THE POLITICS OF LYING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200230030-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 26, 2004
• Sequence Number: 30
• Publication Date: June 17, 1973
• Content Type: NSPR

THE NEV YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW P - w ` s eJ (') .t
Approved,For Release 2005/01 l13 F )8-01350R000iF062 3 _6, 2- 7
The trouble with the truth h
LL 1 s ~~ P_ andf obscu~est he even mor
ed States lie? And, especially, ment chooses to lie; what it important question of wh,
The C'pl' ics Dwight D. Eisenhower? Ike real- gains or loses by lying; and Presidents, other politicians
ized the cost of the lie, appar- when and why the liars get and bureaucrats lie. Take Watez
ently, for in retirement he said away with it. The complex gate. for example-a classi
Of Lying that "the lie we told about the reasns that lead officials into and'staggering case of lyin
U-2" was his "greatest regret." public deception are not ex- apparently at every level of th
Government by Deception, Thirteen years after the U-2 plored here. Government. But why? Mi
Secrecy and Power. was shot down, the trust the The extraordinary irony of Wise's book (which was fin
By David Wise. United States Government once the way in which public lying ished before the more recen
415 pp. New York: had has been seriously eroded. creates self-deception within spectacular events) does no
Random House. $8.95. Who would believe that cover provide us with many clues
the executive branch (and the
By RICHARD HOLBROOKE
Multiple Choice Question for
the 1970's: The Government of
the United States lies: (a) never;
(b) only when it has to for
reasons of national security; (c)
whenever it feels like it, wheth-
er or not it affects national se-
curity; (d) whenever it feels like
it, to protect itself from domes-
tic political embarrassment; (e)
most of the time; (f) all of the
time.
By now, many Americans
would pick one of the last
two choices to the question
posed above. Turned off by
Vietnam and Watergate and
two Presidents in a row who
have had low credibility ratings
(for good reason), disillusioned
by recent revelations of decep-
.-tion and even during the excit-
ing 1,000 days of the Kennedy
Administration, many educated
people see deceit even where
there is none, and trickery be-
hind even routine announce-
merits. Like the Boy Who Cried
Wolf, the Government often has
trouble being believed when it
is telling the truth. (Try con-
vincing people, for example,
that the Peace Corps is com-
pletely clean of any C.I.A. in-
volvement, as I firmly believe it
is; even Peace Corps staff and
volunteers sometimes doubt it,
although three Presidents have
issued orders to this effect, and
no evidence has ever emerged
to the contrary.)
it was not always thus. As
recently as 1960, when the
United States announced that
it had lost a "weather research
plane" near the Turkish bor-
der, most Americans accepted
the official State Department
explanation--until, confronted
by a C.I.A. pilot alive and well
in Soviet hands, president Ei-
senhower admitted the dec(p-
tion and accepted personal re-
story today?) Disbelief and great costs of such self-decop- But in the Watergate tragedy
cynicism are widespread. And lion) is overlooked entirely. lying must be viewed as th
it is not unusual to hear some Instead, one finds a collection public front edge of a mucl
of the more cynical among us of stories, some old, some new, larger failure-a failure on ti:
argue that lying and deception some borrowed-all designed, part of our leaders to believ
are nothing to get upset about. to convince the reader of what in, and live by, the democrats
After all, as I was told recently wise himself says the reader principles on which our natici
while debating some under- already knows: the Government is supposedly based.
graduates who were seven years lies ?a lot. We want more than The evidence relentlessl
old at the time of the U-2 inci- this, but it is not here. emerging supports this gioorrz.
dent and who view their Govern- The whys and hows of lying, assessment; our leaders lief
meat with appalling cynicism, publicly because they were act
"Everybody in the Government as well as its real costs, are
excited?" only glimpsed through the un- ing in an anti-democratic man-
Lies, so Astounding, why ding, get that one should even anecdotage of this book. nor privately. in the brillian
even have to defend the propo- As for solutions, we can< all perception of columnist Stewar
sition that our Government agree with Mr. Wise that the Alsop, they were using tb
should not lie to us. Yet it has only 'solution' to'Government techniques of war, not politics
become necessary to make the lying is to tell the truth," but And when their private (ant
case. Anthony Lake, who re- his recommendations are both illegal) action began to emerge
signed as Henery Ifissinger's brief and unrealistic. (To sug- they had no recourse but t(
assistant after the 1970 Cam- gest, for example, that all lie as a defense.
bodian "incursion" (and who classified documents should be- The credibility gap, then
recently learned that, while cone public after three years may be viewed in a somewha
working for Kissinger, he. was unless the President personally different way. The Governmen
having his home telephone keeps them classified is simply has lost the confidence of man,
tapped for "national security not workable.) Americans because it lies; i
reasons") has written: "T?he es- Too much of "The Politics of lies because it has lost con
sential first step is for the Gov- Lying" is devoted to ?a compen- fidence in the values of a go n
ernment to realize that it can- dium of essentially minor com- uinely open and democrats
not lead the public while mis- plaints about the treatment of society. Secrecy-a product c
leading it." the press by the White House. fear and a perennial sanctuar:
"The Politics of Lying" is it is a shame, because Mr. Wise for insecure people-is the in
thus a title and theme of great is addressing one of the major evitable first step in such t
promise. Major national issues problems of our times, one that process. Lying, under pressure
transcending partisan politics is far deeper than the "credibil- and probing from outside-
are at stake. The Government ity gap." 'There seems little (usually the press and Corr
is using its power to classify likelihood of it diminishing, gross), is, equally inevitably
material, as David Wise car- either, despite the hopeful state- the next step. The circle i,
redly puts it, in order "to de meat with which the Presi- vicious. Or, to use an in
t's Communications Direc- North Vietnamese Prime ?Minis
d
en
prive the American people of
vital information." The system tor, Herb Klein, ushered in the ter Phan van Dong used 11
that has grown up, he adds, Age of Nixon in November, years ago in predicting c"
"has played a significant role 1965: "Truth will be the. hall Vietnam nightmare, it is reap}
in the general expansion of mark of the Nixon Aclministra- a descending spiral.
Presidential power" since World tion.... We feel that we Will Much of the deception it
War it, and he concludes that be able to eliminate any possi- done in the name of "nation
"the Government's capacity to bilit.y.of a credibility gap in this security" a traditional an
distort information in order to Administration." usually successful justificati -
preserve its own political Credibility gap.. The very Over the last 2S years, a?.
power is almost limitless." phrase, which entered our vo- growing out of a 1e;itima,r
need in World War if and tea,
o
Unfortunately, Mr. Wise's
book is not equal to the am-
bitious task he has set out to
accomplish. It never lives up to
the promise of its title. Anec-
dote follows anecdote to shock
snonsihility for the U-2 spy or amuse the reader, but they
,
cabulary only a iow years ag
both identifies a colossal prob- cold war to protect sentiitk
loin for every administration, information, the national secy.:-
ity umbrella has been expand.,
flights. . Approved For) Reiecase 2005/@dr/t13icCtA-RDP88-01350R000200230030-6
Did the President of the Unit- of why and when the Govern-
Continued