Cover-up

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"An ostrich only thinks he 'covers up'." "An ostrich only thinks he "covers up." - NARA - 513846.jpg
"An ostrich only thinks he 'covers up'."

A cover-up is an attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal evidence of wrongdoing, error, incompetence, or other embarrassing information. Research has distinguished personal cover-ups (covering up one's own misdeeds) from relational cover-ups (covering up someone else's misdeeds). [1]

Contents

The expression is usually applied to people in positions of authority who abuse power to avoid or silence criticism or to deflect guilt of wrongdoing. Perpetrators of a cover-up (initiators or their allies) may be responsible for a misdeed, a breach of trust or duty, or a crime.

While the terms are often used loosely, cover-up involves withholding incriminatory evidence, while whitewash involves releasing misleadingly exculpatory evidence, and a frameup involves falsely blaming an innocent person. Misprision is the failure of mandated reporters to disclose crimes they are aware of (e.g., a military officer failing to proactively report evidence of treason, or a hospital failing to report child abuse).

A cover-up involving multiple parties is a type of conspiracy.

Snowjob is an American and Canadian [2] colloquialism for a deception or a cover-up; for example, Helen Gahagan Douglas described the Nixon Administration as "the greatest snow job in history". [3]

Modern usage

The Ottoman government attempted to ban foreigners from taking photographs such as this one of Armenian genocide victims in an effort to cover up the genocide. Ambassador Morgenthau's Story p314.jpg
The Ottoman government attempted to ban foreigners from taking photographs such as this one of Armenian genocide victims in an effort to cover up the genocide.

When a scandal breaks, the discovery of an attempt to cover up the truth is often regarded as even more reprehensible than the original deeds.[ citation needed ]

Initially a cover-up may require a lot of effort, but it will be carried out by those closely involved with the misdeed.[ citation needed ] Once some hint of the hidden matter starts to become known, the cover-up gradually draws all the top leadership, at least, of an organization into complicity in covering up a misdeed or even crime that may have originally been committed by a few of its members acting independently.[ citation needed ] This may be regarded as tacit approval of that behaviour.[ citation needed ]

It is likely that some cover-ups are successful, although by definition this cannot be confirmed. Many[ citation needed ] fail, however, as more and more people are drawn in and the possibility of exposure makes potential accomplices fearful of supporting the cover-up and as loose ends that may never normally have been noticed start to stand out. As it spreads, the cover-up itself creates yet more suspicious circumstances.

The original misdeed being covered may be relatively minor, such as the "third-rate burglary" which started the Watergate scandal, but the cover-up adds so many additional crimes (obstruction of justice, perjury, payoffs and bribes, in some cases suspicious suicides or outright murder) that the cover-up becomes much more serious than the original crime.[ citation needed ] This gave rise to the phrase, "it's not the crime, it's the cover-up". [5]

Cover-ups do not necessarily require the active manipulation of facts or circumstances. Arguably the most common form of cover-up is one of non-action. It is the conscious failure to release incriminating information by a third party. This passive cover-up may be justified by the motive of not wanting to embarrass the culprit or expose them to criminal prosecution, or even the belief that the cover-up is justified by protecting the greater community from scandal. Yet, because of the passive cover-up, the misdeed often goes undiscovered and results in harm to others ensuing from its failure to be discovered.[ citation needed ]

Real cover-ups are common enough, but any event which is not completely clear is likely to give rise to a thicket of conspiracy theories alleging covering up of sometimes the weirdest and most unlikely conspiracies.

Typology

Old Thirty Nine shaking hands with his good brother the Pope of Italy, or covering up versus sealing up the Bible, 1819 by George Cruikshank. ("39 articles" refers to the Church of England) Cruikshank - Old Thirty Nine.png
Old Thirty Nine shaking hands with his good brother the Pope of Italy, or covering up versus sealing up the Bible, 1819 by George Cruikshank. ("39 articles" refers to the Church of England)

The following list is considered to be a typology [6] since those who engage in cover-ups tend to use many of the same methods of hiding the truth and defending themselves. This list was compiled from famous cover-ups such as Watergate Scandal, Iran-Contra Affair, My Lai Massacre, Pentagon Papers , the cover-up of corruption in New York City under Boss Tweed (William M. Tweed and Tammany Hall) in the late 19th century, [7] and the tobacco industry cover-up of the health hazards of smoking. [8] The methods in actual cover-ups tend to follow the general order of the list below.

