Hostage Negotiation Quotes

America faced its first hostage crisis in the Middle East… Thomas Jefferson was President and over 100 Americans were being held hostage by Arabs from the Barbary Coast and the Arabs believed that if they were killed, they would go immediately to heaven. 220 years later America is still facing the same problem.

If we ever hope to rid the world of the political AIDS of our time, terrorism, the rule must be clear: One does not deal with terrorists; one does not bargain with terrorists; one kills terrorists.

Many, including the Canadian and U.S. governments, try to provide family support while also maintaining a hard line about further fuelling terrorism and hostage-taking through ransom payments ... Still, try telling that to a mother, or a father, or a husband or wife caught in the powerless agony of standing by.

And if he be taken in battle ... He shall be returned to his native land, in return for his price

We don’t negotiate for hostages’ release.

I was forbidden to talk to my fellow hostages.

In my years as the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator, I learned an important fundamental lesson: Hostage negotiation is often nothing more than a business transaction.

It has to do with the incredibly dangerous place that this world is gonna be as a result of a deal in which we got nothing. We didn't even get four hostages out. We got nothing, and Iran gets everything they want.

Well, does he still have his fingernails? Making inquiries while negotiating the release of a US Army pilot from North Korea, in Time.

We will fight hostage taking like we fight terrorism.

Barack Obama said he may negotiate with the Taliban. A lot of people are saying okay, but be careful. But I said this guy has experience negotiating with the enemy. For gosh sake, he lives with his mother-in-law, you know.

Tell the FBI that the kidnappers should pick out a judge that Nixon wants back.

If I were to be taken hostage, I would not plead for release nor would I want my government to be blackmailed. I think certain government officials, industrialists and celebrated persons should make it clear they are prepared to be sacrificed if taken hostage. If that were done, what gain would there be for terrorists in taking hostages?

The best way to avoid hostages being taken in the future is to devalue the hostages that exist.

In the early years of America's skyjacking epidemic, the airlines were reluctant to let the FBI attempt to end hijackings by force; they feared that innocents would get caught in the crossfire, thereby sparking a wave of negative publicity.

If your plane is being hijacked by an armed man who, though prepared to take risks, presumably wants to go on living, there is room for bargaining.

The big-time journalists generally had kidnapping insurance through their news organizations. Usually, it would pay for a crisis response company to help negotiate for a hostage's release. Freelancers most often had none.

In Syria, for some time, they have been trading hostages for a number of things: for weapons, for money, for political influence, and for favors.

Swapping Bergdahl for illegal enemy combatants (terrorists, in common parlance) signaled unmistakably to Taliban and al Qaeda that Obama is determined to withdraw from Afghanistan no matter what the cost to the United States or those in Afghanistan fighting to remain free.

Telling families of hostages that the United States will not pay ransom is as tough as anything I do..

I believe it's a real tedious hostage negotiation to have a marriage be what it is.

No family of an American hostage has ever been prosecuted for paying a ransom for the return of their loved ones. The last thing we should ever do is to add to a family's pain.

I could probably have made the head shot from the railing, but with an unfamiliar gun, it was too risky. I didn't want to accidentally shoot the woman in the head. Killing the hostage is always frowned upon.

Barkley was the first of many American skyjackers whose primary interest was money; by 1972, the majority of the nation's hijackings would involve demands for ransom. Barkley himself was declared incompetent to stand trial in November 1971, at which point he was committed to a psychiatric hospital in Georgia.

We want Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead!