Whistle Blowers Quotes
At the time there was no Secrecy & Classification System nor any laws enforcing secrecy or confidentiality. However there was no freedom of information laws of expectations even on the part of journalists. This was the first Freedom of Information policy of the American government. Some politicians were more open than others but there was no national, governmental before this. There were however leakers and whistleblowers though the terms were not in use. Note that Roosevelt herein created the first whistle blower protection—himself.
He was very aware that there were three factors inhibiting staff members from speaking up to criticize a plan: Junior officers a reluctant to take a position that is in opposition to their superiors; many attendees see themselves as institutional representatives of their organization or sub organization and are reluctant to take a position different from that which was taken by the organization; after months of planning and the vast majority of other staff in support of a plan, most people are intimidated from raising a dissident point of view especially if they are the only one in the group with that view. Presidents, agency heads, commanders, and other leaders all face this problem. However many do not want any dissident opinions at the late stages of a planning process. The better leaders however do want those outlier opinions especially at the later stages. Eisenhower usually went out of his way to emphasize his desire for honest criticism and chided others who did not like criticism—see {637081} ,
Generally, government agencies and officials see whistleblowers as traitors, not as heroes. They often slander the whistleblower to discredit his/her revelations about the agency’s activities.
Many of the other members of the National Assembly criticized him for “washing the Assembly’s laundry” in public. They argued that the people would lose confidence in the National Assembly. The National Assembly at the time was the legislative branch, the executive branch, and the judicial branch all at the same time. See {639833} for an example of the public statements he made. “Dissemble” means to lie or shade the truth with the intent of deceiving.
Chelsea Elizabeth Manning
