L. Fletcher Prouty Quotes.

1. "To most Europeans, I guess, America now looks like the most dangerous country in the world. Since America is unquestionably the most powerful country, the transformation of America’s image within the last thirty years is very frightening for Europeans. It is probably still more frightening for the great majority of the human race who are neither Europeans nor North Americans, but are Latin Americans, Asians and Africans. They, I imagine, feel even more insecure than we feel. They feel that, at any moment, America may intervene in their internal affairs with the same appalling consequences as have followed from American intervention in Southeast Asia."
- L. Fletcher Prouty, The Secret Team: The CIA & its Allies in Control of the United States & the World

2. "It is always of paramount importance to know that the information we have is not planted, false or a product of deception."
- L. Fletcher Prouty, The Secret Team: The CIA & its Allies in Control of the United States & the World

3. "The preparations for and the writing of such influential reports as this one attributed to McNamara was a work of skill, perseverance, and high art. Whenever it was decided that McNamara would go to Saigon, select members of the ST sent special messages to Saigon on the ultra-secure CIA communications network, laying out a full scenario for his trip. The Secretary of Defense and his party would be shown combat devastated villages that had paths and ruts that had been caused by the hard work and repeated rehearsals—not battles—that had taken place in them between natives, Vietnamese soldiers, and Americans. McNamara would be taken on an itinerary planned in Washington, he would see close-in combat designed in Washington, and he would receive field data and statistics prepared for him in Washington. All during his visit he would be in the custody of skilled briefers who knew what he should see, whom he should see, and whom he should not see."
- L. Fletcher Prouty, The Secret Team: The CIA & its Allies in Control of the United States & the World

4. "As soon as World War II was over, President Truman dissolved the OSS to assure that clandestine operations would cease immediately. Six months later, when he founded the Central intelligence Group, he expressly denied a covert role for that authority and restricted the DCI to a coordinating function. During the debates leading up to the passage of the National Security Act of 1947 (NSA/47), proponents of a clandestine role for the CIA were repeatedly outmaneuvered and outvoted in Congress. In his book The Secret War, Sanche de Gramont reports: The NSA/47 replaced the CIG with the CIA, a far more powerful body. From the hearings on the NSA/47 it is evident that no one knew exactly what the nature of the beast would be. At that time a member of the House, Representative Fred Busby, made the prophetic and quite accurate remark: I wonder if there is any foundation for the rumors that have come to me to the effect that through this CIA they are contemplating operational activities. That congressman knew what he was talking about, and as we look back upon a quarter-century of the CIA it seems hard to believe that he wasn’t sure that was exactly what they were up to in the first place."
- L. Fletcher Prouty, The Secret Team: The CIA & its Allies in Control of the United States & the World

5. "The CIA was created by the NSA/47 and placed under the direction of the NSC, a committee. This same act had established the NSC at the same time. Therefore, the CIA’s position relative to the NSC was without practice and precedent; but the law was specific in placing the agency under the direction of that committee, and in not placing the Agency in the Office of the President and directly under his control. In conclusion, this act provided that among the duties the CIA would perform, it would: . . . (5) perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the National Security as the NSC may from time to time direct. This was the inevitable loophole, and as time passed and as the CIA and the ST grew in power and know-how they tested this clause in the Act and began to practice their own interpretation of its meaning. They believed that it meant they could practice clandestine operations. Their perseverance paid off. During the summer of 1948 the NSC issued a directive, number 10/2, which authorized special operations, with two stipulations: (a) Such operations must be secret, and (b) such operations must be plausibly deniable. These were important prerequisites."
- L. Fletcher Prouty, The Secret Team: The CIA & its Allies in Control of the United States & the World

6. "These brief statements are truly amazing and in some respects may be among the most important lines in the entire New York Times presentation of the Pentagon Papers. They show how deeply the clandestine, operating side of the CIA hid behind its first and best cover, that of being an intelligence agency. How can the Times miss the point so significantly? Either the Times is innocent of the CIA as an intelligence organization versus the CIA as a clandestine organization, a highly antagonistic and competitive relationship, or the Times somehow played into the hands of those skillful apologists who would have us all believe that the Vietnam problem was the responsibility of others and not of the CIA operating as a clandestine operation. Let us consider an example:"
- L. Fletcher Prouty, The Secret Team: The CIA & its Allies in Control of the United States & the World

