Quotes by Aldrich Ames - Page 1

The betrayal of trust carries a heavy taboo.
Aldrich Ames /
Betrayal
Heavy
Taboo
Carries
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I'm a traitor, but I don't consider myself a traitor.
Aldrich Ames /
Traitor
Myself Consider
Consider
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Deciding whether to trust or credit a person is always an uncertain task.
Aldrich Ames /
Credit
Tasks
Uncertain
Trust Always Person
Deciding
Task
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I handed over names and compromised so many CIA agents in the Soviet Union.
Aldrich Ames /
Agents
Cia
Cia Agents
Names
Soviet
Soviet Union
Unions
Compromised
Handed
Union
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The human spy, in terms of the American espionage effort, had never been terribly pertinent.
Aldrich Ames /
Effort
Espionage
Pertinent
Spy
Terribly
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The use of the polygraph has done little more than create confusion, ambiguity and mistakes.
Aldrich Ames /
Ambiguity
Confusion
Mistake
Polygraph
Use
Mistakes
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My little scam in April '85 went like this: Give me $50,000; here's some names of some people we've recruited.
Aldrich Ames /
April
Give Me
Giving
Names
People
Me People Some People
Scam
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The FBI, to its credit in a self-serving sort of way, rejects the routine use of the polygraph on its own people.
Aldrich Ames /
Credit
Fbi
People
Polygraph
Rejects
Routine
Self
Self Serving
People Way Use
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By the late '70s I had come to question the point of a great deal of what we were doing, in terms of the CIA's overall charter.
Aldrich Ames /
Charter
Cia
Late
Term
Great Deal
Overall
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No one's interested really in knowing what policies or diplomatic initiatives or arms negotiations might have been compromised by me.
Aldrich Ames /
Arms
Knowing
Might
Compromised
Initiatives
Negotiations
Policies
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We had periodic crises in this country when the technical intelligence didn't support the policy. We had the bomber gap, the missile gap.
Aldrich Ames /
Policy
Bomber
Crises
Gap
Missile
Periodic
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The U.S. is, so far as I know, the only nation which places such extensive reliance on the polygraph. It has gotten us into a lot of trouble.
Aldrich Ames /
Knows
Polygraph
Reliance
Trouble
Extensive
Gotten
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Foreign Ministry guys don't become agents. Party officials, the Foreign Ministry nerds, tend not to volunteer to Western intelligence agencies.
Aldrich Ames /
Agency
Agents
Intelligence Agencies
Ministry
Officials
Party
Volunteer
Western
Agencies
Nerds
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The only thing I ever withheld from the KGB were the names of two agents whom I personally had known and handled and had a particular feeling for.
Aldrich Ames /
Agents
Kgb
Names
Two
Handled
Personally
The Only Thing
Whom
Withheld
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I saw a limit to what I was giving as kind of a scam I was running on the KGB, by giving them people that I knew were their double agents fed to us.
Aldrich Ames /
Running
Agents
Kgb
People
Scam
Double
Fed
Limit
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Our Soviet espionage efforts had virtually never, or had very seldom, produced any worthwhile political or economic intelligence on the Soviet Union.
Aldrich Ames /
Espionage
Soviet
Soviet Union
Worthwhile
Efforts
Union
Produced
Seldom
Virtually
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The national security state has many unfair and cruel weapons in its arsenal, but that of junk science is one which can be fought and perhaps defeated.
Aldrich Ames /
Arsenal
Defeated
Junk
National Security
Unfair
Weapons
Cruel
Fought
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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.
Aldrich Ames /
Agency
Conducting
Espionage
Soviet
Soviet Union
Tasks
Unions
Backed
Difficulties
Historically
Union
Task
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You might as well ask why a middle-aged man with no criminal record might put a paper bag over his head and rob a bank. I acted out of personal desperation.
Aldrich Ames /
Men
Criminals
Desperation
Middle Aged
Might
Paper
Acted
Bag
Bank
Criminal
Rob
Middle-Aged Man
Paper Bag
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To the extent that I considered the personal burden of harming the people who had trusted me, plus the Agency, or the United States, I wasn't processing that.
Aldrich Ames /
Agency
America
Burden
People
Plus
Processing
Trusted
Me People Who
Considered
Extent
Harming
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I found that our Soviet espionage efforts had virtually never, or had very seldom, produced any worthwhile political or economic intelligence on the Soviet Union.
Aldrich Ames /
Effort
Espionage
Political
Soviet
Soviet Union
Unions
Worthwhile
Efforts
Union
Produced
Seldom
Virtually
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When I got the money, the whole burden descended on me, and the realization of what I had done. And it led me then to make the further step, a change of loyalties.
