Espionage Tactics Quotes

Our Soviet espionage efforts had virtually never, or had very seldom, produced any worthwhile political or economic intelligence on the Soviet Union.

I'm a spy. It's not really... I worked for the CIA 15 years. The cover was I worked for the insurance business.

You couldn't trust anyone or anything that belonged to the world of espionage.

The enemy's spies who have come to spy on us must be sought out, tempted with bribes, led away and comfortably housed. Thus they will become double agents and available for our service. It is through the information brought by the double agent that we are able to acquire and employ local and inward spies. It is owing to his information, again, that we can cause the doomed spy to carry false tidings to the enemy.

If you’re going to be involved with espionage, you’ve got to be motivated. It’s not fun and games. It’s dirty and dangerous. There’s always the chance that you’re going to get burned.

Since real spies are so good, you never really know what actual spying is. But I do think spying is a lot more dangerous than we are led to believe.

Spies cannot be usefully employed without a certain intuitive sagacity; They cannot be properly managed without benevolence and straightforwardness; Without subtle ingenuity of mind, one cannot make certain of the truth of their reports; Be subtle! be subtle! and use your spies for every kind of warfare; If a secret piece of news is divulged by a spy before the time is ripe, he must be put to death together with the man to whom the secret was told.

Agents of disruption, subversion, sabotage and disinformation tunnelers and smugglers, listeners and forgers, trainers and recruiters and talent spotters and couriers and watchers and seducers, assassins and balloonists, lip readers and disguise artists.

Espionage is largely separate from the mainstream of foreign policy … you nail the spy and you punish him, and you move on.

Since real spies are so good, you never really know what actual spying is. But I do think spying is a lot more dangerous than we are led to believe.

My name is E. Howard Hunt. I'm currently retired from more than 22 years in the profession of espionage.

The KGB still killed people, the KGB would not execute its last prisoner until the final days of its existence in 1991, but by the eighties a termination required paperwork and signatures and a post-action review.

I don't think I'm prepared to give away my technique to Great Britain. Are you crazy? All I can say is there was a ninja and a fire truck involved, and a great deal of coersion.

The way the United States intelligence community operates is it doesn't limit itself to the protection of the homeland. It doesn't limit itself to countering terrorist threats, countering nuclear proliferation. It's also used for economic espionage, for political spying to gain some knowledge of what other countries are doing.

No one demands more caution than a spy, and when someone has the skeleton key to minds, counter him by leaving the key of caution inside, on the other side of the keyhole.

They [spies] cannot be properly managed without benevolence and straightforwardness.

It is essential to seek out enemy agents who have come to conduct espionage against you and to bribe them to serve you. Give them instructions and care for them. Thus doubled agents are recruited and used.

When you're dealing with espionage and covert affairs, sometimes the secret is more exciting than the knowledge.

I cannot think that espionage can be recommended as a technique for building an impressive civilization. It's a lout's game.

The New York Police Department says Iran has conducted surveillance inside New York City. They say Iranian operatives are using special mobile surveillance units. I believe they're called taxi cabs.

In the case of Pakistan, the CIA actually used a fake vaccination campaign to try to locate Osama bin Laden, so now vaccination is associated with espionage.

The difficulties of conducting espionage against the Soviet Union in the Soviet Union were such that historically the Agency had backed away from the task.

But it is almost impossible to communicate with them [one's spies in the enemy camp] and receive the information they possess ... Even when the general receives from his spies information of movements, he still knows nothing of those which may since have taken place, nor of what the enemy is going finally to attempt.

I always read everything on the desks of people I went to see in Moscow, London, Paris I found it quite useful.

It used to be just CIA agents with ear-pieces who walked round with preoccupied, faraway expressions, and consequently regarded all the little people as irrelevant scum. Now, understandably, it's nearly everybody.