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UFO UpDates Mailing List

From: Greg Sandow <gsandow@prodigy.net>
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 03:32:07 -0400
Fwd Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 20:00:37 -0400
Subject: Re: Project 1947 - Robert Dean

Jan, it seems to be, is being rather stiff on the question of Robert
Dean's oath.

> >>From: Jan Aldrich <jan@CYBERZONE.NET>
> >>Subject: Robert Dean
> >>To: PROJECT-1947@LISTSERV.AOL.COM

> >>Greeting List Members,

> >>To deal with Dean as a creditable person one most consider
> >>that he is telling us about a Top Secret document that
> >> he took an oath to safeguard.

> >>It was a "draftee's oath."  He was a professional. It wasn't a
> >>little oath. And Dean himself talks about how the government is
> >>flushing the Constitution of the United States down the toilet.
> >>He has done the same to his oath to protect and defend the
> >>Constitution if what he says is true.

> >>So we are left with two possibilities:  Dean is an
> >>oath-breaker or a liar. In either case not a very creditable
> >>person.


Jan's position is simple -- an oath is an oath is an oath, and
someone who breaks one is bad.

He should recognize, though, that many of us -- without being evil or
untrustworthy -- hold more nuanced positions. For instance, what do
we call someone who works for a tobacco company, signs a
non-disclosure agreement, finds himself doing what he believes is
immoral work (research, maybe, on how to addict smokers even more
fatally), and goes public with the information he'd pledged not to
reveal?

I can think of two words for this person. "Whistleblower" is a
general term in common use; "hero" might be more fitting.

What about Daniel Ellsberg, who revealed secret government documents
(the "Pentagon Papers") during during the Vietnam War? He, too, was
considered to be a hero by a good proportion of Americans.

We've also got a tradition of lawbreaking for higher moral purposes.
Draft resisters disobeyed the draft laws during the Vietnam War;
Martin Luther King disobeyed many laws in his quest for civil rights.
Most of us, I suspect, are law-abiding citizens but make an exception
in times of crisis when laws or oaths seem to seriously conflict with
morality. To give Jan an admittedly exaggerated example, suppose he'd
been a Nazi officer during World War II, and knew that Jews were
being exterminated. Would he feel bound to obey whatever oaths he'd
sworn, or would he feel justified -- assuming there was some way to
do this -- to refuse orders to participate, or to reveal what he knew
to the world.

How about Soviet and North Korean military officers who defected to
the West, presumably in violation of their oaths? Should they simply
have stayed home, and continued their service to their tyrannical
governments? I don't mean to suggest that defying the American
government has quite the same force (even if UFO secrets might be
involved!) but I appeal to Jan's good heart and common sense. The
situation is not black and white. Surely there are times when
breaking a law or an oath is justified; the question is where to draw
the line. On that reasonable, law-abiding people are free to
disagree. But the absolutist position -- nobody who breaks an oath
can be considered a decent human being -- is plainly absurd.

One more example. What about John Dean, who testified against Nixon,
his boss (whom he'd sworn implicitly or explicity to serve) in the
Watergate hearings? Was he an immoral guy?

What makes all this funny, in a grimly bittersweet sort of way, is
the behavior of high-ranking military and political figures in
Washington. They're revealing confidential information to the press
every day. The technical term for these revelations is "leaks," and
their purpose is often mildly sordid. Let's say I'm a general in the
Pentagon, and I feel I'm being outmaneuvered by my military rivals
about some question of military policy. I wouldn't think twice about
calling a reporter from the Washington Post, and spilling all kinds
of secret information off the record over drinks, in order to provoke
a front page story describing the policy dispute from my point of
view.

Against a background like that, Robert Dean's action (assuming, of
course, that he's telling the truth) seems remarkably lofty, even
noble.

Greg Sandow