"Intelligence is probably the least understood and the most misrepresented of the professions. One reason for this was well expressed by President Kennedy when, on November 18, 1961, he came out to inaugurate the new CIA Headquarters Building and to say good-bye to me as Director. He then remarked: 'Your successes are unheralded, your failures are trumpeted.' For obviously you cannot tell of operatives that go along well. Those that go badly generally speak for themselves.
The President then added a word of encouragement to the several thousand men and women of CIA:
'...but I am sure you realize how important is your work, how essential it is - and in the long sweep of history how significant your efforts will be judged. So I do want to express my appreciation to you now, and I am confident that in the future you will continue to merit the appreciation of your country, as you have in the past.'
It is hardly reasonable to expect proper understanding and support for intelligence work in this country if it is only the insiders, a few people within the executive and legislative branches, who know anything whatever about the CIA. Others continue to draw their knowledge from the so-called inside stories by writers who have never been on the inside."
One gets the impression his claim that all the CIA's successes are secret is a lie. Because there never were any. You would thing 50 years after the man kicked it that at least something would be come out. Not really surprising. If you look at how successful organizations are structured the CIA is not that.
What won the cold war was the West's consumer industrial base. Not the military industrial complex, and certainly not the incompetent people at the CIA with their cunning plans.
The President then added a word of encouragement to the several thousand men and women of CIA:
'...but I am sure you realize how important is your work, how essential it is - and in the long sweep of history how significant your efforts will be judged. So I do want to express my appreciation to you now, and I am confident that in the future you will continue to merit the appreciation of your country, as you have in the past.'
It is hardly reasonable to expect proper understanding and support for intelligence work in this country if it is only the insiders, a few people within the executive and legislative branches, who know anything whatever about the CIA. Others continue to draw their knowledge from the so-called inside stories by writers who have never been on the inside."
- Allen W. Dulles, 'The Craft of Intelligence'