Editing Plausible deniability (section)

===Media reports===
{{Quote
|text=The (Church Committee) conceded that to provide the United States with "plausible denial" in the event that the anti-Castro plots were discovered, Presidential authorization might have been subsequently "obscured". (The Church Committee) also declared that, whatever the extent of the knowledge, Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson should bear the "ultimate responsibility" for the actions of their subordinates.
|author=John M. Crewdson
|source=''[[The New York Times]]''<ref>{{Cite news|first=John M.|last=Crewdson|date=1975-11-21|title=Castro Plot Study Finds No Role by White House|language=en-US|work=[[The New York Times]]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1975/11/21/archives/castro-plot-study-finds-no-role-by-white-house.html|access-date=2020-06-07|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>
}}

{{quote
|text=CIA officials deliberately used [[Aesopian language]]<ref>Definition: Using or having ambiguous or allegorical meanings, especially to elude political censorship: "They could express their views only in a diluted form, resorting to Aesopian hints and allusions" ''(Isaac Deutscher)''.</ref> in talking to the President and others outside the agency. ([[Richard Helms]]) testified that he did not want to "embarrass a President" or sit around an official table talking about "killing or murdering." The report found this "circumlocution"<ref>Definition: The use of unnecessarily wordy and indirect language, Evasion in speech or writing, An indirect way of expressing something</ref> reprehensible, saying: "Failing to call dirty business by its rightful name may have increased the risk of dirty business being done." The committee also suggested that the system of command and control may have been deliberately ambiguous, to give Presidents a chance for "plausible denial."
|author=Anthony Lewis
|source=''[[The New York Times]]''<ref>{{Cite news|last=Lewis|first=Anthony|date=1975-11-23|title=How Fantasies Became Policy, Out of Control|language=en-US|work=[[The New York Times]]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1975/11/23/archives/how-fantasies-became-policy-out-of-control-the-honorable-murderous.html|access-date=2020-06-07|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>
}}

{{quote
|text=What made the responsibility difficult to pin down in retrospect was a sophisticated system of institutionalized vagueness and circumlocution whereby no official - and particularly a President - had to officially endorse questionable activities. Unsavory orders were rarely committed to paper and what record the committee found was shot through with references to "removal," "the magic button"<ref>Definition of the "Magic Button" from the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' Article: The Search for a 'Magic Button' In American Foreign Policy; October 18, 1987; ''(Review by David Aaron of the book Covert Action)'' ''I recall during my days as a Senate investigator finding a piece of yellow note pad with jottings from a meeting with White House officials during the Kennedy Administration that discussed an "Executive Action" or, in plain English, an assassination capability. The notes referred to it as the "magic button."''</ref> and "the resort beyond the last resort." Thus the agency might at times have misread instructions from on high, but it seemed more often to be easing the burden of presidents who knew there were things they didn't want to know. As former CIA director Richard Helms told the committee: "The difficulty with this kind of thing, as you gentlemen are all painfully aware, is that nobody wants to embarrass a President of the United States."
|source=''[[Newsweek]]''<ref>[[Newsweek]] The CIA'S Hit List, December 1, 1975, p. 28</ref>}}