Words&Dirt

“‘A king is a creature of the moment,’ he went on. ‘He’s constantly under threat, from rebels within his own kingdom and from neighboring monarchs. He needs allies.’”

––The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett, loc. 7395

“I liken the intelligence-policy dialogue as a room with two doors, one labeled intelligence, the other reserved for the decision maker. Since the decision maker can range from a tactical commander, to a cabinet secretary, to a president, the ‘room’ can range from a canvas-covered tactical operations center, to an ornate office, to an oval one.

In any case, the dynamics are the same. Even though the two enter through separate doors, the intelligence professional must connect with the decision maker. Ideally, that would be in the center of the room, but even if it is not, the job of intelligence is to impose itself on the thinking of the other, no matter how far one has to walk to capture him.

And that can be hard, since to legitimately enter through the intelligence door, one has to be fact-based and see the world as it is, while the policy maker is rightly vision-based (taking us somewhere) and picturing the world as he/she would like it to be.”

––Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror, by Michael V. Hayden, pg. 428