Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield Quotes
There are some occasions in which a man must tell half his secret, in order to conceal the rest: but there is seldom one in which a man should tell it all.
Stanhope, Philip Dormer. Letters Written by the Late Right Honourable Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, to His Son, Philip Stanhope, Esq. Vol. 3, J. Dodsley, 1774.
This is a major issue for the nation. How can the president be responsible if he is not informed? However, some argue that the President must have “plausibility deniability” so he can deceive foreign leaders without lying to them. The laws require that nothing may be withheld from the President but there are some in the agency including past directors who believe that they sometimes should lie to the President or withhold information when it is in the national interest—which of course only they judge without any checks and balances.
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, was a British statesman, and a man of letters, and wit. Educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, he subsequently embarked on the Grand Tour of the Continent, to complete his education as a nobleman, by exposure to the cultural legacies of Classical antiquity and the Renaissance, and to become acquainted with his aristocratic counterparts and the polite society of Continental Europe.