7. "In response to the question, Would the U.S. ambassador in the country concerned know about your activities there? Raborn replied, CIA’s overseas personnel are subordinate to the U.S. ambassadors. We operate with the foreknowledge and approval of the ambassador. The reader may have his choice in concluding that Admiral Raborn either made an untrue statement, or that he did not know how his clandestine services operated. I choose to believe the latter. In either case, there are countless instances in which the ambassador does not know what the CIA is doing. Kenneth Galbraith’s Ambassador’s Journal is all anyone needs to read to see that. Or would someone like to say that Ambassador Keating in India knew what Henry Kissinger and his Agency friends were doing in Pakistan and India during the December, 1971, conflict? Another case would be that of Ambassador Timberlake in the Congo. It would be unthinkable that the DCI, in this case Admiral Raborn, would intentionally make untrue statements in a national publication such as the U.S. News and World Report. The least he could have done would have been to avoid the question entirely. The deeper meaning of this interview is that Admiral Raborn, after more than a year of duty as DCI, simply did not know how his operating agents worked."
- L. Fletcher Prouty, The Secret Team: The CIA & its Allies in Control of the United States & the World

8. "Ngo Dinh Diem was a selection and creation of the CIA, as well as others such as Admiral Arthur Radford and Cardinal Spellman, but the primary role in the early creation of the father of his country image for Ngo Dinh Diem was played by the CIA—and Edward G. Lansdale was the man upon whom this responsibility fell. He became such a firm supporter of Diem that when he visited Diem just after Kennedy’s election he carried with him a gift from the U.S. Government, a huge desk set with a brass plate across its base reading, To Ngo Dinh Diem, The Father of His Country. The presentation of that gift to Diem by Lansdale marked nearly seven years of close personal and official relationship, all under the sponsorship of the CIA. It was the CIA that created Diem’s first elite bodyguard to keep him alive in those early and precarious days. It was the CIA that created the Special Forces of Vietnamese troops, which were under the tight control of Ngo Dinh Nhu, and it was the CIA that created and directed the tens of thousands of paramilitary forces of all kinds in South Vietnam during those difficult years of the Diem regime. Not until the U.S. Marines landed in South Vietnam, in the van of the escalation in 1964, did an element of American troops arrive in Vietnam that were not under the operational control of the CIA."
- L. Fletcher Prouty, The Secret Team: The CIA & its Allies in Control of the United States & the World

9. "Since sovereignty is priceless and must be inviolate, it is fundamental that no nation has the right to do that which if every other nation did likewise, would destroy this fragile fabric of civilization. We all agree in 99 percent of the cases that no nation has the right to infringe overtly upon the sovereignty of another. Since there is no higher court or other jurisdictional body empowered as final and absolute arbiter over the nations of the world, judgments in such cases must be left to the honor that exists among nations."
- L. Fletcher Prouty, The Secret Team: The CIA & its Allies in Control of the United States & the World

10. "A nation is not supposed to become involved in covert activity—ever. Therefore its commander in chief is not—ever—supposed to be involved either in the success or the failure of such action. Recent CIA failures such as the U-2, Indonesia, the Bay of Pigs, and more recently, Indochina, have involved the Commander in Chief. At this point when a covert operation has failed and has become public knowledge, the President is faced with a most unpleasant dilemma. He must accept the responsibility for the operation or he must not. If he does, he admits that this country has been officially and willfully involved in an illegal and traditionally unpardonable activity. If he does not, he admits that there are subordinates within his Government who have taken upon themselves the direction of such operations, to jeopardize the welfare and good name of this country by mounting clandestine operations. Such an admission requires that he dismiss such individuals and banish them from his Administration."
- L. Fletcher Prouty, The Secret Team: The CIA & its Allies in Control of the United States & the World