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You Said What?
Bill Fawcett
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You Said What?
Bill Fawcett
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A fascinating, fun, and fact-filled compendium of the greatest lies, deceptions, propaganda, and frauds ever perpetrated Throughout historyâ from the dawn of man to the War on Terrorâ governments, corporations, historians, and high-level braggarts of every stripe have freely engaged in the time-honored pastime of lying for fun and profit. You Said What? is an endlessly entertaining and outrageously edifying look at some of the biggest whoppers of all time, chock-full of deceptions, trickery, and incredible untruths both infamous and obscure. The press conspiracies that protected FDR's legs, as well as JFK's sex addiction and failing health Lies that caused the Knights Templar fall, the Salem witch trials, and the Black Death Big lies that changed history: Vietnam's Gulf of Tonkin, the Cuban missile crisis, the " Polish" raid that kicked off WWII. and remember the Maine? The self-made, self-serving myths we still believe today of Davy Crockett, Lawrence of Arabia, and Napoleon Plus our own personal pick for History's #1 Biggest Liar. and much more! The lies will out! You Said What? is an indispensable treasure trove of true falsehoods, and an irreverent introduction to the world's greatest lies and the liars who told them.
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THE FIRST CASUALTY OF WAR IS TRUTH
That sort of says it all. Deception as a tactic is different from just plain lying, and it has been successful from Joshua and Hannibal to Rommel and Schwarzkopf. Lies are the general-purpose tool of those who make war. They are told to start wars, to justify wars, to win battles, and occasionally even to end a war. In fact, people seem able to lie in wars for just about every purpose except to prevent them. But, then, if a successful lie has prevented a war, it seems ironically likely we would not know of it.
A divided Congress, a semi-plausible excuse for war. Sound familiar? Itâs not 2003, but 1846, when a president bullied Congress into declaring war.
JAMES K. POLKâS FABRICATION TO CONGRESS
WASHINGTON, D.C., 1846
Robert Greenberger
Sam W. Haynes, professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, said of him, âHe was a man with a very strong sense of duty and professional obligation that made him seem cold, aloof and distant to many people. He was not a man who made friends easily or who had many interests. As far as we know, as President, his only reading materials were government documents and Bible scripturesâŠ[He] was very methodicalâa man who paid scrupulous attention to detail. He was a man whose mind was closed to abstractions and new ideas. But one of the truly striking things about [him] was his self-confidence. In the diary he kept as President of the United States, thereâs absolutely no evidence of self-doubt.â
David M. Pletcher, of Indiana University, added, âSome people believe that [the] PresidentâŠintentionally provoked the war with MexicoâŠhe was willing to create a threat of war to do this. If he had to fight, he wanted a short war and a quick victory. He never expected a long-drawn-out war. The Army was not ready for war and had never fought so far from home before. The country was divided.â
How little things change.
In 1846, President James K. Polk reported to Congress that American troops had been shot at by Mexican troops in American territory and that a swift reaction was called for. Some in Congress disputed the rationale but had to support the troops, so they ratified the call to war.
What was it all about? When Polk took office at age forty-nine, he was one of many who believed in a then-new notion known as âmanifest destinyââdescribed back in the day as the idea that acquiring Western lands was proper and necessary in order to secure the noble purposes of the United States. He was also the first president since James Monroe who vigorously applied the Monroe Doctrine to his policies.
In 1836, Texas had declared its independence from Mexico and subsequently applied for statehood, although the exact boundaries remained in dispute. Mexico was experiencing its own political problems as it went through a series of presidents since Santa Ana lost Texas. What Polk never seemed to grasp was the depth of feeling in Mexico over Santa Ana having been forced to give up Texas years earlier, or that the Mexican government never recognized the American annexation.
Mexico was deeply in debt to the United States and Britain, and Polk had hoped to settle matters by offering to wipe out that debt by settling the disputed border at the RĂo Grande. Mexico refused. At the same time, many in Washington, D.C., were concerned that Britain might want to extend its own North American holdings by demanding the California territory in lieu of repayment.
As it was later learned, Britain never desired the land, but it stayed out of matters during those years due to its own internal problems. Still, Polk was concerned, since Britain was proving difficult on settling the Oregon border with Canada, which led to the famous rallying cry of âFifty-four Forty or Fight!â The border was eventually settled at latitude forty-nine.
Polk decided to try a different approach. He knew that Mexico had rejected an offer of outright purchase of California in 1835, but he decided to try again. The president dispatched John Slidell to Mexico, charging him with four tasks: resolve the RĂo Grande border, settle the American citizensâ financial claims against Mexico, and attempt to purchase California and New Mexico. President JosĂ© JoaquĂn de Herrera wanted nothing to do with the envoy, so he found a technical flaw in Slidellâs credentials and refused to see him. The Mexicans even showed their displeasure by recalling their minister from Americaâs capitol. Undeterred, Slidell settled in a few towns over and waited, and an infuriated Polk named him permanent minister to Mexico.
Nearby, in Texas, Zachary Taylor commanded troops positioned in the disputed Texas territory as Slidellâs backup.
