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【中文标题】美国的立国之本是谎言和欺骗
【原文标题】America Was Founded on Secrets and Lies
【登载媒体】外交政策
【原文作者】Stephen F. Knott
【原文链接】http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/15/george-washington-spies-lies-executive-power/
我们无意冒犯美国早期的圣徒传作者帕森•威姆斯，但乔治•华盛顿的确是个编造谎言的高手。实际上，他说了太多的谎话。而且，这种天赋还在詹姆斯•麦迪逊和托马斯•杰斐逊身上得到体现，用前副总统迪克•切尼的话来说，他们都是“黑暗面”的使者。尽管这些建国之父的黑暗技能或许会削弱他们在当今社会的圣洁光环，但如果没有这些谎言，美国独立战争或许也不会发生。
在为人所熟知的历史中，由高层授意的秘密行动在20世纪初随着所谓的“皇帝总统”，以及中央情报局和国家安全局的崛起而大量出现。这完全是虚构。可惜的是，这种美国历史的神话故事在多年来已经成为了人所共知的真理。70年代的丘奇委员会认可了这种说法，1987年伊朗门委员会的多数派报告中再一次提到，当下又在自由论者中大行其道。正如杰斐逊所说，在建国者看来，“以自我保护、拯救国家于危难中为目的的、必须建立的法律秩序”推翻了传统的行为标准和任何的现行法律。要试图为限制或者禁止这些行动而引用建国之父的教诲，只能对这些见不得人的行为进行粉饰，或者视而不见。
在面对当时最强大的敌人，华盛顿知道，与强大的敌人作战，欺骗术是强己之道。那些歌功颂德的历史记录把美国的第一任总统奉为“木星保护者”和“半神”（译者注：帕森•威姆斯的传记作品《乔治•华盛顿将军生与死、美德与丰功伟绩的历史》中对于华盛顿的描述），尽管华盛顿的间谍行为在其它文献中有过记载，但这的确不是他的本意。
华盛顿在1775年执掌大陆军之后的第一项行动，就是找来一名间谍潜入敌后，刺探英军在波士顿的行动。他在情报工作上花费了大量的时间和精力，甚至自己掏钱资助秘密行动。他认为，这些行动对于最终的战争胜利至关重要。而且有些信息相当敏感，他甚至没有向大陆会议汇报。他在1777年直言不讳地承认：“有些秘密往往与军队的生死攸关，这些秘密不能，也不应该付诸于纸面。在当时，只有最高指挥官可以掌握。”
但他对于间谍的使用一直本着务实的原则。尽管华盛顿知道，两国交战的取胜之道在某种程度上依赖于秘密行动，也知道间谍会遭遇道德风险的挑战，但他对此并不热衷。实际上，华盛顿在1779年对此坦承，从事秘密行动敌人“角色模糊”，并且警告自己的情报官员要当心双面间谍。尽管如此，华盛顿依然认为这些行动和私下的手段是维护美国利益所必需的。
如果他今天依然在世，而且也被卷入有关国内情报刺探之争，华盛顿或许会猛烈抨击当代自由论者对于私人通信神圣不可侵犯的观点。换句话说，他不会赞同肯塔基州参议员兰德•保罗、佛蒙特州参议员帕特里克•李希和密歇根州参议员贾斯汀•艾马什的观点。他认为，偷偷打开私人信件是重要的国家安全举措，并且会要求他的探员“找到一种不破坏缄封就打开（信件）的方法，将内容复印，然后继续寄出”。这种情报收集方法会给美国带来“巨大的”优势。他还会毫不犹豫地让牧师扮演间谍。1778年，他命令一位犹太教牧师从两名即将受刑的被捕英军间谍口中骗出了重要情报。华盛顿利用他们在赶赴天国之前亟须在上帝面前忏悔的愿望，当然他自己不在场。
华盛顿的秘密行动有其无情的一面。1782年3月，他批准了一项政治绑架行动，目的是在英国皇位继承人访问纽约期间将其绑架。华盛顿组建了一个团队，筹划绑架即将继位的国王威廉四世，用来交换叛变的本尼迪克特•阿诺德，或者交换美军战俘。后来英国得知了这个消息，加强了王子身边的护卫，计划因此而搁浅。但是如果华盛顿得手，英格兰未来的国王将被绑架，身陷囹圄。
他的欺骗行为并不仅仅针对敌人。华盛顿在战争中一项最伟大的成就是1781年的约克顿战役，其成功部分归功于他的欺骗技巧。将军决定，为了让英国人相信他想要进攻纽约，而不是率军南下，他不但要误导英军，还要欺骗美军官员。于是他试图让美国当局相信“纽约是命中注定的战争之地”。他在1788年对诺亚•韦伯斯特说，他继续在大西洋中部州招募新兵，而那里并不是为南下作战征兵的理想之地。华盛顿还对自己的队伍故意传达过错误的信息，他对韦伯斯特说：“欺骗自己的军队让我痛苦不堪，但我必须这么做。连自己的家人都哄骗不过的技巧，外人是无论如何不会相信的。”
华盛顿和几位独立战争的老将，包括在情报机构任职的亚历山大•汉密尔顿和在政治、外交机构任职的托马斯•杰斐逊、詹姆斯•麦迪逊和约翰•杰伊，都认为1789年成立的新政府需要纠正在《联邦条例》下会损害美国国家安全的一些问题。他们把条例赋予华盛顿单方行动的权力转移给总统办公室，目的是确保外交和国家政策更加明智、具有连贯性，其中也包括采取秘密行动的权力。
