Ronald Kessler Quotes

Ronald Kessler

Profession : Journalist

Birth : December 31, 1943

Whatever they do, criminals and non-criminals act in particular ways. Some writers, for instance, use computers, others pen and paper. Some write in the morning, some at night. Each writer has a distinct style, with variations in grammar, sentence structure, and voice.

Ronald Kessler

Love him or hate him, no one has been able to figure out Donald Trump.

Ronald Kessler

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, decisions made by President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev could have plunged both countries into thermonuclear war.

Ronald Kessler

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.

Ronald Kessler

When 'The Washington Post' ran the first national story about FBI profiling in 1984, no one outside of law enforcement recognized the term.

Ronald Kessler

TacOps is a unit which breaks into homes and offices to plant bugging devices. They get into mafia hangouts, they go into embassies, they go into terrorist hangouts, and they describe themselves as court-sanctioned burglars.

Ronald Kessler

If FBI agents can't be trusted to wiretap within the law, why trust them to carry weapons or make arrests?

Ronald Kessler

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.

Ronald Kessler

As you can tell from the titles of my books, I like to probe secret organizations, secret subjects. And this sometimes gets me into trouble.

Ronald Kessler

One of my books, called 'Moscow Station,' revealed that a KGB archivist had defected from Russia to the FBI. And I knew that he was safe, and revealing this would not jeopardize him. But nevertheless, the FBI started a leak investigation.

Ronald Kessler

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.

Ronald Kessler

In the case of the FBI, I revealed that William Sessions, the FBI director, had been engaging in abuses of all kinds, and I exposed that. And that led to his dismissal by President Clinton.

Ronald Kessler

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.

Ronald Kessler

Rather than use the term 'profiling,' the profilers prefer to say they engage in criminal investigative analysis. That is because, besides developing profiles, the analysts offer a range of other advice, including personality assessments and interview techniques tailored to a particular offender.

Ronald Kessler

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.

Ronald Kessler

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.

Ronald Kessler

With the selection of Acting Secret Service Director Joseph P. Clancy as the director, President Obama has guaranteed that the agency will continue to lurch from one shocking security failure to another.

Ronald Kessler

On a regular basis, to appease White House or campaign staffs, Secret Service officials order agents to ignore basic security rules and let people into events without being put through a magnetometer or metal detector.

Ronald Kessler

The truth is that no internal reviews or congressional hearings will change the Secret Service's broken management culture. It needs better leadership.

Ronald Kessler

In typical Washington fashion, nothing gets reformed until a disaster happens.

Ronald Kessler