Valerie Plame

North Korea is the errant teenage child, aren't they? Or toddler - they're holding their breath until they get their way.

Hair and make-up always helps. I did always try to be well-groomed, professional at all times. Take your job seriously - but not yourself.

I have always been appalled by the depiction of female CIA operatives.

There's a huge impact on national security and intelligence. The new normal is going to be more and more of these hacks, whether it's Target or Home Depot or the Office of Personnel Management or Jennifer Lawrence's nude photos.

One characteristic that I hope I never relinquish is an intense curiosity about the world around me.

A chief of station is the head of all intelligence operations in any given country.

The entire intelligence community is so bloated and so reliant on contractors. There's no question there's many tasks that make sense to outsource, and yet, we have followed blindly this dogma that if it's private contracting, it must be better.

Certainly, if we had not invaded Iraq on intelligence that was clearly manipulated and cherry picked, we would be in a different position today.

Regarding Wikileaks, I have profound ambivalent feelings about it. I am a firm believer in a strong intelligence service. There's a need for classified information.

I can tell you, all the intelligence services in the world were running my name through their databases to see did anyone by this name come in the country? When? Do we know anything about it? Where did she stay? Who did she see?

Privatization is more efficient and effective in some cases, but not in intelligence.

From a counter-intelligence viewpoint, the OPM breach is really scary - but if we continue to see the erosion of purely commercial enterprises, where people lose confidence, the economy falters.