Source, in full
Purportedly said in reference to the Yalta Conference, this statement has rather been attributed to Rahm Emmanuel, Chief of Staff under U.S. President Barack Obama (perhaps deriving from the fifth chapter on "Communication", from Saul Alinsky's 1971 book, Rules for Radicals, which asserts "a threat or a crisis becomes... a precondition to communication" [in] "the arena of action", p. 89; ISBN 9780679721130), and is clearly evident in the language of M. F. Weiner in a 1976 article entitled “Don’t Waste a Crisis—Your Patient’s or Your Own.” (Medical Economics [full citation needed]). See the Freakonomics.com article