John le Carré - Intelligence Quotes

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To operate an intelligence network against the Islamist terror is terribly difficult because they don't have a central command and control center such as we would understand. Therefore you cannot penetrate at the top and find out what will happen on the ground.

John le Carré
It's part of a writer's profession, as it's part of a spy's profession, to prey on the community to which he's attached, to take away information - often in secret - and to translate that into intelligence for his masters.

John le Carré
I am sure that the best intelligence services must still be Israel's. They've made awful mistakes, as intelligence services will, but that's because Mossad and Shin Bet are splendidly motivated. If Israel loses a battle, it loses the war; if it loses the war, it loses its country.

John le Carré
As an intelligence officer in the guise of a junior diplomat at the British Embassy in Bonn, I was a secret to my colleagues, and much of the time to myself.

John le Carré
It's easy to forget what intelligence consists of: luck, and speculation. Here and there a windfall, here and there a scoop.

John le Carré
[Intelligence] brings to a strong government what it needs to know. It's the collection of information, a journalistic job, if you will, but done in secret. All the rest of it — intervention, destabilization, assassination, all that junk — is in my view not only anticonstitutional but unproductive and silly. You can never foresee the consequences.

John le Carré
It's necessary to understand what real intelligence work is. It will never cease. It's absolutely essential that we have it. At its best, it is simply the left arm of healthy governmental curiosity.

John le Carré