What political leaders decide, intelligence services tend to seek to justify.
Interpretation
Political leaders often make decisions that intelligence agencies then work to rationalize and validate.
This quote by Henry A. Kissinger highlights the intricate relationship between political leadership and intelligence services. It suggests that decisions made by leaders are often backed up by intelligence agencies that seek to legitimize or justify those decisions, regardless of their ethical implications. This underscores the potential for manipulation and the way in which intelligence can be shaped to fit the narrative of political agendas.
In practice
In a discussion on the role of intelligence in political decision-making during a seminar.
Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed. History is a tale of efforts that failed, or aspirations that werenβt realized. So, as a historian, one has to live with a sense of the inevitability of tragedy.
Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God.
It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.
The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.
If peace is equated simply with the absence of war, it can become abject pacifism that turns the world over to the most ruthless.
If I should ever be captured, I want no negotiation - and if I should request a negotiation from captivity they should consider that a sign of duress.
When you restore democracy, you cannot say that only those who worked for the restoration of democracy will be allowed to use the privileges of a democracy.
Congress is, after all, not a body of laymen unfamiliar with the commonplaces of our law. This legislation was the formulation of the two Judiciary Committees, all of whom are lawyers, and the Congress is predominately a lawyers' body.
I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this - who will count the votes, and how.
All anyone needs to enjoy the state legislature is a strong stomach and a complete insensitivity to the needs of the people. As long as you don't think about what that peculiar body should be doing and what it actually is doing to the quality of life in Texas, then it's all marvelous fun.
In 1984, George Orwell wrote of a world where the only colour to be found was in the propaganda posters. Such is the case in North Korea. Images of Kim Il-sung are depicted in vivid colours. Rays of yellow and orange emanate from his face: he is the sun.
The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.
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