The Spymasters Quotes

“As Director Helms observed, “It’s not enough to ring the bell; you have to make sure the other guy hears it.”
― Chris Whipple, The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future

“She started out in the right place, and now she’s in a really bad place.”
― Chris Whipple, The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future

“CIA analysts aren’t perfect and they often pay the price. John McLaughlin, a courtly intellectual who served twice as acting director, is also an accomplished magician; on a visit to Moscow he dazzled his Russian intelligence counterparts with feats of sleight of hand, turning a 10,000 ruble note into 100,000. But when McLaughlin and his fellow analysts botch an intelligence estimate—as with Iraq’s WMDs—their mistakes do not magically vanish. “Analysts write things down, venturing assessment and prediction on issues that are contentious, sometimes unknowable,” he said. “They are hanging out there in words that never go away. Very few others in government do that. No one understands any of this.” CIA operatives are a different breed; brash and outgoing, they practice deception and seduction, enticing strangers to betray their countries.”
― Chris Whipple, The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.”
― Chris Whipple, The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future

“filmmaker Carl Colby, Paul’s younger brother, made a documentary, The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby.”
― Chris Whipple, The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future

“threatening”
― Chris Whipple, The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future

“Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan,”
― Chris Whipple, The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future