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FP: America Was Founded on Secrets and Lies

visionary

By visionary
in The Tailgate

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visionary

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https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/15/george-washington-spies-lies-executive-power/

America Was Founded on Secrets and Lies

 

With all due respect to early-American hagiographer Parson Weems, George Washington knew how to tell a lie. In fact, he told a lot of them. Moreover, talent for deception was shared by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, all of whom, to borrow from former Vice President Dick Cheney, worked the “dark side.” And though these Founding Fathers’ knack for the shadows may cut against the image of modern-day saints that has grown up around them, it is difficult to see the American Revolution succeeding without it.

There was an element of ruthlessness in Washington’s approach to clandestine operations. In March 1782, he approved plans for a political kidnapping designed to grab the heir to the British throne while he was visiting New York City. Washington created a special team whose purpose was to kidnap the future King William IV, planning to hold him for ransom in exchange for the traitorous Benedict Arnold or use him as a bargaining chip to secure the release of American prisoners of war. The mission was called off after British intelligence was told of the plan and doubled the prince’s guard, but if Washington had had his way, a future king of England would have been snatched off the streets and kept in bondage.

 

His practice of deception wasn’t confined to the enemy. One of Washington’s greatest triumphs during the war, the Yorktown campaign of 1781, succeeded in part due to his skill at deception. The general decided that, in order to convince the British that he intended to attack New York City instead of marching south, he needed to mislead not only the British military but American officials as well. He so wanted American authorities to believe that “New York was the destined place of attack, he would later recall to Noah Webster in 1788, that he continued to draw recruits from the Mid-Atlantic States who might be less inclined to enlist for a southern campaign. Washington’s domestic disinformation campaign extended to his own army as well. As he put it to Webster, “pains [were] taken to deceive our own army; for I had always conceived, when the imposition did not completely take place at home, it could never sufficiently succeed abroad.”

 

Washington and other veterans of the Revolutionary War, including Alexander Hamilton, who served at the center of Washington’s intelligence network (along with Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Jay, who served on the political or diplomatic side of the conflict), believed that the new government established in 1789 needed to rectify some of the problems that had impaired U.S. security under the Articles of Confederation. They sought to transfer the unilateral control that Washington exercised under the articles into the newly created Office of the Presidency, in order to allow for more shrewd and coherent foreign and defense policy, including the use of clandestine means.

In his first annual message to Congress, Washington requested a “secret service” fund that would be controlled by the president and would allow the chief executive to conduct secret operations free from congressional oversight. The president’s request was approved by Congress in 1790, with the support of Rep. James Madison, and with it Washington was granted the authority to avoid the usual reporting procedures mandated by Congress — the president was in essence given a blank check to conduct secret operations that he alone deemed to be in the national interest.

In a sense, early U.S. attachment to spycraft was a practical choice. Both Jefferson and Madison were drawn to covert operations because they allowed them to project American power on the cheap without having to maintain a large standing military. One can see this in Secretary of State Jefferson’s policy toward Native American tribes, which involved bribery as a means of persuading them to concede territory. Jefferson succinctly summarized his views in an April 1791, letter to James Monroe, who would become the country’s fifth president: “I hope we shall drub the Indians well this summer, and then change our plan from war to bribery” — a policy he was able to fully implement after he was elected president.

 

In a secret letter written in 1804 to future president William Henry Harrison — then governor of the Indiana Territory — Jefferson urged Harrison to expand the number of trading houses in Indian-controlled territory so that prominent Indian leaders would accrue large debts and be forced to pay them off with land concessions. Additionally, President Jefferson authorized a covert operation to overthrow the King of Tripoli — the first of its kind undertaken by the United States — that involved recruiting a disgruntled family member to do America’s bidding. Jefferson would later dissemble about this operation to Congress, particularly regarding his decision to abandon the American-created mercenary army designed to place the disgruntled family member on the throne.

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This is like saying bakeries are built upon dark fiery chambers and toil.  Sounds sinister certainly but the seats of power have always come with secrets and shadowy machinations. 

 

We could have a fun thread about this.

 

College football: Built upon unpaid servitude and brain damage.

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