“I cannot tell a lie” proclaimed first U.S. President, George Washington before owning up to chopping down his father’s favourite cherry tree. Or did he? It turns out that the American people were so keen to cherish their saintly first president that they weren’t above making things up. The story was concocted by Mason Locke Weems, author of ‘The Life of George Washington’, and first appeared in the fifth edition (published in 1806), his intention being ‘to illustrate the importance of honesty and virtue’. Many years later another American president, Richard Nixon, proudly proclaimed, to an audience of 400 associated press editors, “I am not a crook!”, in response to accusations of complicity in a series of burglaries at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, housed in the Watergate Hotel. When the truth came out (see ‘All The President’s Men’ from 1976 with Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford for the full torrid tale) Nixon was impeached, but rather than face a humiliating trial chose to resign from office. His integrity took a while to put in an appearance but, importantly, it got there in the end. Well done, Richard Nixon! Fifty years later the USA is a paragon of virtue and honesty.

 

The president even runs his own social media site, named ‘Truth Social’, which he set up, at great personal expense, after being kicked off Twitter for posting a torrent of fake stories, hateful attacks and self-serving lies. Lie Lie Lie Lie Lie L’America, as the song goes. It is often stated that all is fair in love and war. Maybe ‘fair’ isn’t the right word. It is also claimed that ‘truth’ is the first casualty of war. Good to know, but not massively helpful. If you think about it, nations waging war have merely agreed to suspend their humanity until they win their spoils.

 

After ten long years of senseless war between the Ancient Greeks and the Trojans (see Virgil’s ‘Odyssey’ for a full and accurate account of the fisticuffs - or that Brad Pitt movie if you’re a bit of an oik), following Trojan leader Paris’s successful wooing and seduction of the Spartan king’s wife, Helen (apparently the most beautiful woman who ever lived - more porkies surely), the Greeks ended things in brutal fashion. They built a giant wooden horse, a marvel of ancient craftsmanship, and presented it to Troy as a peace offering. The Trojans were made up. What a lovely gesture from the erstwhile foe! The following morning they were all dead, courtesy of the assassination squad that had been hiding in the Trojan Horse’s hollow insides, biding its time.

 

Fair? Hmmm... To the concerned observer it seems that lying is booming right now, what with all the overt trade in misinformation and cherry-picking regarding everything from climate change and vaccines, through to the age and shape of our world. Denialists and conspiracy theorists claim that man never went to the moon, ignoring hard evidence. They claim vaccines are harmful and still cite the 1998 Lancet article by Andrew Wakefield (who lost his medical licence as a result) that falsely linked autism to the MMR jab. Hardline religious creationists try to discredit scientists with lies because they don’t like evolution, and the sweets industry is still adamant that chocolate bars have not shrunk in size since the 1970s! Who do they think they’re fooling? The truth will out... always.