RONALD KESSLER

If Madison Avenue advertising executives were to pick a song that would best represent America, the last one they would choose is 'The Star Spangled Banner.'

Lacking a profit motive, workers in the government by and large have a different work ethic from those in private industry. When they could make one call, federal workers take a meeting. When they could find an answer on the Internet, they form a study committee. Instead of appointing one supervisor, they appoint five.

To become a Secret Service agent, applicants must pass a polygraph exam. But after being hired, agents are never required to undergo regular lie detector testing again.

Only when you are self-employed do you fully realize how much more efficient you become when your output directly correlates with how much money you make.

I sat next to Carl Bernstein throughout Watergate, and Woodward would come over, and they would argue everything out, so I was really tuned into what happened.

Incredibly, whenever I have proposed the theory that half of government workers could be cut, current and former federal employees I know have all agreed.

Rather than use the term 'profiling,' the profilers prefer to say they engage in criminal investigative analysis. That is because, besides developing profiles, the analysts offer a range of other advice, including personality assessments and interview techniques tailored to a particular offender.

One of my books, called 'Moscow Station,' revealed that a KGB archivist had defected from Russia to the FBI. And I knew that he was safe, and revealing this would not jeopardize him. But nevertheless, the FBI started a leak investigation.

Tact ops is a unit which breaks into homes and offices to plant bugging devices. They get into mafia hangouts, they go into embassies, they go into terrorist hangouts, and they describe themselves as court-sanctioned burglars.

In typical Washington fashion, nothing gets reformed until a disaster happens.

Despite constant vilifying by the media and congressional threats to take away the tools needed to uncover plots, FBI agents and CIA officers work silently around the clock and risk their own lives to keep us safe.

The 9/11 commission recommended the appointment of a national intelligence director with budgetary authority to better coordinate the work of the intelligence community and resolve differences.

Because of the terrorist threat, the FBI and CIA have become as important as the military in preserving our freedom. Yet while thanking our military is standard practice in American life, no one thinks of thanking the FBI, the CIA, or the rest of the intelligence community for keeping us safe since 9/11.

I have one anecdote about the FBI breaking into an embassy in Washington, and under Hoover, they had this sort of ruse whereby they didn't want to recommend a break-in that might be a big flap and cause all kinds of problems.

To reform the Secret Service, the agency needs a director from outside the agency who will be immune from that culture and not beholden to entrenched bureaucrats within the agency.

As you can tell from the titles of my books, I like to probe secret organizations, secret subjects. And this sometimes gets me into trouble.

Complex man that he was, J. Edgar Hoover left nothing to chance. The director shrewdly recognized that building what became known as the world's greatest law enforcement agency would not necessarily keep him in office.

While most Americans know about the Boston Tea Party, few are aware of the Liberty Tree and how important it was to fanning the flames of rebellion that led to the revolution in 1775 and the Declaration of Independence.

In the sweep of history, George W. Bush will be seen as one of our greatest presidents because of the decisions he made to keep us safe after 9/11.

In the case of the FBI, I revealed that William Sessions, the FBI director, had been engaging in abuses of all kinds, and I exposed that. And that led to his dismissal by President Clinton.

Like Jon Voight, Pat Boone, Kelsey Grammer, and Gary Sinise, Clint Howard is one of the few courageous enough to identify himself publicly as a conservative.

The FBI Academy teaches new agents that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, decisions made by President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev could have plunged both countries into thermonuclear war.

Agents who have left the Secret Service to join other federal law enforcement agencies report that training in firearms and counterterrorism tactics in those agencies in many cases far exceeds the quality of what the Secret Service offered.

'Fox lies' has become a favorite mantra of the Left, yet there is a reason Fox News blows away the other cable networks in ratings and is more trusted as a news source than any other television network.