Word: polygraph
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Reagan's extreme reliance on his staff leaves him badly exposed when they muff their jobs. Last fall Administration officials quietly confirmed that then Middle East Envoy Robert McFarlane favored stepped-up U.S. military action in Lebanon. Clark, overreacting to the leak, drafted an Executive Order mandating polygraph exams to track down the source. The order could have subjected most of Reagan's top associates to lie-detector tests. At least one Cabinet resignation was threatened. "It was a black day around here," says a White House aide. Administration "pragmatists" intervened to get the foolish scheme canceled. Reagan...
...vigorously pursued the investigation, interviewing members of the President's senior staff and Cabinet for up to two hours each. But there is no evidence that polygraph tests have yet been used. Secretary of State George Shultz was among those who let the White House know that he would resign before allowing himself to be strapped to such a machine. Presidential Counsellor Edwin Meese last week stressed that the leak could have jeopardized McFarlane's life in the volatile Middle East. But some aides suggested that the probe was part of the protracted power struggle between Baker...
...staff since 1981. Last March, Reagan signed a controversial directive permitting the use of lie detectors on the 2.5 million federal employees who hold high security clearances. Despite these actions, the leaks have continued and no sources have been uncovered. In fact, the prospect of facing a polygraph has done little except provoke discontent within the Administration. Said one outraged official: 'If Reagan cannot trust his own people without giving them a lie-detector test, then he ought to fire them...
...Robert C. McFarlane. The President alleged that leaks about air-strikes--employed to ensure the safety of U.S. Marines in Lebanon--had endangered both McFarlane'x peace efforts and his personal safety. The FBI began questioning officials, cabinet members and foreign policy advisers, some of whom offered to take polygraph tests to insure that they weren't lying. But Reagan should realize that there is a limit to how much he can stem such leaks. They are a symptom not of a disloyal staff but of a free society and an open democracy where the governed as much...
...Allain's positions on utility regulation and education reforms were obscured by a flurry of lurid charges: two weeks before the election, Bramlett supporters trotted out a pair of young black men, both transvestites, who claimed to have been paid 20 times by Allain for sexual services. A polygraph test commissioned by the Jackson Clarion-Ledger buttressed the hustlers' allegations. Allain, 55 and divorced, called the charges "damnable, vicious, malicious lies." He added, "I'm no sexual deviate, and Leon Bramlett knows...