A RIGHT TO LIE TO US?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706690002-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 2, 2011
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: October 9, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2011/12/02 :CIA-RDP90-009658000706690002-5
nrt i w~~ hr u~W
ON PAGE '
he Reagan administration
shot itself in the mouth last
week when it tried to ex-
plain that a lie by another
name is no lie at all.
The administration a eared t
be ettm o t e ook by persuad-
in t o u 1c t at a ro osal to
ormaiton cam ai n
throu h the press a ainst Lib a's
o . uammar a a i was merely
e suggestion o a ow-level o er-
a ive. ut t en tt ma e t e mtsta e
o trying to ~ustt y t e t ea o
usine
one press to sprea untrutts
even
wmie aenymg tt a one so.
WASHINGTON TIMES
9 October 1986
Government manipulation of the
press is nothing new It is at best a
risky business; at worst, a serious
threat to a society that relies on a
free press to ensure its freedoms.
The reason for manipulation may
be as lofty as it was in 1962 when
Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Public Affairs Arthur Sylvester told
reporters that the government has
an inherent right "to lie to save it-
self" in a time of national peril. The
speech followed the Cuban missile
crisis and Mr. Sylvester ac-
knowledged that during the crisis
the Kennedy administration had ma-
nipulated the flow of news as part of
its "weaponry" to force the Soviet
Union to withdraw missiles from the
island.
In his book, The Missile Crisis,
NBC's then-State Department corre-
spondent Elie Abel observed, "Syl-
vester later argued the national in-
terest was better served by keeping
the Russians guessing at that mo-
ment than by fully informing the
American people" But that was a
rare moment in history and national
survival was at stake, so for a clear
and limited purpose, the Kennedy
administration stretched the truth to
the breaking point concerning the
movement of Soviet ships toward
Cuba and U.S. plans for a response.
A later and not so noble stretching
of the truth occurred during the
Vietnam War. In 1971, the Nixon ad-
ministration, in the Pentagon Papers
case, went to court in an attempt to
block publication by The New York
Times and The Washington Post of
government documents which,
among other things, proved the
American people had on more than
one occasion been deceived by their
own government concerning the
conduct of the war.
In his opinion concurring with the
Supreme Court majority which
freed the newspapers to publish the
documents, Justice Hugo Black
said, "Only a free and unrestrained
press can effectively expose decep-
tion in government. And paramount
among the responsibilities of a free
press is the duty to prevent any part
of the government from deceiving
the people.... "
The sometimes arrogant press oc-
casionally deserves a comeuppance
that forces it to drink from the well
of humility, but not in this case. At
stake here is the credibility of both
the press and the government.
Consider this. The ombudsman
for The Washington Post, in writing
about this incident, reported that the
newspaper received more com-
plaints for challenging the govern-
ment with the story about the decep-
tion than it did for having been
gullible in the first place.
T'