华盛顿将军在独立战争期间对情报和欺骗策略的成功应用让华盛顿总统相信，新的内阁需要一个秘密行动基金来处理“情报事务”，约翰•杰伊在《联邦党人文集》这样描述。华盛顿认为，情报事务应该完全是高层所管理的工作，这是他从大陆会议不能保守秘密所得到的深刻教训。众议院和参议院的情报委员会对他来说毫无用处，他认为这是对他宪法第二天所赋予的“行政权力”的侵犯，当然也包括他的最高指挥官和首席外交代表的身份。所有的建国者都对于众议院的权力有所顾忌，因为他们觉得在外交事务方面自己束手无策。
华盛顿在致国会的第一封信中要求，成立一个“秘密行动”的基金，由总统控制，并且允许最高执政长官在不经国会监管的条件下采取秘密行动。在众议员詹姆斯•麦迪逊的推动下，总统的要求在1790年得到了国会的批准。华盛顿因此得以摆脱国会的报告和审批流程——总统基本上算是拿到了一张空白支票，可以在他认为符合国家利益的前提下采取任何秘密行动。
华盛顿所建立的间谍机构在他死后依然延续，而且茁壮成长。托马斯•杰斐逊是最热衷于诉诸秘密阴谋的总统，这位“蒙地沙罗的传奇人物”经常被描绘成宪法的坚实捍卫者、主张公开和担责的信徒，但实际上他是20世纪皇帝总统的先行者。杰斐逊使用秘密行动基金的总量超过了建国初期的所有总统，包括把它当作贿赂基金让印第安人退出居住区，还用来资助推翻外国政府的秘密行动。早在他担任美国驻法国特使期间，杰斐逊就迷恋于这些秘密行动。他曾经试图从西班牙政府内部获取一份有关开凿巴拿马运河的文件，利用线人获取荷兰政府内部工作的信息，还在荷兰的媒体上发表亲美文章。
与华盛顿一样，杰斐逊也认为，运作美国政府的秘密行动机构是总统的特权。1807年，杰斐逊在给一位联邦法官乔治•海的信中提到（这个人恰好是詹姆斯•门罗的女婿）：“所有国家都认为，处于保护自身利益的考虑，这些秘密行动必须只可以让管理其运作的部门知晓。”他还在早些时候说：“宪法不允许参议院接近行政院……他们因此也没有资格评判某次具有秘密性质的特殊行动。所有这些都应该有总统来决定。”有鉴于此，杰斐逊利用普通公民采取秘密行动，以绕过不能保守秘密的国会监管，也就不足为奇了。1804年，杰斐逊让一名普通公民携带一封秘密信件给美国驻法国特使，其中包括了一份详细的密码表和一份声明，主张支持使用私人渠道来完成公共事务。
从某种意义上讲，美国早期奉行间谍政策是一个务实的选择，杰斐逊和麦迪逊之所以沉湎于秘密行动，是因为这能让他们以最廉价的方式来彰显美国的实力，而不需要维持一个庞大的军队。我们可以通过国务卿杰斐逊针对美洲原住民的政策窥其一斑，政策中包括用贿赂的方式劝说原住民出让土地。杰斐逊在1791年4月致即将成为第五任总统的詹姆斯•门罗的一封信中简要阐述了他的观点：“我希望我们在今年夏天可以更有力地打击印第安人，把一场战争转化成一次贿赂。”在他担任总统职位之后，他成功地奉行了这项政策。
杰斐逊在1804年写给时任印第安纳州州长、未来的总统威廉•亨利•哈里森的一封秘密信件中，敦促哈里森扩大在印第安人控制区的马匹贸易数量，这样那些著名的印第安领导人将会债台高筑，被迫割让土地来还款。杰斐逊总统还授权了一项秘密行动，推翻的黎波里的国王，这是美国历史上第一次采取这样的行动，这里面还包括招募一名满腹牢骚的王族成员来为美国作战。杰斐逊后来向国会掩饰这项行动，尤其是他放弃使用美国雇佣军，而是把一个怀有仇恨的王族成员推上王座的决定。
1804年杰斐逊授权的著名刘易斯和克拉克远征行动，绝不仅是研究新的植物和动物种群，而是一次情报行动。杰斐逊对于黑暗面的热衷还让他去游说他的朋友麦迪逊总统，去烧毁伦敦的圣保罗大教堂，以报复英国人烧毁白宫的行动。
美国宪法的缔造者詹姆斯•麦迪逊曾经是杰斐逊的国务卿，他非常了解上司对于那些不是必须采取的外交行动的热衷，但他似乎不像杰斐逊那样狂热。1805年，国务卿麦迪逊用秘密行动基金收买了一名妓女，以便让一名来自突尼斯的特使得到来访的机会。设置这笔基金的目的之一就是为了强化“国际交往”。麦迪逊虽然比杰斐逊对待国会的态度更加恭敬一些，但他也采取了一些秘密行动，比如煽动西班牙占领区“内部自发”的起义，让佛罗里达成为合众国的一部分。在面对批评时，麦迪逊试图向国会和外国政府提供有关行动的虚假信息。1812年战争前夕，麦迪逊动用了5万美元秘密行动基金从一名可疑的英国特工处购买了大量的信件，这个人声称他知道新英格兰联邦党人正在密谋脱离联邦。
人们可以对这些事实置之不理，说它与当今政府的情报行为无关，也可以说美国已经从蛮荒时代有了大幅度的进化。但是把建国者作为限制或者禁止秘密行动的理由，是对历史的曲解。这些行为是华盛顿、杰斐逊、麦迪逊和美国人亲手所为，没有任何阴暗面的建国者传说，完全是右派自由论者和左派自由主义者的杜撰。无论你是否相信，这都是不真实的。
原文：
With all due respect to early-American hagiographer Parson Weems, George Washington knew how to tell a lie. In fact, he told a lot of them. Moreover, talent for deception was shared by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, all of whom, to borrow from former Vice President Dick Cheney, worked the “dark side.” And though these Founding Fathers’ knack for the shadows may cut against the image of modern-day saints that has grown up around them, it is difficult to see the American Revolution succeeding without it.
