On May 13, 1798, James Madison wrote an oft-quoted letter to his close friend and fellow Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, in which he warned prophetically that:

the management of foreign relations appears to be the most susceptible of abuse, of all the trusts committed to a Government, because they can be concealed or disclosed, or discosed in such parts and at such time as will best suit particular views; and because the body of the people are less capable of judging and are more under the influence of prejudices, on that branch of their affairs, than of any other. Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretend, from abroad.

On April 18, 1946, Reichsmarchal Herman Goring was interviewed in his jail cell at Nuremberg by Captain Gustave Gilbert, a U.S. Army intelligence psychologist, who later reported these words of Goring's in his 1947 book Nuremberg Diary:

Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a facist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship... The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

Both quotes are taken from "God and Empire" by John Dominic Crossan.