Spy Operations Quotes

The aim of a foreign intelligence service is to find and convince individuals to help them achieve intelligence objectives.

A chief of station is the head of all intelligence operations in any given country.

I was with the CIA for only three years. I worked in the Directorate of Operations, which is now called the National Clandestine Service. It's the part of the organization where the spies live. I didn't have much experience beyond the training.

One of the really amazing things about the Lusitania saga was that, at the time, there existed in the admiralty a super-secret spy entity known as 'Room 40'.

…defectors are one of the two or three most important sources of intelligence. When you get a man—and we have got several—who have worked inside…their secret service…it’s just almost as though you had somebody inside there for a time.

I had brought up from Chile a contract agent whose cover was that of a newspaper publisher in Santiago, a young, very talented man, named Dave Phillips, who later on carved quite a career for himself in the agency.

Of all those in the army close to the commander none is more intimate than the secret agent; of all rewards none more liberal than those given to secret agents; of all matters none is more confidential than those relating to secret operations.

I was a case officer, otherwise known as an operations officer. My role was to go out and convince Al Qaeda operatives to instead work with us as well as to convince people and officials in foreign governments to work on behalf of the U.S. government secretly.

If Wild Bill could have made his successful dash into our lines earlier in the day, the attack would have been made sooner, and greater results might have been expected. The Confederates had suspected him of being a spy for two or three days, and had watched him too closely to allow an opportunity to get away from them sooner.

Covert Operations Report At approximately 0900 hours on Saturday, October 14, Operative Morgan was given a stern lecture by Agent Townsend, a tracking device by Agent Cameron, and a very scary look from Operative Goode. (She also got a tip that her bra strap was showing from Operative McHenry.) The Operative then undertook a basic reconnaissance mission inside a potentially hostile location. (But it wasn't as hostile as Operative Baxter was going to be if everything didn't go according to plan.)

'The Man Who Never Was,' by Ewen Montagu, remains the best book about wartime espionage written by an active participant - incomplete, and dry in parts, it nonetheless summons up the ingenuity and sheer eccentricity of those who played this strange and dangerous game.

I thought that you guys [the CIA] had people everywhere, that you knew about everything, and now you don't even know anything about a raggedy-ass, little fourth rate country. All you have to do is get some Chinese coolies from a San Francisco laundry shop and drop them over there and use them.

Upwards of fifty volunteers of the best & most courageous were kept constantly employed on the perilous. but most important duty of spies, scouts, and guides. In the work they were invaluable and almost indispensable. They frequently went from thirty to three hundred miles within the enemy's lines; visiting his principle camps and most important posts and bringing us back important reliable information. They visited Kingston Goldsboro. Trenton Onslow Swansboro, Tarboro of points on the Roanoke river; after these errands barely escaping with their lives. They were pursued on several occasions by blood hounds two or three of them were taken prisoners; one of these was shot; the fate of the others not known. The pay they received for this work was small but satisfactory. They seemed to think their lives were well spent, if necessary in giving rest, security, and success, to the Union troops, whom they regarded as their deliverers. They usually knelt in solemn prayer before they left, & on their return, from that hazardous duty.