Quotes About Espionage

Why doesn't the CIA hire your grandmother to interrogate terror suspects? She does a much better job than they do of getting classified information.

When I accepted the commission, I had something of an epiphany in the research I did about the agency, actually the science of espionage. I realized there is a connection between the sciences and the invisible forces of man.

For John le Carre, it was always who's betraying who: the hall-of-mirrors kind of thing. When you go back to the '30s, it's a case of good vs. evil, and no kidding. When I have a hero who believes France and Britain are on the right side, a reader is not going to question that.

I found out only recently that we were making an index of enemy code signs.

It's an extraordinary story told with simplicity. 'Raazi' is about people who put the country before anything else.

I've spent decades waking up every morning eager to fight Democrats, trying to gain every bit of advantage for every battle. God knows we made mistakes and played too often on the dark side. But I never woke up knowing that somewhere out there a Russian agent was waking up with the same job I had.

Secret operations are essential in war; upon them the army relies to make its every move. An army without secret agents is exactly like a man without eyes or ears.

Spies are a most important element in water, because on them depends an army's ability to move.

Defeat your enemy from within.

he was keeping a close eye out for another episode from Mick Herron's anti-hero Jackson Lamb in his run-down department of espionage situated on the wrong side of the tracks.

And they were without a useful deterrent. Enter General Wolff. He and his Nazi cohorts would shift their allegiance to the West and would arrange for an army of some 5,000 anti-Communists of Eastern European and Russian descent. After espionage training at a camp called Oberammergau, the army of spies would cover Europe, undertaking a covert battle against Communism.

It was nearly impossible to keep anything a secret, especially from her sisters, the youngest of whom—Hyacinth—could probably have won the war against Napoleon in half the time if His Majesty had only thought to draft her into the espionage service.

The work that Google is doing in China is indirectly benefiting the Chinese military. Indirect may not be a full characterization of the way it is. It's more of a direct benefit to the Chinese military.

We now see hacking taking place by foreign governments and by private individuals all around the world.

The Internet has made us richer, freer, connected and informed in ways its founders could not have dreamt of. It has also become a vector of attack, espionage, crime and harm.

Intelligence inputs are not something one can talk about.

I think all governments engage in intelligence gathering vis-a-vis other governments.

Oh, Neverfell, you're just not made for undercover work. You can't lie, my dear, and I can. Leave Madame Appeline and the Doldrums to me. Stay here and keep your head down.

Bolstered by the Espionage Act of 15 June 1917 and the Sedition Act of 16 May 1918, Palmer's agents were free to arrest all who gave aid or comfort to the enemy; all who seemed disloyal in word or deed or attitude; all who opposed the draft or who spoke ill of the president, his advisers, the government, or the military. "Scurrilous" or "abusive" newspapers or journals were denied U.S. mailing privileges. People were arrested

During the Cold War, we gathered information by listening to the Soviets, taking pictures of the Soviets, and we allowed our human intelligence to decline.

'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'm a traitor, but I don't consider myself a traitor.

Officially, the complexion of the problem had changed (too many people were getting killed, for one thing), and the romance of spooking started to fall away like dead meat from a bone. As sure as heat rises, their time was over.

In 1942 the Germans sent a spy called Eppler into Cairo before the battle of El Alamein. He used a copy of Daphne du Maurier's novel Rebecca as a code book to send messages back to Rommel on troop movements. Listen, the book became bedside reading with British Intelligence. Even I read it.