Ever since the Trojan Horse, the telling of lies in wartime has been found honourable, along with the bedevilment of enemies and the invocation of gods, and has been practised more or less cheerfully by persons who would otherwise assert in all conscience that they had never told, or ever would tell, anything but the truth. Courage and hardware may win wars, but cunning deception is just as surely a helpful friend. And this erasure of guilt for indulgence in 'double standards' has suited all sides and combatants, is quite in line with the manichaean ferocities of war, especially of big-scale war, and has proved altogether desirable in times of ideological strife. The removal of any obligation to refrain from deceit has generally survived, in the wake of any great war, as a widely-tolerated legacy of sanctioned economy with truth. When this or that authority has 'lied to the House of Commons' since 1945, he or she has been drawing on this legacy while standing on the family hearth as a model of veracity.

LRB 27 September 1990 | PDF Download