John Brady Kiesling Quotes
Secrets are good in the internal competition of Washington. The Secret war in Cambodia was secret so that the State Department could not object to it. The Cambodians knew there was a war.
The State Department and the Defense Department often clash over power and control of various foreign policy activities and initiatives. Whereas secrecy is supposed to be a means of keeping critical information from the enemy, it is very frequently used to cover-up embarrassment and also to prevent a rival government agency from registering objections to ongoing programs. In the latter case the secret classification has two advantages for the agency wanting to maintain their autonomy. First, they keep the information from the rival agency for a while. Eventually, the other agency has people with secret clearance who will find out, but because the material is secret they cannot publicly discuss the wisdom of the policy of initiate a public debate.
John Brady Kiesling, Political Counselor & Foreign Service Officer, U. S. State Department, Lecture, George Washington University, September 6, 2006
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Ironically, Lieberman was using this quotation to campaign against Bush’s son, George W. Bush.
The chairman resigned in protest over the refusal of the government to declassify historical documents years after the events.
He was announcing the arrest of an agent of the Iranian Government who was plotting to assassinate the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States.
Barry Goldwater in the 20th century used a variation of this quotation. See {601784}.
Gelb was referring to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963. The Russians had installed ICBMs in Cuba and more were coming by sea. WWIII could have started with a misstep by the United States or the Soviet Union. President rejected the advice of some hawks to attack and/or invade Cuba and be ready to attack Russia with nuclear weapons. Instead, he authorized a naval blockade of all ships and planes going in or out of Cuba. There were some negotiations with the Russians, and in a few days, the Russians dismantled and removed the missiles from Cuba and we lifted the naval blockade. The perception was that Kennedy faced down the Russians who capitulated when faced with firmness and force. Actually, Kennedy gave the Russians much more. He agreed to remove the American ICBM Jupiter missiles from Turkey. But if that were known in America, the right wing would criticize Kennedy mercilessly for appeasing and capitulation to the Russians. The Russians agreed to keep it secret, and the Executive Branch classified it top secret and kept the entire deal from the public. 50 years later, Gelb, one of the few people in the government then who knew the entire deal, wrote this article pointing out that there was a serious danger to what we did to make that deal a secret. Many hawks took the Cuban Missile Crisis as proof that the Russians would back down when faced with a fait accompli and would not retaliate. They then formulated much American foreign and military policy on the assumption that the Russians will capitulate when faced with our tough unilateral terms. The reality of course was just the opposite. The Russians would only agree to a peaceful solution if we withdrew all our missiles that were threatening them and end the naval blockade of Cuba. The Russians got us to remove our missiles for the relatively cheap price of removing from Cuba just a few missiles that they had just installed. Kennedy looked like the strong hero who stood up to the Russians while in reality, he and our military and state department lost a diplomatic contest of sorts. Kennedy apologists argue that because America had developed longer range ICBMs, the Jupiter Missiles in Turkey were not that important, and Kennedy really gave up nothing of value. The Kennedy team clearly didn’t want to argue that point in a public debate, and chose secrecy where the enemy clearly knew the whole story, but our allies, our civilians, our politicians and even most of our military were in the dark.
American official foreign policy had been officially isolationist—to not get involved in the squabbles and fights of other nations. Angell however pointed out that even before WWII, America had formally been involved in 6 foreign wars and used military incursions on foreign soil on almost 100 occasions.
John Brady Kiesling is a former U.S. diplomat and the author of Diplomacy Lessons: Realism for an Unloved Superpower (Potomac Books 2006) and the ToposText classics/archaeology mobile application. He was the first of three U.S. foreign service officers to resign, on February 25, 2003, to protest against the 2003 invasion of Iraq. His letter of resignation to Secretary of State Colin Powell was posted by The New York Times and circulated widely.
