Walter Pforzheimer helped draft the legislation that created the CIA and built the world's greatest collection of intelligence literature in English.

Nothing was closer to his heart than a George Washington letter from 1777 in which he wrote, "The necessity of procuring good intelligence is apparent and 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 enterprises of the kind, and for want of it, they are generally defeated, however well planned and promising a favorable issue."

It was his practice to buy two copies of a book whenever he could -- one for the agency, and one for his own collection.