Initial response to allegation
  1. Flat denial
  2. Convince the media to bury the story
  3. Preemptively distribute false information
  4. Claim that the "problem" is minimal
  5. Claim faulty memory
  6. Claim the accusations are half-truths
  7. Claim the critic has no proof
  8. Attack the critic's motive
  9. Attack the critic's character
Withhold or tamper with evidence
  1. Prevent the discovery of evidence
  2. Destroy or alter the evidence
  3. Make discovery of evidence difficult
  4. Create misleading names of individuals and companies to hide funding
  5. Lie or commit perjury
  6. Block or delay investigations
  7. Issue restraining orders
  8. Claim executive privilege
Delayed response to allegation
  1. Deny a restricted definition of wrongdoing (e.g. torture)
  2. Limited hang out [9] (i.e., confess to minor charges)
  3. Use biased evidence as a defense
  4. Claim that the critic's evidence is biased
  5. Select a biased blue ribbon commission or "independent" inquiry
Intimidate participants, witnesses or whistleblowers [10]
  1. Bribe or buy out the critic
  2. Generally intimidate the critic by following him or her, killing pets, etc.
  3. Blackmail: hire private investigators and threaten to reveal past wrongdoing ("dirt")
  4. Death threats of the critic or his or her family
  5. Threaten the critic with loss of job or future employment in industry
  6. Transfer the critic to an inferior job or location
  7. Intimidate the critic with lawsuits or SLAPP suits
  8. Murder; assassination
Publicity management
  1. Bribe the press
  2. Secretly plant stories in the press
  3. Retaliate against hostile media
  4. Threaten the press with loss of access
  5. Attack the motives of the press
  6. Place defensive advertisements
  7. Buy out the news source
Damage control
  1. Claim no knowledge of wrongdoing
  2. Scapegoats: blame an underling for unauthorized action
  3. Fire the person(s) in charge
Win court cases
  1. Hire the best lawyers
  2. Hire scientists and expert witnesses who will support your story
  3. Delay with legal maneuvers
  4. Influence or control the judges
Reward cover-up participants
  1. Hush money
  2. Little or no punishment
  3. Pardon or commute sentences
  4. Promote employees as a reward for cover-up
  5. Reemploy the employee after dust clears

In criminal law

Depending on the nature of cover-up activities, they may constitute a crime in certain jurisdictions.

Perjury (actively telling lies to the court, as opposed to refusing to answer questions) is considered a crime in virtually all legal systems. Likewise, obstruction of justice, that is, any activity that aims to cover-up another crime, is itself a crime in many legal systems.

The United States has the crime of making false statements to a federal agent in the context of any matter within the federal jurisdiction, which includes "knowingly and willfully" making a statement that "covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact". [11]

Examples

Front page of the newspaper L'Aurore of Thursday 13 January 1898, with the famous open letter J'Accuse...! written by Emile Zola to the President of France about the Dreyfus Affair. The headline reads "I accuse! Letter to the President of the Republic". See J'accuse...!, the whole text on Wikisource J'accuse.jpg
Front page of the newspaper L’Aurore of Thursday 13 January 1898, with the famous open letter J'Accuse…! written by Émile Zola to the President of France about the Dreyfus Affair. The headline reads "I accuse! Letter to the President of the Republic". See J'accuse...!, the whole text on Wikisource

Alleged cover-ups

Conspiracy theories generally include an allegation of a cover-up of the facts of some prominent event. Examples include:

