by James L. Pavitt

About the author: James L. Pavitt is the deputy director for operations at the CIA.

[Editor’s Note: The following speech was delivered at the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Law and National Security Breakfast Program on January 23, 2003.]

There is something uniquely American about this gathering. Because only in America would you find the head of the Clandestine Service [the CIA], not only speaking on the record, but speaking on the record in a room filled with lawyers and reporters.

Remember that the next time somebody tries to tell you that the Central Intelligence Agency is risk averse.

In 1942, on a winter morning in neutral Spain, a member of the Office of Strategic Services—our wartime parent—faced one of the hardest...