fostered an ideological intelligence agency. He even went so far as to lie to the President on several occasions.
1st Earl of Beaconsfield. At the time the Queen was not just a figurehead. She made most of the major appointments and had to approve of and sign many documents. In addition, she as the head of state met with foreign royalty and foreign diplomats. She would tell the Prime Minister of policies she wanted made and even how military strategy was to be handled. Although she had much power, she rarely used it and instead relied on her ability to persuade the Prime Ministers and other members of the Government. Disraeli and opposition leader Gladstone exchanged roles as the voters flip flopped between the two parties. Queen Victoria loved working with Disraeli and their meetings, but hated doing so with Gladstone. See {629314}.
Rickover, the father of the nuclear submarine was not only an expert in nuclear reactors and power, but he was known as a safety perfectionist with a safety record in the Navy that is still marveled at. President Carter, as a naval officer, had worked for Rickover and himself was technologically knowledgeable about nuclear power. He asked his old mentor to chair the investigating the Three Mile Island incident. Rickover actually recommended to the President that much of the report be secret, assuming that reform would take place quickly if the nuclear power industry were not killed by the damning expose of inept personnel and the lack of safety processes with a very dangerous process. However, few reforms were made nationally, and Rickover, 6 years later, grew to regret his recommendation for secrecy.
This military adage is a metaphor for all kinds of human situations especially political ones. So many politicians in the face of programs, ideologies, policies, plans of initiatives which are not going as planned or anticipated, simply go with reality instead of staying with their failed policies and programs.
See {637464} for the trigger for the FBI to write this report. It was the report that verified that the CIA had hired the Mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro which President Johnson had heard but the CIA never revealed it to Johnson or the Warren Commission investigations JFK’s assassination. The full document was kept secret and was not yet declassified in 2014 when this quotation was entered in the collection.
Berelson had done a major compendium of research and found that the high quality studies with very good data were usually done in studies or programs that were not very important, while the most important areas were usually informed by poorer data and less rigid studies. As an example he gave the extensive data that the defense department then had on the relative physical fitness prowess of the marines verses the other services, but had little or no data as to whether the marine was a better fighter, had better judgment in crises, was more skilled with weapons system of the time etc. The Education Department had great data on the performance of students on mathematics tests but almost none on how to teach mathematics.
Trotsky was castigated in Russia and found “guilty” of a host of crimes for his dissident communist views. The American communists generally fell into line, but a number of the leading intellectuals established their own Commission—headed by John Dewey to investigate Trotsky. Their finding created the first major split in American communist circles and started a process of intellectual alienation from the Communist party. Trotsky was in exile in Mexico where Stalin’s agents tracked him down and assassinated him further alienating many American intellectuals.
Historians have taken Hudson’s observations seriously ever since.