The conflict with America led Herreraâs government to be overthrown by General Mariano Paredes, who named himself president and proved to be even more anti-American than Herrera. He continued to refuse to recognize Slidell for fear that heâd be forced into concessions, which would result in his own coup.
To counter Taylorâs forces, Mexico saw to it that there were troops also at the disputed RĂo Grande. Their general sent men across the river to ambush an American detachment and killed the soldiers. Taylor reported back to his commander in chief, âI presume this means the beginning of war.â
Polk began to prepare his declaration of war, at no time recognizing that the ground where the attack had occurred was disputed land. By not addressing the point, he was able to make the strongest case possible to a skeptical Congress. Among the skeptics was Illinois congressman Abraham Lincoln, who was among those to challenge the facts as presented. He knew that the border was indeterminate and not worth going to war over. However, he was dwarfed by the support Congress wanted to offer the army.
In 1846, America found itself going to war against Mexico.
Polk thought the mere threat would attract Paredes to the negotiation table, but when that failed, he was convinced that the Mexican army would fold quickly. Instead, they fought valiantly, with the struggle dragging on. In fact, as the war passed the one-year mark, people wondered how the conflict would be resolved, if ever, and when their boys would be coming home.
Dissatisfaction with the presidentâs war grew so that in January 1848 the Congress actually tried to censure Polk. They added the censure as an amendment to a resolution being prepared to praise the efforts of Maj. Gen. Taylor. The censureâs language referred to the conflict as a âwar unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United States.â The entire resolution, though, died in committee.
The war ended that summer, and America suddenly gained land that would one day became the states of New Mexico, Arizona, and California, while also settling the Texas border dispute once and for all.
The Whig Party, who detested Polk and his unnecessary war, made a hero of Taylor, nominating him for president. Loyal to his commander, Taylor refused to issue public criticism, and Polk didnât oppose his officer in the election, honoring his promise to stay in office for only one term. In fact, Polk passed away 103 days after leaving office, the shortest post-presidency on record.
ââVeni, Vidi, Viciâ (I came, I saw, I conquered)â (Julius Caesar).
HOW THE ROMAN EMPIRE LOST ITS GALLIC WARS BUT JULIUS CAESAR BECAME EMPEROR
Paul A. Thomsen
On March 15, 44 B.C.E., Roman emperor Julius Caesar was stabbed in the back, front, and sides by a group of once-close friends and senators. As he lay dying in a pool of blood, history records the Roman emperorâs shock at the personal betrayal in his final famous words, âEt tu, Brute?â (Latin for âAnd you, Brutus?â). Yet, the joke would be on his assassins.
In only a few decades, Caesar had risen from a minor philandering nobleman to a legendary battlefield commander and the ruler of one of the greatest nation-states in the history of Europe all because of a single piece of wartime propaganda, beginning with the words âAll Gaul is divided into three partsâŠâ
Sent to patrol the outskirts of the then-Roman republic by political victims of his charismatic ways, Caesar had been expected to die in obscurity with his meager army, but the young nobleman had other plans. In 390 B.C.E., the nascent Roman republic had been burned to the ground by the Gauls, and for centuries Romans had lived in fear that the blue-painted and half-naked-seeming savages of the north might one day return. With stylus and gladius in hand, the young Caesar managed to push forward the northern borders of the republic and set his peopleâs fears at bay.
Through frequent dispatches home, which recounted his armyâs many battlefield victories, Julius Caesarâs Commentaries on the Gallic Wars carved out a grand reputation from the dark forests beyond the Himalayas, but the general also misled his admirers. His stories frequently characterized his enemies as inferior, his own campaigns as a series of nearly unblemished victories, and his opposers as soon-humbled subjects of the Roman Empire.
None of this was true.
Gaul was replete with cunning warriors armed with advanced war machines and sailing vessels to rival Romeâs own arsenal, and were kept from attacking neighboring nation-states solely because they too were too busy fighting each other for the fertile resources of northern Europe. Others had previously tried and succeeded in subduing regions of Gaul, but it was Caesar who pacified the region and declared victory over the northâŠor so he told everyone.
While he had, indeed, eventually beaten every Gallic army to rise against him, had expanded the republic with new allies in the region, and had eventually bested all domestic political rivals to become Romanâs first emperor, Julius Caesar had never really managed to either divide or truly conquer Gaul. Over the next several hundred years, as the legendary emperorâs body turned to dust, Rome spent millions in denari and hundreds of thousands of soldierâs lives trying to suppress a veritable plentitude of rebellions in this supposedly conquered land. After a while it seemed that each time one faction would be pressed down by bloody Roman sandals and gladii, another would soon rise to take their place. In response, the Romans tried everything from poisoning wells to practicing diplomacy to giving rewards, and after about forty years of trial and error, it seemed that they had finally bought off the Gauls with the rewards of Roman citizenshipâŠor so they thought.
