Bomb Power Quotes

“Accountability is the essence of democracy. If people do not know what their government is doing, they cannot be truly self-governing. The national security state assumes the government secrets are too important to be shared, that only those in the know can see classified information, that only the president has all the facts, that we must simply trust that our rulers of acting in our interest.”
― Garry wills, Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State

“Arthur Schlesinger admits that JFK "succumbed to the fake omniscience of insiders". Prolonged immersion in the self-contained, self-justifying world of clandestinity and deception erodes the reality principle.”
― Garry Wills, Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State

“The advantage of a permanent emergency for the executive is that even trivial things can routinely be accomplished by the crisis presidency. If everything is an emergency, all power is emergency power.”
― Garry wills, Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State

“Groves, with his eye for sizing up people who could get things done, saw the deep ambition Oppenheimer covered with his surface charm.”
― Garry Wills, Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State