In popular history, clandestine operations, and their control by the executive, are a cancerous growth that began in the 20th century with the so-called “imperial presidency” and the rise of the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency. This is fiction. Unfortunately, this fairy tale account of American history is gospel in far too many quarters. It was accepted as fact by the Church Committee in the 1970s, resurrected again in the majority report of the Iran-Contra Committee in 1987, and now finds renewed life on the libertarian right. As Jefferson noted, for the founders, the “laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger,” overrode traditional standards of conduct or any written law. Enlisting their legacy in the cause of restricting or banning these operations can only be achieved by either distorting or ignoring their repeated use of underhanded means.
Facing off against the greatest superpower of his day, Washington understood that when fighting a more formidable foe, deception acts as a force multiplier. Though Washington’s commitment to espionage may have been written out of the laudatory histories that established America’s first president as the “Jupiter conservator,” striking a demigod pose, the work of spying was never far from his mind.
One of Washington’s first acts upon taking command of the Continental Army in 1775 was to hire a spy to go behind the enemy lines and report on British activities in Boston. He devoted a considerable amount of energy to his role as intelligence chief, including using personal funds to pay for clandestine operations. These operations were essential to winning the war, he believed, and so sensitive, that he withheld information about them from the Continental Congress. As he bluntly noted in 1777, “there are some secrets, on the keeping of which so, depends, oftentimes, the salvation of an Army: secrets which cannot, at least ought not to, be entrusted to paper; nay, which none but the Commander-in-Chief at the time, should be acquainted with.”
