Always use the chain of command to issue orders, but if you use the chain of command for information, you’re dead.

Hyman Rickover (1900-1986) Polish-American naval engineer, admiral [b. Chaim Gdala Rykower]
(Attributed)
    (Source)

Recalled by James Woolsey, at the time CIA Director (1993-1995), as something said to him by Rickover; in "You've Got To Talk To The Smokers," Newsweek (1994-10-09).

Though this is the form and citation most usually given for this quote, Woolsey had previously attributed a lengthier version to Rickover, though it was not recorded with quotation marks. After having served as Under Secretary of the Navy (1977-1979, during which he presumably interacted with Rickover, who retired in 1983), Woolsey spoke at the "Creativity and Innovation in Bureaucracy" symposium at the National Defense University, Washington, DC, in the panel "Creative Approaches to National Security" (1983-10-27):

Hyman G. Rickover used to say, when you give an order in any military circumstance, make sure you use the chain of command. But if you rely on the chain of command for information, you're dead. I think there's a great deal of truth in that.