Volkman Ernest, Baggett Blaine. Secret Intelligence. The Inside Story of America's Espionage Empire

New York - London - Toronto - Sydney - Auckland, Dell Publishing Group Inc., 1989. — 266 p. — ISBN: 0-385-24590-4."The necessity of procuring good Intelligence is apparent/' George Washington wrote to a friend in 1777, "& need not be further urged — All that Remains for me to add is, that you keep the whole matter as secret as possible. For upon Secrecy, Success depends in Most Enterprizes of the kind, and for want of it, they are generally defeated, however well planned & promising a favourable issue."
However apparent, ten years later, the very same man who wrote that letter would say nothing about intelligence or secrecy when he presided over the great Constitutional Convention convened to forge the famous document. Indeed, there is no mention in the Constitution of intelligence, or spies, or intelligence agencies, or internal security — nothing of what some have called the "American national security state," the vast American espionage and internal security apparatus that form the most intriguing aspect of the greatest military and economic power the world has ever seen.