His commitment to espionage, however, was a pragmatic one. While Washington understood that success in the struggle between nations required the use of covert operations — and the employment of individuals who were ethically challenged — he was not particularly enamored with these tactics or with the types of individuals employed in these endeavors. In fact, Washington bemoaned in 1779 the “ambiguous characters” that were essential to conducting covert warfare, and warned his intelligence officers to constantly be on the lookout for double agents. Nonetheless, Washington believed that these operatives and their underhanded methods were necessary to defend American interests.
If he were alive today — and enmeshed in the debate over domestic spying — Washington would likely clash with the modern civil libertarian view of the sanctity of private communications. In other words, he would disagree with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy’s, or Michigan Rep. Justin Amash’s moral outrage regarding government monitoring of private communications, despite their claims to the contrary. Covert mail opening, he believed, was an important national security tool and instructed his agents to “contrive a means of opening them [letters] without breaking the seals, take copies of the contents, and then let them go on.” This type of intelligence gathering would provide “innumerable” advantages to the American cause, Washington argued. He was also comfortable using clergymen as intelligence agents. In 1778, he urged a chaplain to coax vital intelligence out of two captured British spies facing execution. Washington instructed the chaplain to exploit the fact that these men would want to get right with God, and by default with George Washington, before departing for the pearly gates.
There was an element of ruthlessness in Washington’s approach to clandestine operations. In March 1782, he approved plans for a political kidnapping designed to grab the heir to the British throne while he was visiting New York City. Washington created a special team whose purpose was to kidnap the future King William IV, planning to hold him for ransom in exchange for the traitorous Benedict Arnold or use him as a bargaining chip to secure the release of American prisoners of war. The mission was called off after British intelligence was told of the plan and doubled the prince’s guard, but if Washington had had his way, a future king of England would have been snatched off the streets and kept in bondage.
His practice of deception wasn’t confined to the enemy. One of Washington’s greatest triumphs during the war, the Yorktown campaign of 1781, succeeded in part due to his skill at deception. The general decided that, in order to convince the British that he intended to attack New York City instead of marching south, he needed to mislead not only the British military but American officials as well. He so wanted American authorities to believe that “New York was the destined place of attack, he would later recall to Noah Webster in 1788, that he continued to draw recruits from the Mid-Atlantic States who might be less inclined to enlist for a southern campaign. Washington’s domestic disinformation campaign extended to his own army as well. As he put it to Webster, “pains [were] taken to deceive our own army; for I had always conceived, when the imposition did not completely take place at home, it could never sufficiently succeed abroad.”
Washington and other veterans of the Revolutionary War, including Alexander Hamilton, who served at the center of Washington’s intelligence network (along with Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Jay, who served on the political or diplomatic side of the conflict), believed that the new government established in 1789 needed to rectify some of the problems that had impaired U.S. security under the Articles of Confederation. They sought to transfer the unilateral control that Washington exercised under the articles into the newly created Office of the Presidency, in order to allow for more shrewd and coherent foreign and defense policy, including the use of clandestine means.
General Washington’s successful use of intelligence and deception during the Revolutionary War led President Washington to conclude that the new executive office needed a secret service fund to handle the “business of intelligence,” as John Jay referred to it in The Federalist Papers. Washington believed intelligence operations were the exclusive province of the executive, a hard-earned lesson taken from the inability of the Continental Congress to protect secrets. He would have little use for the permanent intelligence committees of the House and Senate, seeing this as an infringement on his “executive power” as vested in Article Two of the Constitution, including his powers as commander in chief and his role as the nation’s chief diplomat. All of the founders would be particularly concerned about the role of the House, since they intended a minimal role for that body in foreign affairs.
In his first annual message to Congress, Washington requested a “secret service” fund that would be controlled by the president and would allow the chief executive to conduct secret operations free from congressional oversight. The president’s request was approved by Congress in 1790, with the support of Rep. James Madison, and with it Washington was granted the authority to avoid the usual reporting procedures mandated by Congress — the president was in essence given a blank check to conduct secret operations that he alone deemed to be in the national interest.
