Secret service

“ I have heard it urged that the thought of Secret Service is repugnant to the British heart, wherein are instilled the purest principles of freedom. The argument has sounded strange in my ears when I remembered that London, as somebody has said, is the cesspool of Europe, the shelter of the worst ruffians of every country and clime. America is called the Land of the Free, but she could give England points in the working of the Secret Service, for there there is no stinting of men or money. ”

“ Secret service has been long a term of great use to the ministers of this nation; a term of art to which such uncommon efficacy has been hitherto annexed, that the people have been influenced by it to pay taxes, without expecting to be informed how they were applied, having been content with being told, when they inquired after their properties, that they were exhausted and dissipated in secret service. ”

“ Paying no attention to his chief's scrutiny, the Secret Service agent contemplated the luxurious appointments of the limousine with satisfaction and puffed contentedly at his cigarette. His air of breeding was unmistakable, but the devil-may-care sparkle in his gray-blue eyes redeemed an otherwise expressionless face from being considered heavy. The spirits of the Herr Chief of the Secret Service rose. His recollection and judgment was still good; his agent, by men and women, would be deemed extremely handsome. ”

“ In the Secret Service one must paddle one's own canoe, alone and unassisted; always up-stream; always through dangerous rapids, wherein at every yard are hidden rocks and snags ready to tear the frail craft asunder ”

“ The merest novice who enters in any capacity into the limelight of publicity, even artists, literary men, frail queans of the demi-monde, financiers, politicians, social fancy-men, jockeys, actors, clerics, opulent mistresses, editors—all these in point of personal "pedigree," to cull an expression from the American police vocabulary, are better known to the secret service than to their own parents. ”

“ Imagine the feelings of the patient chiefs of the Foreign Secret Service Department. They had silently sat for months watching the efforts of their captured staff hampered at every turn whilst they were persistently building up a sound, practical, useful organisation, which a fool and his folly overturned, like a house of cards, in one day. They had been actually stopped from controlling the movements of their own men, yet they were responsible for their pay and their expenses ”

“ My best agents, when I had charge of secret-service work, were as much entitled to respect as were my officers in the Criminal Investigation Department when I had charge of that branch of Police work, or as our military who 'spy' the German trenches from aeroplanes. Others again take up that sort of work for 'filthy lucre sake,' and yet others from all sorts of motives, some praiseworthy and some contemptible. Spies differ as much as parsons or doctors, and no general rule can be applied to them. ”

“ XI. The Girl in the Picture I advanced to meet the man with a sense of victory. The United States Secret Service had searched the world for him. He had been long concealed. But my sense of victory vanished when I saw him.
He sat in a great chair on the long terrace that overlooked the sweep of lawn and the dark, rapid river. He had been, all the time, under our very noses. We had thought of every other place except an English country house within a jump of London. And he had been sitting here in every comfort that money could assemble. ”

“ But these experiences of the ups and downs of life pale and sink into insignificance when compared with the vortex of the rapid, rushing, kaleidoscopic changes, the hair-breadth escapes, the blood-curdling thrills, the risks, the dangers and excitements, which at times are part and parcel of the life of a Secret Service agent. ”

“ Regaled as we have long been with the fantasies and fictions of modern French writers and their inspired master detectives, we find ourselves almost invariably crediting the French system of secret service with being, in respect of its excellence, an exemplar to all other kindred bodies. No satire, so far as we know, of the stolen-white-elephant type has ever yet been written with the object of pointing out the futility of its processes or the imbecility of its methods, and in any case, it is a matter of statistical record that the amount of undiscovered crime in France is twenty per cent. ”

“ If you EVER state that you intend to kill the President, the Secret Service will want to know and record who you are, where you are, what you are, and what you're up to. If you're a serious threat—if you're officially considered "of protective interest"—then the Secret Service may well keep tabs on you for the rest of your natural life. ”

“ He had trembled before the woman in the garden a moment since; the stone walls of the house were no more rigidly composed than he in the drawing-room now. It came to him that there was nothing left but one great battle in that room unless they shot him from behind door or window or portière, giving him no chance. If they did confront him openly he would show them that if he had chosen the Secret Service and the life of a spy he could fight and die like a man and a soldier. He held some lives within the chamber of his revolver, and they should pay did they give him but a chance. ”

“ When our troops entered Richmond, among other rebel documents found was a bill, offered in secret session of the rebel House of Representatives, January 30th, 1865, establishing a Secret Service Bureau, for the employment of secret agents, "either in the Confederate States, or within the enemy's lines, or in any foreign country," and authorizing the chief officer "to organize such a system for the application of new means of warfare approved, and of secret service agencies, as may tend best to secure the objects of the establishment of the bureau." ”

“ Just what the loss is could not be learned by our correspondent from any one in authority, but the general activity of both the Secret Service and the War College seems to confirm the rumors current in the capital tonight. ”

“ And you, sir, a citizen of high standing and repute, were detected in the act of transferring many of these important papers to a spy, thus periling the safety of the nation. You were caught red-handed, so to speak, but made your escape and in a manner remarkable and even wonderful for its adroitness have for years evaded every effort on the part of our Secret Service Department to effect your capture. ”

“ The average man or woman has only a hazy idea what European Secret Service and Espionage really means and accomplishes. Short stories and novels, written in a background of diplomacy and secret agents, have given the public vague impressions about the world of spies. ”

