IN DEFENSE OF LYING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000606120049-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 2, 2010
• Sequence Number: 49
• Publication Date: October 25, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000606120049-5
V i
AKWU APPEARED
ON PAGE _ 4 _2 _
In social We it is called etiquette. In
personal fife it is called hypocrisy. In
political life it is called diplomacy. Amer-
icons tacdmslp persist in calling it by its-
generic name: lying. Americans have a
toieran ce for many tbi>gaA, Lying in pub-
IiG1'~ not one of them.
Taloe We weds From all the hand-
wringng, you could be forgiven for
thinking that the worst lion in
the Adile horn affair was not that ter-
rorists shot an old man or that Italy let
the ringleader go., but that for eight
hours Egypt's President Mubsrak Bed
about the whereabouts of the terrorists.
For this misdemeanor, the Egypdm
ambassador was subjected to a croes-
eaaroioation an -N%~ ~ ' of the sort
not seep since. some hapless witness de-
cided to perjure bin" blare Edward
Bennett WMams. (Certidy nothingd
the sort was encountered by Yaseer
Arafat on the sannle show.)
Caught in a Be, the ambassador
tried to slip away. Alas, be could run
but he couldn't hide. Muberak, on the
other hand, took the first opportunity
to admit to "a dipiomuatic deception."
Rather than regret, he evinced sur-
prise that anyone should have taken
much notice, let alone offense. After
all, he has more important things to
worry about than-passing the Water-
gate truth test. For starters: the
stability of his regime, on which hangs
the security of 46 million people.
Caught between fanatic Islamic funda-
mentalists, on the one hand, and angry
American allies, on the other, he de-
cided that the better part of valor was
an eight-hour Be. Big deal.
But for Americans, famous for their
frankness, and not yet jundkoed by cen-
turies of statecraft, it is a big daL It has
been known since 1604 that an ambes-
sailor is an honest man sent abroad to
he far the commonwealth. Yet after two
centuries at the game, Americans have
yet to get used to the ida. We have the
contrary view that in diplomacy truth-
telling is always a virtue. It is a charm-
ing and expensive indulgence that only a
young country can believe and only a big
country can afford.
Not that the United States has not
told some whoppers. There was U-2 Be.
WASHINGTON POST
25 October 1985
In Defense of Lying
Charles Krauthammer
Thinking the pilot dead and the plane
destroyed, the Eisenhower State De-
partment put out the story that the U-2
was an off-course weather plane. And
there was ? Adlei Steveneoa's be about
the Bay of Pigs. Lied to by the CIA, be
told the . Security Council that the
United States had nothing to do with
the invasion. After Vietnam and Water-
gate, native American revulsion with
political lying peaked: in 1976 a presi-
dent was elected on a platform of truth-
telfsng and little else.
But lying can be so indispensable,
that not even President Carta could.
do without it. In advance of the Iran
rescue mission, Jody Powell planned a
cover story (about a possible block-
ade), and, when Jack Nelson of the Los
Angeles Times got wind of a mission,
Powell used it and categorically denied
any plans for a rescue. Even then
there were some who carped that
Powell should have issued a "no com-
ment" rather than a denial, so as not
to allow a true he to pass his lips. Of
course, a "no comment" would have
aroused suspicions and jeopardized
lives. For some reporters, however,
credibility is the greater
sm. They said Powell should resign.
Now the good news. We may . b_e
armmto relax. A note of maturity has
alleged UrA
lbe was
year,
invdwnent in a m ? If
the CIA denies somet nn its
here ote? not `false, ' but
all its own, a category
:
tween'
tries prepered to ad in We MOM n=-
or n5lFSEW-was
ire l*edmally w had delivered
a lesson in old worn statecraft. old
notion at deniatility. like world statecraft, is foreign to Amer-
ican sensibilities Nevertheless, deni-
ability is quite valuable to American di-
plomacy. Why, for example, is so much
Reagan Doctrine aid to anticommunist
guerrillas "covert'? The te;m seems
both ludicrous (Can't everyone read
about it in The Washington Post?) and
sinister (Is the government trying to
hide something from the electorates.
In fact, the major purpose of "secret"
aid to, say, Afghan guerrillas is not to
hide the facts from Americans (or Rua-
sign, for that matter. they subscribe to
The Poet, too), but to provide protective
comer to our allies. Pakistan funnels oar
aid to the Afghan insurgents, but is too
vulnerable to Soviet pressure to declare
so openly. Moscow knows what is going
on, of course, but for Pakistan to an-
nounce it would be nothing more than a
provocation. Why add insult to unsurge-
cy? So all parties agree to a fiction.
Fiction, a high farm of literature, -is
considered, in this country at least; a.
low form of diplomacy. Diplomacy being
the means of.advan ing the interests-Qf
ms's country by macs shat of war. it
is hard to see why this should be so.
I concede that truth is preferable. For
one thing it is easier to memorize. On
the other hand, it can be habit forming.
What to do? Graham Gram had it
right. "He always prderred the truth,"
he says of his hero in 'The Human Fac-
tor." "Except on really important occ
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000606120049-5