________THE NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 2005 ____________YT_________A27
BOB HERBERT
Truth
And
Deceit
When he accepted the Republican
nomination for president in 1968,
Richard Nixon said, "Let us begin by
committing ourselves to the truth -
to see it as it is, and tell it like it is -
to find the truth, to speak the truth,
and to live the truth."
We've now learned, thanks to Van-
ity Fair, that a former top F.B.I. offi-
cial, W. Mark Felt, was the legend-
ary confidential source Deep Throat.
I can't think of a better time to resur-
rect the Watergate saga.
The trauma of Watergate, which
brought down a president who
seemed pathologically compelled to
deceive, came toward the end of that
extended exercise in governmental
folly and deceit, Vietnam. Taken to-
gether, these two disasters, both of
which shook the nation, provided a
case study in how citizens should
view their government: with ex-
treme skepticism.
Trust, said Ronald Reagan, but
verify.
Now, with George W. Bush in
charge, the nation is mired in yet an-
other tragic period marked by in-
competence, duplicity, bad faith and
outright lies coming once again from
the very top of the government. Just
last month we had the disclosure of a
previously secret British govern-
ment memorandum that offered fur-
ther confirmation that the American
public and the world were spoon-fed
bogus information by the Bush ad-
ministration in the run-up to the in-
vasion of Iraq.
President Bush, as we know, want-
ed to remove Saddam Hussein
through military action. With that in
mind, the memo damningly ex-
plained, "the intelligence and facts
were being fixed around the policy."
That's the kind of deceit that was in
play as American men and women
were suiting up and marching off to
combat at the president's command.
Mr. Bush wanted war, and he got it.
Many thousands have died as a result.
Even in Afghanistan, where the
U.S. had legitimate reasons for going
to war, the lies have been legion. Pat
Tillman, for example, was a popular
N.F.L. player who, in a burst of patri-
otism after Sept. 11, gave up a $3.6
million contract with the Arizona
Cardinals to join the Army Rangers.
He was sent first to Iraq, and then to
Afghanistan, where he was shot to
death by members of his own unit
who mistook him for the enemy.
Instead of disclosing that Corporal
Tillman had died tragically in a
friendly fire incident, the Army spun
a phony tale of heroism for his fam-
ily and the nation. According to the
Army, Corporal Tillman had been
killed by enemy fire as he stormed a
hill. Soldiers who knew the truth
were ordered to keep quiet about the
__________
Lessons from
Watergate and
Vietnam.
__________
matter. Corporal Tillman's family
was not told how he really died until
after a nationally televised memori-
al service that recruiters viewed as a
public relations bonanza.
Mary Tillman, Corporal Tillman's
mother, told The Washington Post:
"The military let him down. The
administration let him down. It was
a sign of disrespect. The fact that he
was the ultimate team player and he
watched his own men kill him is ab-
solutely heartbreaking and tragic.
The fact that they lied about it af-
terward is disgusting."
At a press conference on Tuesday,
President Bush, speaking about de-
tainees who had complained of being
abused, said they were "people that
had been trained in some instances
to disassemble - that means not tell
the truth." Mr. Bush meant, of
course, to say dissemble, which real-
ly means to deliberately mislead or
conceal. Nevertheless, he knew what
he was talking about. The president
may have stumbled over the pronun-
ciation, but he's proved time and
again that he's a skillful practitioner
of the art.
The lessons of Watergate and Viet-
nam are that the checks and bal-
ances embedded in the national gov-
ernment by the founding fathers
(and which the Bush administration
is trying mightily to destroy) are ab-
solutely crucial if American-style de-
mocracy is to survive, and that a tru-
ly free and unfettered press (which
the Bush administration is trying
mightily to intimidate) is as impor-
tant now as it's ever been.
There you have it in a nutshell. Lyn-
don Johnson and Richard Nixon,
drunk with power and insufficiently
restrained, took the nation on hair-
raising journeys that were as unnec-
essary as they were destructive. Now,
in the first years of the 21st century,
George W. Bush is doing the same.
Congress and an aggressive press
ultimately played crucial roles in
bringing the truth about Vietnam
and Watergate to light.
A similar challenge exists today.
We'll see how it plays out.