See also

Related Research Articles

Historical negationism, also called historical denialism, is falsification or distortion of the historical record. This is not the same as historical revisionism, a broader term that extends to newly evidenced, fairly reasoned academic reinterpretations of history. In attempting to revise and influence the past, historical negationism acts as illegitimate historical revisionism by using techniques inadmissible in proper historical discourse, such as presenting known forged documents as genuine, inventing ingenious but implausible reasons for distrusting genuine documents, attributing conclusions to books and sources that report the opposite, manipulating statistical series to support the given point of view, and deliberately mistranslating traditional or modern texts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Watergate scandal</span> Early 1970s political scandal in the US

The Watergate scandal was a political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon which ultimately led to Nixon's resignation. It revolved around members of a fundraising organization associated with Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters located in the Watergate Office Building in Washington, D.C., on June 17, 1972, and Nixon's subsequent attempts to conceal his administration's involvement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genocide denial</span> Attempt to deny the scale and severity of genocide

Genocide denial is the attempt to deny or minimize the scale and severity of an instance of genocide. Denial is an integral part of genocide and includes the secret planning of genocide, propaganda while the genocide is going on, and destruction of evidence of mass killings. According to genocide researcher Gregory Stanton, denial "is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scandal</span> An action regarded as morally or legally wrong and causing public outrage

A scandal can be broadly defined as the strong social reactions of outrage, anger, or surprise, when accusations or rumours circulate or appear for some reason, regarding a person or persons who are perceived to have transgressed in some way a social norm. These reactions are usually noisy and may be conflicting, and they often have negative effects on the status and credibility of the persons or organizations involved.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia</span> Armenian militant organization that operated from 1975 to the early 1990s

Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) was a militant organization active between 1975 and the 1990s whose stated goal was "to compel the Turkish Government to acknowledge publicly its responsibility for the Armenian genocide in 1915, pay reparations, and cede territory for an Armenian homeland." ASALA itself and other sources described it as a guerilla and armed organization. The United States Department of State, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan and some other sources listed it as a terrorist organization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Khojaly massacre</span> 1992 mass killing of Azerbaijanis during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War

The Khojaly massacre was the mass killing of Azerbaijani civilians by Armenian forces and the 366th CIS regiment in the town of Khojaly on 26 February 1992. The event became the largest single massacre throughout the entire Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The blue wall of silence, also blue code and blue shield, are terms used to denote an informal code of silence among police officers in the United States not to report on a colleague's errors, misconduct, or crimes, especially as related to police brutality in the United States. If questioned about an incident of alleged misconduct involving another officer, while following the code, the officer being questioned would perjure themselves by feigning ignorance of another officer's wrongdoing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guenter Lewy</span> American historian

Guenter Lewy is a German-born American author and political scientist who is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His works span several topics, but he is most often associated with his 1978 book on the Vietnam War, America in Vietnam, and several controversial works that deal with the applicability of the term genocide to various historical events, where Lewy denies both the Romani genocide and the Armenian genocide.

Linda Melvern is a British investigative journalist. Early in her career, she worked for The Evening Standard and then The Sunday Times (UK), including on the investigative Insight Team. Since leaving the newspaper she has written seven books of non-fiction. She is a former Honorary Professor of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, in the Department of International Politics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Armenian genocide denial</span> Fringe theory that the Armenian genocide did not occur

Armenian genocide denial is the negationist claim that the Ottoman Empire and its ruling party, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), did not commit genocide against its Armenian citizens during World War I—a crime documented in a large body of evidence and affirmed by the vast majority of scholars. The perpetrators denied the genocide as they carried it out, claiming that Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were resettled for military reasons, not exterminated. In its aftermath, incriminating documents were systematically destroyed. Denial has been the policy of every government of the Ottoman Empire's successor state, the Republic of Turkey, as of 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Denialism</span> Persons choice to deny psychologically uncomfortable truth

In the psychology of human behavior, denialism is a person's choice to deny reality as a way to avoid believing in a psychologically uncomfortable truth. Denialism is an essentially irrational action that withholds the validation of a historical experience or event when a person refuses to accept an empirically verifiable reality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Armenian genocide recognition</span> Governments recognition of the Ottoman empires mass killing of Armenians as genocide

Armenian genocide recognition is the formal acceptance of the fact that the Ottoman Empire's systematic massacres and forced deportation of Armenians from 1915 to 1923, both during and after the First World War, constituted genocide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iğdır Genocide Memorial and Museum</span> Memorial promoting pseudohistorical claims

Iğdır Genocide Memorial and Museum is a memorial-museum complex in Iğdır, Turkey. It is known for denial of the Armenian genocide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bosnian genocide denial</span> Denial of Bosnian genocide

Bosnian genocide denial is the act of denying the occurrence of the systematic genocide against the Bosniak Muslim population of Bosnia and Herzegovina, or asserting it did not occur in the manner or to the extent that has been established by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) through proceedings and judgments, and described by comprehensive scholarship.

