By the late '70s I had come to question the point of a great deal of what we were doing, in terms of the CIA's overall charter.

Perhaps my information hurt the Soviet Union more than it helped. I have no idea. It was not something I ever discussed with the KGB officers that I was dealing with.

I found that our Soviet espionage efforts had virtually never, or had very seldom, produced any worthwhile political or economic intelligence on the Soviet Union.

The use of the polygraph has done little more than create confusion, ambiguity and mistakes.

The betrayal of trust carries a heavy taboo.

Espionage, for the most part, involves finding a person who knows something or has something that you can induce them secretly to give to you. That almost always involves a betrayal of trust.

The human spy, in terms of the American espionage effort, had never been terribly pertinent.