“ Where his personality will not thrust itself upon the scene, his shadow will darken every act and incident. From this time onward, for a period of twenty years, I used the man as my dupe. Feeding his vanity, assisting his ambition, helping him in the hundred and odd ways in which it was possible for me to do, I gained his friendship and his confidence to such an extent, that no man in the whole course of my career in the Secret Service proved a more valuable, albeit an unconscious, ally than he. ”

“ It must be more than a coincidence that Secret Service agents often find themselves in the middle of a small crowd where the pick-pocketing fraternity are undoubtedly represented. Be as careful, polite, and inoffensive as possible, quick-tempered, irascible irreconcilables will at times attempt to pick a quarrel. ”

“ The Secret Service risk their lives to protect the President and his family. For 130 years, they have stood watch over the people and the institutions of our democracy. They are the best in the world at what they do. ”

“ Irving replied.
"Of course, you hadn't. You'd have been too scientific for a secret service operative, wouldn't you?"
"Can't secret service people be scientific?" Irving inquired.
"What do you think about it?" asked the surgeon. "You ought to know more about it than I do. But I'll tell you what my frank and unscientific opinion in the matter is."
"What is it?"
"That government secret service is 1 per cent information and 99 per cent bluff."
"That's a little strong on the side of the bluff," said the spy, smiling. ”

“ Secret Service.—In practically every civilized country, there is always a department of the government charged with the duty of espionage, either diplomatic or domestic. Its officials work in secret, and certain sums of money are placed at the disposal of the head of the department, and expended as he may think lit, without having to render any specific account of them. ”

“ I am an official in the United States Secret Service. I, and others like me, try to guard the welfare of our country and to expose or thwart persons who are that country's enemies or who are working to injure its interests. ”

“ It shows how the Secret Service leaves nothing to chance, how it watches and waits, how it plays enemy agents upon strings so long as they are useful, and grabs them when they have ceased to be useful or have become dangerous. ”

“ In fact I was never so busy in all my life as during those four weeks of preparation for the stupendous task I had set myself; and you will understand that there were countless things to do, unnumbered details to arrange, and a thousand and one ramifications of the work to be planned and plotted and thoroughly comprehended, not alone by myself, but by the men I would gather around me to work under my direction.
The organization of a secret service bureau, no matter how general may be its duties, is at least a monumental task ”

“ Secret Service.It frequently happens in negotiation as in war that well-chosen spies contribute more than any other agency to the success of great plans, and indeed it is clear that there is nothing so well adapted to upset the best design as the sudden and premature revelation of an important secret upon which it depends. ”

“ Some day, however, a big thing will happen, about which there will be no leakage beforehand, and then the affrighted and indignant British citizen will turn on his faithful band of thirty and rant and rave at them for their want of capacity and performance. The fault will be the want of a perfect system of Secret Service, properly financed. If plots are to be discovered in time—and already there are some whisperings of coming danger—they can only be discovered through information coming from those associated with them. ”

“ After the establishment of the Republic the spy police was reorganised and a special brigade of secret-service agents was formed whose object was—and still is—to spy upon all those political sects at the head of which stand pretenders like the Duke of Orleans, or Prince Napoleon, or the late General Boulanger. At any grave political crisis in France these political sects display more than their usual energies, trusting more or less, as they do, in the star of their particular candidate, and at such times the corps of spies become correspondingly active. ”

“ For every German spy or would-be spy in America, there was an agent of the Secret Service, equally resourceful, and more likely to succeed, because, no matter how clumsy his adversary seemed, he never made the mistake of underrating him. ”

“ Grundt raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders. But he made no comment on my ungraciousness.
"Herr Major!" he said as he bit off the end of his cigar, "I must once more congratulate you on the supreme excellence of your country's Secret Service! The intelligence system which located this remote island as the hiding-place, real or imaginary, of treasure, is remarkable! The resource you displayed in acquiring the document which now rests in the letter-case in your pocket does credit both to the service and yourself. ”

“ Spying is against an Englishman’s notion of fair-play, but to such an extent have the other great Powers carried the operation of their various Intelligence Departments that to the Foreign Office the secret service has become a most necessary adjunct. ”

“ Successful as I was in evading detection through all this work, those assisting me in my Secret Service capacity were not always destined to share in my good luck. This was particularly the case on one occasion. I was at the time shipping arms at Malone, N.Y., and attended, on behalf of the Canadian Government, by one of the staff of men placed at my disposal for the purposes of immediate communication and the transit of any documents requiring secrecy and despatch, as well as for personal protection, should such prove necessary. ”

“ It’s no use to try to fool you any longer. I am a Secret Service man as you know. And I’m after that gang of canal boat men. I’m mightily obliged to you for your help to-night.”
“It was mighty little help I gave you,” said Willie, “though I’d have been glad to help you if I could.”
“You were a good deal of help. A fellow always likes to know he has somebody near that he can rely on. Nothing turned up, to be sure, but if those fellows had tumbled to who I was, I’d have needed you all right enough—and a whole platoon of cops beside.” And the Secret Service man chuckled. ”

“ Into its secret intelligence bureau flows information from every part of Europe. The military attaché of the present day is responsible for much that is pigeon-holed in its offices—services of transportation, war material, armaments, railroads, mobilisation plans, finances—and there is little of moment in any other country upon which French emissaries cannot throw all necessary light in the way of special information. From the General Staff down every military official collects his quota. ”