In the intervening years, many Gauls living in what today is both France and parts of Germany had forsaken their old ways and risen to fairly high levels in both military and political circles. Several leaders of Gallic factions had even become the veritable toast of the Seven Hills of Rome. But while many of the blue-painted clans had, indeed, grown old and fat sucking on the imperial tit, others being trained in the arts of warfare and engineering by the Roman military itself were plotting the empireâs downfall.
In assimilating surrendered factions, Roman imperial policy dictated that the children of the conquered leadership were to be taken to Rome to be raised as proper citizens of the empire. On the surface the policy seemed sound. The precarious position of the Gallic childrenâs lives often squelched ideas of rebellion in their parents before they could gather steam, and upon completion of their decade-long education as new Roman citizens, the children seemed to be ideal vassals to rule their ancestorsâ conquered land for the empire. It was a clockwork system. But eventually the synchronized mechanisms began to break down.
In A.D. 9, the Roman governor of Germania, Publius Quinctilius Varus, learned of the formation of yet another Gallic rebellion. His source, a Romanized German prince named Arminius, implored him to put down the forming insurrection before the factions could launch an attack against their shared interests. Varus, a descendent of the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus (the adopted nephew of Julius Caesar), saw an opportunity for glory in the intelligence. Never questioning Arminiusâs word, he gathered together three legions of troops, six cohorts, and three squadrons of cavalry, and rode out to subdue this new threat.
Over the next several weeks, Varus, directed by Arminius, led his several-thousand-strong contingent through untamed wilderness, cold winds, torrential rains, and thick mud of the Teutoburg Forest (presently northeastern North RhineâWestphalia land) in search of the enemy. Periodically small groups of rebels were sighted on the periphery of the military column, throwing rocks and insults, but before orders could be given to subdue them, the rebel Gauls disappeared into the thickening fog. A few days later, now spoiling for a fight, the frustrated column of soldiers stumbled across a small group of rebels massing ahead of the column. With swords at the ready, the men charged at the enemy, but in a matter of moments the retreating enemy party stopped, turned around, and joined a wall of several thousand rebel Gauls emerging from fog and cover to attack the Roman column.
Varus was stunned. Arminius, having orchestrated the ambush with the rebels, was nowhere to be found. In a matter of minutes, the once-lengthy show of Roman regional prowess was pressed into a tiny mass of screaming men fighting for their very lives. Unwilling to be captured, and knowing he would receive a far worse fate should he survive the battle to return to Rome, Varus drew his own gladius and fell on the blade. By dayâs end, only a handful of soldiers had escaped the Roman-educated Arminiusâs power play and the vengeance of the Gauls. In response to the staggering loss and the sudden vulnerability of the Italian peninsula, Roman emperor Caesar Augustus reportedly shouted, âO, Quintilius Varus! Give me back my legions!â
Shortly, thereafter, the entire region was plunged into unchecked rebellion. Over a year passed before Rome sent another army into the region. Finding only piles of skulls and splintered bones to mark the site of the massacre, the army retreated, and for the next several hundred years, the Rhine River became the new northern boundary of the empire until it was likewise pushed back by Gallic armies.
In A.D. 410, the progenitors of those whom Julius Caesar had âconqueredâ spilled over the Alps, sacked Rome, and, once more, burned it to the ground. There was no spin to be put on this occasion. Julius Caesar, it seemed, had finally gotten the last laugh on his assassins and their progeny. The Gallic Wars had never ended, the region was never completely divided, and Gaul was never truly Romeâs.
RADIO RAIDERS OF THE POLISH FRONTIER
GERMANY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1939
Douglas Niles
âPoland attacked Germany first!â
âADOLF HITLER
Although the Japanese had been sporadically fighting in China for nearly a decade, the generally accepted outbreak of World War II occurred on September 1, 1939, with the German invasion of neutral Poland. The Nazi attack had been in the works for many months, with the final cornerstone of the strategy falling into place during August. At that time, Adolf Hitlerâs Nazi government and Joseph Stalinâs Communist regime set aside their intrinsic differences to sign one of the most cynical and ruthless treaties in modern history.
The pact went into effect on August 23, and guaranteed that neither dictatorship would interfere with the other as they went about reclaiming âancestral landsâ that had been granted to Poland at the end of World War I. In a further burst of cynicism, the Nazis agreed that Stalin could have a free hand moving his armies into the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estoniaâdespite the fact that these small countries included a significant population of Germanic and Prussian descent.
Germany was poised to devour western Poland like a wolf ready to gulp down a rabbit. A glance at the prewar map confirms thisâthe geographical positions resemble nothing so much as widespread jaws. East Prussia, separated from Germany by the Danzig corridor connecting Poland to the Baltic Sea, lay directly north of the Polish heartland and was garrisoned by the German Third Army. West of Poland stretched Germany proper, where the Fourth, Eighth, and Tenth armies awaited action. Finally, as a result of the Nazi seizure of Czechoslovakia in the previous year, the mountainous country south of the Polish border was also in German hands. Here the Fourteenth Army coiled, ready to strike north. Fully trained, and supplied with ammunition and fuel, the troops moved into their attack positions and awaited the command to move out.
But Hitler still had an ear, however muted, turned toward world opinion. Wit...