The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide is a 2006 book by Guenter Lewy about the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire. In the book, Lewy argues that the high death toll among Ottoman Armenians was a byproduct of the conditions of the marches and on sporadic attacks rather than a planned attempt to exterminate them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genocide justification</span> Attempts to claim genocide is a moral action

Genocide justification is the claim that a genocide is morally excusable/defensible, necessary, and/or sanctioned by law. Genocide justification differs from genocide denial, which is an attempt to reject the occurrence of genocide. Perpetrators often claim that genocide victims presented a serious threat, justifying their actions by stating it was legitimate self-defense of a nation or state. According to modern international criminal law, there can be no excuse for genocide. Genocide is often camouflaged as military activity against combatants, and the distinction between denial and justification is often blurred.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Armenian genocide and the Holocaust</span> Comparison of genocides

The relationship between the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust has been discussed by scholars. The majority of scholars believe that there is a direct causal relationship between the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust, however, some of them do not believe that there is a direct causal relationship between the two genocides.

The terminology of the Armenian genocide is different in English, Turkish, and Armenian languages and has led to political controversies around the issue of Armenian genocide denial and Armenian genocide recognition. Although the majority of historians writing in English use the word "genocide", other terms exist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">May 1915 Triple Entente declaration</span> Declaration condemning the Armenian Genocide

On 24 May 1915, on the initiative of Russia, the Triple Entente—Russia, France, and the United Kingdom—issued a declaration condemning the ongoing Armenian genocide carried out in the Ottoman Empire and threatening to hold the perpetrators accountable. This was the first use of the phrase "crimes against humanity" in international diplomacy, which later became a category of international criminal law after World War II.