Aldrich Ames /
Burden
Realization
Change Money Me
Descended
Further
Led
Loyalties
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I could have stopped it after they paid me the $50,000. I wouldn't even have had to go on to do more than I already had: just the double agents' names that I gave.
Aldrich Ames /
Agents
Double Standard
Names
Paid
Me More Go
Double
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Perhaps my information hurt the Soviet Union more than it helped. I have no idea. It was not something I ever discussed with the KGB officers that I was dealing with.
Aldrich Ames /
Hurt
Ideas
Kgb
No Idea
Officers
Soviet
Soviet Union
Dealing
Discussed
Helped
Union
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I came into the Agency with a set of ideas and attitudes that were quite typical of people coming into the Agency at that time. You could call it liberal anti-communism.
Aldrich Ames /
Attitude
Agency
Ideas
Typical
Time People Ideas
Attitudes
Liberal
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There are so many things a large intelligence espionage organization can do to justify its existence, that people can get promotions for, because it could result in results.
Aldrich Ames /
Espionage
Justify
Organization
Promotions
Result
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When Reagan was elected, I felt that the Agency had gone much more into the service of a political tendency in the country with which I had already felt very strong disagreement.
Aldrich Ames /
Strength
Agency
Country
Disagreement
Strong
Tendency
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Historians don't really like to carry on speculative debates, but you could certainly argue that the likelihood of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe was extremely, extremely low.
Aldrich Ames /
Europe
Gdp
Invasion
Likelihood
Soviet
Western
Western Europe
Carry
Debates
Extremely
Historians
Low
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I said in court a long time ago that I didn't see that the Soviet Union was significantly helped by the information I gave them, nor that the United States was significantly harmed.
Aldrich Ames /
Court
Long
Long Time Ago
Soviet
Soviet Union
Unions
United States
Time Long Information
Harmed
Helped
Union
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The Soviet Union did not achieve victory over the West, so was my information inadequate to help them to victory, or did it play no particular role in their failure to achieve victory?
Aldrich Ames /
Achieve
Inadequate
Play
Roles
Soviet
Soviet Union
Victory
Union
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An espionage organization is a collector: it collects raw information. That gets processed by a machinery that is supposed to resolve its reliability, and to present a finished product.
Aldrich Ames /
Espionage
Information
Machinery
Organization
Reliability
Resolve
Collector
Finished Product
Processed
Product
Raw
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Espionage, for the most part, involves finding a person who knows something or has something that you can induce them secretly to give to you. That almost always involves a betrayal of trust.
Aldrich Ames /
Betrayal
Espionage
Giving
Trust Always Person
Finding
Induce
Involves
Secretly
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In my professional work with the Agency, by the late '70s, I had come to question the value of a great deal of what we were doing, in terms of the intelligence agency's impact on American policy.
Aldrich Ames /
Agency
Impact
Policy
American Policy
Great Deal
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I knew quite well, when I gave the names of our agents in the Soviet Union, that I was exposing them to the full machinery of counterespionage and the law, and then prosecution and capital punishment.
Aldrich Ames /
Agents
Capital Punishment
Exposing
Law
Machinery
Names
Prosecution
Punishment
Soviet
Soviet Union
Capital
Union
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The resistance of policy-makers to intelligence is not just founded on an ideological presupposition. They distrust intelligence sources and intelligence officials because they don't understand what the real problems are.
Aldrich Ames /
Distrust
Ideological
Officials
Problem
Real
Real Problems
Resistance
Sources
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Because interrogations are intended to coerce confessions, interrogators feel themselves justified in using their coercive means. Consistency regarding the technique is not important; inducing anxiety and fear is the point.
Aldrich Ames /
Anxiety
Coerce
Consistency
Justified
Mean
Technique
Confessions
Intended
Regarding
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Let's say a Soviet exchange student back in the '70s would go back and tell the KGB about people and places and things that he'd seen and done and been involved with. This is not really espionage; there's no betrayal of trust.
Aldrich Ames /
Betrayal
Espionage
Kgb
Soviet
Trust No One
Exchange
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When I handed over the names and compromised so many CIA agents in the Soviet Union, I had come to the conclusion that the loss of these sources to the U.S. would not compromise significant national defense, political, diplomatic interests.
Aldrich Ames /
Agents
Cia
Compromise
Conclusion
Defense
Loss
National Defense
Significant
Soviet
Soviet Union
Handed
Interests
Union
Sources
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Aldrich Ames Quotes - Page 1

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