Ray McGovern
Ray McGovern is an American intelligence analyst and human rights defender, born in The Bronx on August 25, 1939.
McGovern pursued an extensive academic path, attending Fordham University before going on to study at Georgetown University. He also received education at both Harvard University and Harvard Business School, giving him a broad foundation that spanned liberal arts and professional disciplines.
His career took him into the field of intelligence analysis, work for which he was recognized formally upon his departure from the profession. At his retirement, McGovern received the Intelligence Commendation Medal, an award that marked the close of his analytical career and acknowledged his contributions during that time.
Beyond his work as an intelligence analyst, McGovern has also been active as a human rights defender, a role that reflects a sustained engagement with issues of conscience and accountability. That combination — professional intelligence work followed by public advocacy on human rights — runs through the record of his adult life as a recurring and defining thread.
Quotes by Ray McGovern
When an administration embarks on a war justified by little or no intelligence, speaking the truth can be regarded as treachery. The country could use more of that kind of "treachery".
My view of Bradley Manning is that he's a very courageous young man who... did what I didn't have the guts to do during the Vietnam war.
This was the ethos of the intelligence analysis directorate during most of the 27 years I spent there.
I knew about some experience on the operational part of the CIA with Latin American services and so forth having to do with torture. But this was the first time that the CIA was openly advocating for permission to be able to torture. And that seemed to me so abhorrent that I wanted to disassociate myself from the CIA for the first time since 1963, because I didn't want to be associated in any way, however remotely, with an agency engaged in torture.
![When Private Bradley [aka Chelsea] Manning put his conscience ahead of his personal well-being by allegedly releasing important information to the world's public via WikiLeaks, he was put into an inhumane solitary confinement and is now facing charges that carry the possibility of him spending the rest of his life in prison.](https://lakl0ama8n6qbptj.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/quotes/quote-2085118.png)
When Private Bradley [aka Chelsea] Manning put his conscience ahead of his personal well-being by allegedly releasing important information to the world's public via WikiLeaks, he was put into an inhumane solitary confinement and is now facing charges that carry the possibility of him spending the rest of his life in prison.
You know, we may just be planting seeds for future generations, but that's okay. We can't be deterred from doing things, because we might be laughed at, because somebody might say, "What did you think you'd accomplish by turning your back on the secretary of state," or something like that.
Now the big danger is to avoid doing anything, unless you have a surety, unless you have an assurance that you'll be successful. It's not about being successful. It's about being faithful. The good is worth doing, because it's good. And who knows what the results will be?
Form a small group. Five or six people, of people who think the way you do, and are willing to meet regularly, every week, and you will be surprised at what imaginative, gutsy thought and action comes out of that synergy. Takes a while, but there's something that every little group like that can do.
We all have a responsibility, and as Rabbi Heschel, one of my prophets, has put it: "Those who condone, or are silent, in the face of injustice, are more guilty than the perpetrators." And so, to the degree we pretend to be a democracy, we have a corresponding duty to be activist enough to prevent our human rights form being infringed upon.
And the passiveness, you know, the apathy, well, that's not responsible citizenship. When I'm asked, why am I an activist, I say, well that's the rent that I pay for living on this planet, okay?