References

  1. ↑ Kundro, Timothy (2021). "Understanding When and Why Cover-Ups Are Punished Less Severely". Academy of Management Journal. 64 (3): 873–900. doi:10.5465/amj.2018.1396. S2CID   218805378.
  2. ↑ "Define snow job at dictionary.com". dictionary.com. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
  3. ↑ Herbert Mitgang (25 May 1992). "Books of The Times; Nixon's Enemy in 1950 Had the Last Laugh in '74". The New York Times . Retrieved 16 April 2008.
  4. ↑ Akçam, Taner (2018). Killing Orders: Talat Pasha's Telegrams and the Armenian Genocide. Springer. p. 157. ISBN   978-3-319-69787-1.
  5. ↑ Carlson, Margaret (23 October 2019). "With Trump, It's Not the Cover-Up. It's the Crime". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 29 December 2020.
  6. ↑ The systematic classification of the types of something according to their common characteristics. See Wiktionary.
  7. ↑ Ackerman, K. D. (2005). Boss Tweed: The rise and fall of the corrupt pol who conceived the soul of modern New York. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers. ISBN   0-7867-1435-2.
  8. ↑ See biography of the whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand
  9. ↑ McGrory, Mary (25 April 2002). "From Rome, A 'Limited Hangout'". Washington Post. Retrieved 29 June 2017.
  10. ↑ See also List of whistleblowers.
  11. ↑ 18 U.S.C.   § 1001(a)
  12. ↑ "DREYFUS CASE ("L'Affaire Dreyfus")". JewishEncyclopedia.com. Retrieved 13 March 2012.
  13. ↑ Dadrian, Vahakn N. (2003). "The signal facts surrounding the Armenian genocide and the Turkish denial syndrome". Journal of Genocide Research. 5 (2): 269–279. doi:10.1080/14623520305671. S2CID   71289389. First, there are the organized attempts to cover up the record of past atrocities. The nearest successful example in the modern era is the 80 years of official denial by successive Turkish governments of the 1915–17 genocide against the Armenians in which some 1.5 million people lost their lives. This denial has been sustained by deliberate propaganda, lying and coverups, forging documents, suppression of archives, and bribing scholars.
  14. ↑ Sterio, Milena (2011). "Katyn Forest Massacre: Of Genocide, State Lies, and Secrecy". Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law. 44: 615.
  15. ↑ Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters (Walsh Report) March 2010.
  16. ↑ Katell, Andrew (10 July 1989). "'82 Moscow Soccer Tragedy Is Exposed". Los Angeles Times . Associated Press . Retrieved 18 February 2012.
  17. ↑ Schmemann, Serge (29 April 1986). "Soviet Announces Nuclear Accident at Electric Plant". The New York Times. p. A1. Archived from the original on 27 April 2014. Retrieved 26 April 2014.
  18. ↑ Doug Linder. "The Peers Report on the My Lai Massacre". Law.umkc.edu. Archived from the original on 15 November 2008. Retrieved 13 March 2012.
  19. ↑ "Boston Globe / Spotlight / Abuse in the Catholic Church / Scandal and coverup". The Boston Globe . 31 January 2002. Retrieved 10 November 2013.
  20. ↑ "TRANSCRIPT OF A RECORDING OF A MEETING BETWEEN THE PRESIDENT AND H.R. HALDEMAN IN THE OVAL OFFICE ON JUNE 23, 1972 FROM 10:04 TO 11:39 AM - Watergate Special Prosecution Force" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 May 2010. Retrieved 13 March 2012.
  21. ↑ Ostlere, Lawrence (9 December 2016). "McLaren report: more than 1,000 Russian athletes involved in doping conspiracy". The Guardian. London.
  22. ↑ Mark Lane (1966). Rush to Judgment: A Critique of the Warren Commission's Inquiry Into the Murders of President John F. Kennedy, Officer J. D. Tippit and Lee Harvey Oswald. Holt Rinehart & Winston
  23. ↑ Henry Hurt (January 1986). Reasonable Doubt: An Investigation into the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
  24. ↑ Michael L. Kurtz (November 2006). The JFK Assassination Debates: Lone Gunman versus Conspiracy. University of Kansas Press
  25. ↑ Rabe, J(2002) Die Estonia: Tragödie eines Schiffsuntergangs, Publisher: Delius Klasing
  26. ↑ Goldberg, Robert Alan (2001). Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America. Yale University Press. ISBN   0-300-09000-5.
  27. ↑ Rowell, Andrew (2003). Don't worry, it's safe to eat: the true story of GM food, BSE, & Foot and Mouth. Earthscan. ISBN   1-85383-932-9.
  28. ↑ Dirk Vander Ploeg, Wainfleet, Ontario, Canada. "2002 SEALED AFFIDAVIT OF WALTER G. HAUT". Ufodigest.com. Archived from the original on 14 March 2012. Retrieved 13 March 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  29. ↑ "Hypotheses: Principal Alternative Theories of the Attack retrieved March 2010". Stj911.org. Retrieved 13 March 2012.
  30. ↑ "Docs Back Up Claims of Requests for More Security in Benghazi". News.yahoo.com.
  31. ↑ Lawrence Fawcett & Barry J. Greenwood, The UFO Cover-Up (Originally Clear Intent), 1992, Fireside Books (Simon & Schuster), ISBN   0-671-76555-8. Many UFO documents.
  32. ↑ "Critics hit Palace's 'new script' on PNoy's involvement in Mamasapano operation". GMANews.tv.
  33. ↑ Thompson, Stuart A. (16 February 2023). "'Chernobyl 2.0'? Ohio Train Derailment Spurs Wild Speculation". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 20 February 2023.
  34. ↑ Merlan, Anna (13 February 2023). "The Conspiracy-Verse Thinks "Fake UFOs" Are a Distraction From a Disastrous Train Derailment". Vice News. Retrieved 20 February 2023.
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