The spycraft apparatus that Washington built lived on after he left — and grew. No president was more temperamentally inclined to resort to clandestine schemes than Thomas Jefferson. The Sage of Monticello is frequently portrayed as a champion of deference to Congress and the patron saint of openness and accountability, but in fact he was a precursor to the imperial presidents of the 20th century. Jefferson utilized the secret service fund to a greater degree than almost any early American president, using it as something of a personal slush fund with which to bribe Native American tribes to cede territory, and funding the first covert operation designed to overthrow a foreign government. Dating back to his time as an American envoy in France, Jefferson was enamored with clandestine operations, including at one point attempting to covertly acquire a study of a plan from the Spanish government outlining a path for a canal through the isthmus of Panama, and utilizing a source in Holland to acquire information on the inner workings of the Dutch government and plant stories in the Dutch press favorable to Americans interests.
Echoing Washington, Jefferson believed that it was the executive’s prerogative to direct the secret instruments of the American government. In 1807, Jefferson wrote to George Hay, a federal judge who also happened to be James Monroe’s son-in-law, that “all nations have found it necessary, that for the advantageous conduct of their affairs, some of these [executive] proceedings, at least, should remain known to their executive functionary only.” He noted on an earlier occasion that “the Senate is not supposed by the Constitution to be acquainted with the concerns of the executive department … nor can they, therefore, be qualified to judge of the necessity which calls for a mission to any particular place … which special and secret circumstances may call. All this is left to the President.” In light of this, it comes as no surprise that Jefferson utilized private citizens for sensitive operations as a means of circumventing congressional oversight due to that body’s penchant for leaks. In one instance, in 1804, Jefferson used a private citizen to carry a secret letter to an American envoy in France, which contained an elaborate cipher and a statement in support of using private channels for public business.
In a sense, early U.S. attachment to spycraft was a practical choice. Both Jefferson and Madison were drawn to covert operations because they allowed them to project American power on the cheap without having to maintain a large standing military. One can see this in Secretary of State Jefferson’s policy toward Native American tribes, which involved bribery as a means of persuading them to concede territory. Jefferson succinctly summarized his views in an April 1791, letter to James Monroe, who would become the country’s fifth president: “I hope we shall drub the Indians well this summer, and then change our plan from war to bribery” — a policy he was able to fully implement after he was elected president.
In a secret letter written in 1804 to future president William Henry Harrison — then governor of the Indiana Territory — Jefferson urged Harrison to expand the number of trading houses in Indian-controlled territory so that prominent Indian leaders would accrue large debts and be forced to pay them off with land concessions. Additionally, President Jefferson authorized a covert operation to overthrow the King of Tripoli — the first of its kind undertaken by the United States — that involved recruiting a disgruntled family member to do America’s bidding. Jefferson would later dissemble about this operation to Congress, particularly regarding his decision to abandon the American-created mercenary army designed to place the disgruntled family member on the throne.
The celebrated Lewis and Clark expedition authorized by Jefferson in 1804 was more of an intelligence operation than an effort to discover new species of flora and fauna. Jefferson’s proclivity for the dark side can also be seen in his lobbying effort to persuade his friend President Madison to retaliate for the British burning of the White House by hiring arsonists in London to burn down St. Paul’s Cathedral.
James Madison, the architect of the Constitution, had served as Jefferson’s Secretary of State and was well aware of his boss’s appreciation for the unseemly necessities of foreign relations, although he seemed to have somewhat less enthusiasm for scheming than Jefferson. In 1805, Secretary of State Madison procured a prostitute using money from the secret service fund in order to enhance the visit of a foreign envoy from Tunisia — the fund being designed in part to facilitate “foreign intercourse.” Madison, although more deferential to Congress than Jefferson, conducted his own covert operations which were designed to secure parts of Florida for the United States by inciting “spontaneous” uprisings in Spanish-held territory. In response to criticism, Madison provided misleading accounts to Congress and to foreign governments of his administration’s actions. On the eve of the War of 1812, Madison spent $50,000 from the secret service fund to purchase mail from a suspected British agent who claimed he could prove that New England Federalists had conspired to secede from the union.
One can dismiss the founders as irrelevant to the debate over contemporary intelligence issues by claiming that the United States has evolved beyond their unenlightened ways. But enlisting them in the cause of restricting or banning these operations is a distortion of history. These operations are as American as Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. The fairy-tale version of the founders that denies this dark side, is spun by libertarians on the right and liberals on the left. Like it or not, it’s not true.
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狗仔卡
发表于 2016-2-26 09:12
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显身卡
发表于 2016-2-26 09:45
