John Stockwell

John R. Stockwell is a former CIA officer who became a critic of United States government policies after serving in the Agency for thirteen years serving seven tours of duty. As Station Chief of the Angola Task Force during its 1975 covert operations, he is the highest-ranking CIA officer ever to leave the agency and go public.

Quotes

• Kissinger was, as always, preoccupied with other matters of state and his rather complicated social life.
  • In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story (1978), Prologue; ISBN 0393057054

• The KGB is by far the world's largest, the Israeli probably the best, and the Iranian and the South Korean the deadliest.
  • Comparing the countries' secret services
  • In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story, "Saigon to Washington"; ISBN 0393057054

• The CIA maintains prepackaged stocks of foreign weapons for instant shipment anywhere in the world.
  • Commenting on US shipment of arms to Africa
  • In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story, "Footsoldiers of foreign policy"; ISBN 0393057054

• A strongly antiagency ambassador can make problems for the CIA chief of station.
  • In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story, "Footsoldiers of foreign policy"; ISBN 0393057054

• The men who control the CIA are of an older, conservative generation which has kept the agency fifteen or twenty years behind the progress of the nation at large.
  • Commenting on discrimination in the CIA
  • In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story, "CIA people policies"; ISBN 0393057054

• Case officers are subject to the same embarassments any tourist suffers-snarled schedules, lost passports, lost money and luggage, and getting off the plane at the wrong destination
  • In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story, "Kinshasa"; ISBN 0393057054

• Customs and immigrations officials are trained to detect the unusual. In some countries they are especially alert to CIA officers
  • In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story, "Kinshasa"; ISBN 0393057054

• I once watched an angry Zairian official very nearly strip and search the person of a CIA GS 17 who had forgotten to speak politely
  • GS 17 is a very high ranking CIA officer
  • In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story, "Kinshasa"; ISBN 0393057054

• Case officers most fear the US ambassador and his staff, then restrictive headquarters cables, then curious gossipy neighbours in the local community, as potential threats to the operation. Next would come the local police, then the press. Last of all is the KGB.
  • In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story, "Kinshasa"; ISBN 0393057054