Ronald Kessler
Ronald Kessler
Ronald Borek Kessleris an American journalist and author of 20 non-fiction books about the U.S. Secret Service, FBI, and CIA. Seven of his books have appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth31 December 1943
CountryUnited States of America
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I have one anecdote about the FBI breaking into an embassy in Washington, and under Hoover, they had this sort of ruse whereby they didn't want to recommend a break-in that might be a big flap and cause all kinds of problems.
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The 9/11 commission recommended the appointment of a national intelligence director with budgetary authority to better coordinate the work of the intelligence community and resolve differences.
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Like Jon Voight, Pat Boone, Kelsey Grammer, and Gary Sinise, Clint Howard is one of the few courageous enough to identify himself publicly as a conservative.
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To reform the Secret Service, the agency needs a director from outside the agency who will be immune from that culture and not beholden to entrenched bureaucrats within the agency.
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The really hard thing is how do you get the information in the first place? How do you get someone to rat on someone like bin Laden? That is so difficult and that requires years and patience and money, ... Inside the CIA.
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When I interviewed profilers in 1984 in the basement of the FBI Academy at Quantico, VA., there were just four of them - Roger Depue, John Douglas, Roy Hazelwood, and Robert Ressler.
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Voters who disregarded Richard Nixon's involvement in the questionable ethics issue that led to his Checkers speech should not have been surprised when he orchestrated the Watergate cover-up as president.
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To become a Secret Service agent, applicants must pass a polygraph exam. But after being hired, agents are never required to undergo regular lie detector testing again.
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Usually, it's hard to get organized before the fact, but we're hoping that this is the beginning of a cumulative process that will enable us to learn as much as we can about disasters.
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Bush's aides made the point that not everyone reads the Washington Post and the New York Times. Rather, the Bush people were like antimatter: rather than having the normal inclination to feed their egos by garnering attention, they had the opposite orientation and were nearly impervious to press criticism.
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Should Hillary Clinton run for president, voters who ignore the difference between the image she seeks to project and the reality will have only themselves to blame if her presidency turns into a disaster.
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Since 9/11, the U.S.A. Patriot Act has torn down the invisible wall that was perceived as preventing the FBI and CIA from sharing information.
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I sat next to Carl Bernstein throughout Watergate, and Woodward would come over, and they would argue everything out, so I was really tuned into what happened.
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I like a challenge. The fact that these are secret organizations, and also very important organizations that can engage in abuses that are so important to our national security - all that attracts me.