Quotes about Secret Service

Gloria Steinem

The CIA was completely different from its image; it was liberal, nonviolent and honorable.

In her younger days Steinham worked with the CIA. Originally the Office of Strategic Service, the precursor to the CIA, was an amalgam of some of the nation’s most educated and dedicated people who tended to be very idealistic in saving the world from fascists like Nazi Germany and Japan. The were extremely nonpolitical and were not involved in the liberal conservative battles that the agency got itself into as the Red Scare and the fear of Communism affected much of the society including the CIA.

Harry S. Truman

The CIA was set up by me for the sole purpose of getting all the available information to the President. It was not intended to operate as an international agency engaged in strange activities.

Intelligence agents tend to prefer covert activities to the less dramatic, non-exciting, activity of gathering and analyzing intelligence. Most national intelligence services tend to enlarge their portfolio to include covert activities regardless of what the national leaders intended. Because of the secrecy, they can often get away with this.

John le Carre

In my day, MI6 - which I called the Circus in the books - stank of wartime nostalgia. People were defined by secret cachet: one man did something absolutely extraordinary in Norway; another was the darling of the French Resistance. We didn't even show passes to go in and out of the building.

Nathaniel Gleicher

In the 110 years since the Secret Service began protecting the President, only seven assailants have actually reached their target, and only one has accomplished his goal. The Secret Service has maintained this record despite the President meeting tens of thousands of people during his term, and speaking at hundreds of public events every year.

Cybersecurity defenders face a similar problem: they are defending high-value assets that must be protected, but also have to speak to hundreds or thousands of other servers. But our cybersecurity record doesn't look as successful – 2,260 data breaches in 2015 alone, with the majority of intruders taking only minutes to compromise systems, and the majority of defenders taking days to identify a breach.

Gina Haspel

I know CIA like the back of my hand.

Jason Chaffetz

I got more whistleblowers from the Secret Service than I do anywhere else. And if you look at that department and agency, it's the one place you can never, ever, ever make a mistake - ever.

John Forsythe

It was given for all purposes to which a secret service fund should or could be applied to the public benefit—for spies, if the gentleman pleases.

Then a Senator and defending the administration's use of an unvouchered Secret Service fund:

Douglas Brinkley

In 1971, near the middle of Nixon's first term, he approved a plan to install a White House taping system as a way of preserving an accurate chronicle of important discussions and decisions. Except for Nixon, three aides, and the Secret Service, no one knew about the listening devices.

David Ignatius

If you walk into the front hallway of the CIA, you will see, on your left, a statue of William 'Wild Bill' Donovan. Bill Donovan was the person who created the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, which was America's spy agency during World War II and then kind of morphed into what's now the CIA.

Lydia Millet

I've always wondered: is there really any access to the White House?

Fidel Castro

Senator McCain is Israel's most unconditional ally in Mossad's machinations, something that even his worst adversaries would have been able to imagine. McCain participated alongside this secret service in the creation of the Islamic State, which has appropriated a considerable part of Iraq as well as a third of Syria, according to its affirmations.

Will Hurd

I spent close to a decade as an undercover officer in the CIA and have spent most of my adult life collecting intelligence and protecting sources and methods.

Jesse Jackson

I was extended secret service protection during my presidential run in 1984, when I received the most death threats ever made toward a candidate.

Conan O'Brien

President Obama has appointed a new head of the Secret Service. The new Secret Service director was so excited that he jumped over the White House fence for joy.

Franz Halder

Whenever I go and see the Führer, I've got a loaded pistol in my pocket.

Asha Rangappa

The aim of a foreign intelligence service is to find and convince individuals to help them achieve intelligence objectives.

Majel Barrett

Then, all of a sudden, here I am in the Press Room in the White House and walking in with the guards, who handed me three little pieces of paper asking me to send pictures to the guards at the White House.

Pierre Salinger

I had been in so many towns and cities in America with John Kennedy, but I was not with him in Dallas, Texas, on November 21, 1963.

Julia Pierson

When I first joined the Secret Service in 1983, I was right out of college, having spent the last two or three years of my college experience working as a police officer for the city of Orlando, Florida.

Gina Haspel

I joined the CIA in 1985 as an operations officer in the Clandestine Service.

John le Carre

SIS, the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, also has no executive powers and operates abroad on CIA lines, but with a tiny percentage of the budget and a tiny percentage of the personnel.

Jimmy Fallon

As you can imagine, with Hillary Clinton being here, security is very tight. The Secret Service has been here all day sweeping the halls, the offices, the hard drives... It's tight.

Ben Affleck

The first thing that I really understood politically and was old enough to get was the failed assassination attempt on Reagan.

Steven Ford

It's bad enough on a first date trying not to say something dumb without having three Secret Service guys with you.

Geert Wilders

I never worked for any secret service, certainly not the Israeli secret service.

Secret Service Quotes