The former C.I.A. director and secretary of state ridiculed the U.S. Military Academy, his alma mater, by dissing the cadets’ honor code in one of his most infamous remarks, writes Joe Lauria.
A view of the Hudson Valley from the West Point campus. (Joe Lauria)
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
On the way back to the Washington area after giving an anti-war speech at a rally in Kingston, New York on Sept. 28, I decided to visit the other end of the political spectrum: the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.
The tour bus takes you across the sprawling campus perched above spectacular views of the Hudson Valley.
We began by passing the athletic facilities (learning that Gen. Douglas MacArthur, when he ran the place, required all cadets to be athletes), by various academic buildings, dormitories, the chapel, a remnant of the chain Gen. George Washington ordered lain across the Hudson River to hinder British ships, and then winding up near the library.
West Point Library on left. (Joe Lauria)
The tour guide told us that when Gen. George Patton was a student there he proudly said he’d never entered the library. It was there that the guide told us what the cadets’ honor code has been since the 19th century, which they are disciplined for violating: “A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.”
(Public Domain/Wikipedia)
Jeez, that sounded awfully familiar I thought. And then I remembered two things: 1.) it was remarkably similar to something Mike Pompeo had once said, and 2). I seemed to remember that Pompeo had graduated West Point.
“Wait,” I said to the guide, “didn’t Mike Pompeo go to West Point?”
“I don’t know,” he answered, which seemed odd because he was rattling off the most minute details of West Point’s history, mentioning anyone remotely notable who had ever gone there.
An authentic part of the chain Washington had lain across the river. (Joe Lauria)
I checked my phone: Pompeo had indeed graduated the academy in 1986, top of his class (which did not speak well of the rest of the class).
Surely, the guide must have known that. He may also have not wanted to draw attention to what Pompeo said that rubbished the cadets’ honor code — once his own — and brought disrepute on the academy.
Speaking at a conference in Texas A&M University in April, 2019, Pompeo had said:
“When I was a cadet, what’s the cadet motto at West Point? He will not lie, cheat or steal, or tolerate those who do? I was the C.I.A. director, we lied, we cheated, we stole. It’s like we had entire training courses … “He openly referred to West Point, and openly mocked it.
But it was the laughter and the applause in the audience that made this juvenile remark all the more galling. It was as if he finally found a place in life where he could get out from under youthful restrictions, to be able to do what he really wanted, to be who he wanted to be: a cheat, a liar and a thief.
He was also secretary of state at the time. Unsurprisingly, the transcript of the remarks has been removed from the State Dept. website.
The audience laughed perhaps because the behavior Pompeo describes has become an accepted and even a rewarded way of life.
It says a lot about the hypocrisy of a ruling class that demands Americans thank the military for “service” to the rulers, not to the public, to expand their power in the world, not to defend Americans. Pompeo’s remark exposed the C.I.A. to the mainstream as the rogue organization it is, considering itself apart, with no responsibility to anyone in America but itself.
Just don’t mention it to the tour guide at West Point.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange.