Detecting lies and catching liars in the 1990s

I began this book by describing the first meeting of Adolf Hitler, the chancellor of Nazi Germany, with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, which took place in 1938. I chose this event because it is an example of one of the worst deceptions in history and contains an important lesson of why lies often succeed. Let us recall that at the time of the meeting, Hitler had already given a secret order to attack the German army against Czechoslovakia. However, to fully mobilize the army to attack, it was necessary a few more weeks. Wanting to take advantage of surprise, Hitler hid his decision to start a war. He told Chamberlain that he would keep the peace if the Czechs considered his demand for a revision of the borders between the two countries. Chamberlain believed Hitler and tried to convince the Czechoslovak government not to mobilize his army, because there were still chances to keep the peace.
In a sense, Chamberlain was a voluntary victim who wanted to be misled. Otherwise, he would have to admit the complete failure of his policy towards Germany, as a result of which there was a threat to the security of his own country. The lesson to be learned from this story is that sometimes the victim, unwittingly, contributes to deception. It happens, at some point, to find out the truth is much more unpleasant than to believe lies, so the victim refrains from critical judgments and neglects the contradictions in the information.
Although I still think that this important lesson applies to many other cases of deception and concerns not only the heads of state, but now, seven years after the first publication of this book, I am afraid that readers may make wrong conclusions from the story about the meeting between Hitler and Chamberlain. They might think that if Chamberlain did not want to be deceived, Hitler would not have been able to mislead him. Studies we have carried out since the publication of this book in 1985 indicate that even Chamberlain’s rival Winston Churchill, who warned about Hitler’s treachery, probably could not have caught the Fuhrer himself in lying. Even if Chamberlain had invited experts to identify lies from Scotland Yard or from British intelligence, then they probably would not have coped with this task.
This chapter discusses the latest findings from our research, which led me to new conclusions. I will talk about who can catch a liar and how best to do it. I will also add some new tips on applying our experimental results in real life situations. These tips are based on my teaching experience gained over the past five years of working with people who are daily suspected of lying.
Since Hitler was the incarnation of evil, from the above example, we can also conclude that for a national leader a lie is generally unacceptable. But such a conclusion would be too simple. The next chapter examines the question of when a lie in public life can be justified, and addresses a number of well-known incidents from America’s recent political history. Analyzing the false statements by former President Lyndon Johnson about US military successes in the Vietnam War, as well as the decision of NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Research Administration) to launch the Space Shuttle Challenger, taken despite the serious risk of an explosion, I raise the question , whether these cases can be attributed to the category of self-deception. And if so, should people who have lied to themselves have to be held accountable for their actions?