Books in Brief: Crisis in Credibility

Crisis in Credibility, by Bruce Ladd (New American Library, $5.50). April 17, 1968, press conference. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall speaks in response to a question about the possibility of a Poor People’s Campaign setting up shop on public lands: “I would think that our National Parks area—we have the local park system here [Washington, D.C.]— are parks for the use of all the people, and that we should follow the policies we always have. We have marches in parks and we have different kinds of activities in parks. But I think we are not—it would not be proper to turn parklands over to any group of people for permanent or temporary use for any kind of human shelter of any kind.” May 10, press release from the Department of Interior: “The National Park Service today issued a permit to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference allowing the installation of tents, which will accommodate a maximum of 3,000 persons.” Such is the stuff of which credibility gaps are made. In this first full-length study of the subject, Bruce Ladd (a special assistant to Republican Congressman Don Rumsfeld of Illinois) discusses the scope of secrecy, news management and lying on the part of the U.S. Government, starting with the censorship imposed by FDR during World War II and continuing through HST, Ike, JFK and, of course, that paradigm of perfidy, the Johnson-Humphrey Administration. To the big question, can anything be done about the crisis in credibility, Ladd offers several suggestions: a bolstering of Congress’ independent sources of information, e.g. increasing the authority of the General Accounting Office to keep tabs on the Executive branch of government; a more didactic use of the appropriations process by Congress to show the Executive that cooperation is a two-way street; and a beefing up of the minority party’s committee staffing so that it might more effectively play the adversary role that is so vital to a two-party system. The book is a disturbing book. It is disturbing to know that when the occasion warrants it, our government has no aversion to lying. But then it would be even more disturbing not to know it.

JL

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J. D. Lofton Jr.

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Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Crisis in Credibility, by Bruce Ladd (New American Library, $5.50). April 17, 1968, press conference. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall speaks in response to a question about the possibility of a Poor People’s Campaign setting up shop on public lands: “I would think that our National Parks area—we have the local park system here [Washington, D.C.]— are parks for the use of all the people, and that we should follow the policies we always have. We have marches in parks and we have different kinds of activities in parks. But I think we are not—it would not be proper to turn parklands over to any group of people for permanent or temporary use for any kind of human shelter of any kind.” May 10, press release from the Department of Interior: “The National Park Service today issued a permit to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference allowing the installation of tents, which will accommodate a maximum of 3,000 persons.” Such is the stuff of which credibility gaps are made. In this first full-length study of the subject, Bruce Ladd (a special assistant to Republican Congressman Don Rumsfeld of Illinois) discusses the scope of secrecy, news management and lying on the part of the U.S. Government, starting with the censorship imposed by FDR during World War II and continuing through HST, Ike, JFK and, of course, that paradigm of perfidy, the Johnson-Humphrey Administration. To the big question, can anything be done about the crisis in credibility, Ladd offers several suggestions: a bolstering of Congress’ independent sources of information, e.g. increasing the authority of the General Accounting Office to keep tabs on the Executive branch of government; a more didactic use of the appropriations process by Congress to show the Executive that cooperation is a two-way street; and a beefing up of the minority party’s committee staffing so that it might more effectively play the adversary role that is so vital to a two-party system. The book is a disturbing book. It is disturbing to know that when the occasion warrants it, our government has no aversion to lying. But then it would be even more disturbing not to know it.