Canadian Defence Minister Paul Hellyer

Former Minister of National Defence, Paul Hellyer, is one of Canada’s best known and most controversial politicians. He was first elected in 1949, and was the youngest cabinet minister appointed to Louis S. St. Laurent’s government eight years later. He held senior posts in the governments of Lester B. Pearson and Pierre E. Trudeau. He achieved the rank of senior master (Deputy Prime Minister), and went on to become the Canadian Defence Minister. He is best known for the unification of the Canadian Armed Forces, and in September 2005 he became the first person of cabinet rank in the G8 group of countries to state unequivocally that “UFOs are as real as the airplanes flying overhead.”

Here’s what he had to say about the world of secrecy:

It is ironic that the U.S. would begin a devastating war, allegedly in search of weapons of mass destruction, when the most worrisome developments in this field are occurring in your own backyard. It is ironic that the U.S. should be fighting monstrously expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, allegedly to bring democracy to those countries, when it itself can no longer claim to be called a democracy, when trillions, and I mean thousands of billions of dollars have been spent on projects about which both the Congress and the Commander in Chief have been kept deliberately in the dark. (source)
The 28th U.S. President Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson, an American academic, politician, and the 28th president of the United States, had this to say (among other things) in his book The New Freedom. The book also contains several other, similarly eye-opening statements:

Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it. (source)
The 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy

Here’s what JFK had to say in one of his most famous speeches:

The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. … For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. (source)

John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President of The United States

John C. Calhoun was the 7th Vice President of the United States, from 1825-1832. He was also a political theorist during the first half of the 19th century.

Here’s what he had to say:

A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many, and various, and powerful interests, combined into one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in the banks. (source)

This quote reminds me of a great clip from the Thrive documentary by Foster Gamble, heir to the Proctor Gamble corporation. He was groomed for the establishment, but chose a different path.

New York City Mayor John F. Hylan

John F. Hylan was Mayor of New York City from 1918-1925. He has been famously quoted as saying:

The real menace of our Republic is the invisible government, which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy legs over our cities, states and nation … The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both parties … [and] control the majority of the newspapers and magazines in this country. They use the columns of these papers to club into submission or drive out of office public officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques which compose the invisible government. It operates under cover of a self-created screen [and] seizes our executive officers, legislative bodies, schools, courts, newspapers and every agency created for the public protection. (source)(source)
Senator William Jenner

A United States senator who said this to Congress in 1954:

Today the path to total dictatorship in the U.S. can be laid by strictly legal means … We have a well-organized political-action group in this country, determined to destroy our Constitution and establish a one-party state … It operates secretly, silently, continuously to transform our Government … This ruthless power-seeking elite is a disease of our century… This group … is answerable neither to the President, the Congress, nor the courts. It is practically irremovable. (source)
Senator Daniel K. Inouye

Inouye was the highest ranking Asian-American politician in United States history, serving the democratic party from 1963 until his death in 2012.

There exists a shadowy government with its own Air Force, its own Navy, its own fundraising mechanism, and the ability to pursue its own ideas of the national interest, free from all checks and balances, and free from the law itself. (source)
34th U.S. President And 5 Star General, Dwight Eisenhower

In his farewell address to the nation, president Eisenhower offered these words of caution:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. … Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defence with our peaceful message and goals. (source)

This speech is relevant to share here, because the disastrous rise of misplaced power within the military industrial complex has indeed occurred…
Benjamin Disraeli, First British MP

The world is governed by very different personages to what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes. (Coningsby, Book 4, Chap. 15.) – Page 131
26th U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt

President Roosevelt revealed this information:

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.