Schar School of Policy and Government - Click to Go Home
  • About
  • People
    The Hayden Center 
    Founders Hall

     

     

    • Founder
    • Director
    • Fellows
    • Faculty Advisory Committee
  • News and Events
    The Hayden Center 
    Founders Hall

     

     

    • News
    • Events Calendar
  • Resources
  • Videos
  • Cipher Brief

Search form

Menu Close

Search form

  • About
  • People
    • Founder
    • Director
    • Fellows
    • Faculty Advisory Committee
  • News and Events
    • News
    • Events Calendar
  • Resources
  • Videos
  • Cipher Brief
In the News
Cipher Brief Academic Incubator Article: "The Next World Order is a Gray One"
February 19, 2021
"The Lawfare Podcast: Iran, the U.S., and the Middle East at a Turning Point"
February 16, 2021
The Assault on Intelligence: After Trump
February 02, 2021
SPYMASTERS: A Conversation with Christopher Whipple
November 11, 2020

Upcoming Events
EXTERNAL EVENT - National Security Institute: "China's Rise: Competition in Cyberspace"
March 03, 2021
EXTERNAL EVENT - INSA: "Wednesday Wisdom with Dave Frederick, Executive Director, U.S. Cyber Command"
March 10, 2021
EXTERNAL EVENT - CSPS: "Book Launch: 'Contests of Initiative: Countering China's Gray Zone Strategy in the East and South China Seas"
March 11, 2021
Subscribe

Please enter your email address below to receive regular updates from the Hayden Center.

Home » News » Hayden Center Inaugural Event Addresses the Global Attack on Facts and Truth

Hayden Center Inaugural Event Addresses the Global Attack on Facts and Truth

November 01, 2017

Michael Hayden (far right) leads a panel discussion at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., for the first event hosted by the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security at Mason's Schar School. Photo provided by Wanjiku Wainaina.

More than 300 audience members turned out Monday night at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., for the first event of the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. The 90-minute panel discussion, “Truth Tellers in the Bunker: Evidence-Based Institutions in a Post-Truth World,” focused on how those committed to delivering fact-based information are under attack around the world, and intentionally so.

“[President] Trump is emblematic of something going on around the world,” said James Clapper, former director of national intelligence. “There is a general resentment of traditional government.”

The news of the day influenced the conversation as panelists put into context what the federal indictments of those close to Trump mean to the institutions of law enforcement, media and academia when the president himself demeans the investigation by calling it a hoax.

“I am shocked at the attack of the special prosecutor,” said NBC News political analyst and former White House communications director Nicolle Wallace. As for the small margin for error in modern journalism, “I would posit journalism has never been truer or more accurate” despite constant negative questioning, Wallace said.

The idea of Russian collusion was addressed as well; Clapper noted that the Russians’ plan was to “sow discord, discontent and doubt.”  

“What the Russians are doing is called a ‘covert influence campaign,’” added center founder Hayden, former director of the CIA and NSA. Russia enhanced “fractures in society” on all sides of ideologies that led to the cultural chaos that now is apparent in the United States. “A covert influence campaign does not cause fractures but exploits existing fractures.”

Now that “norms” in society have been corrupted, said former U.S. Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith, “it will be hard to recover.” He added that repairing society will be all the more difficult because the president is “the primary norm-breaker.”

As for the impact of a “post-truth” society on academia, George Mason’s Mark J. Rozell, dean of the Schar School, acknowledged that “we are also under attack, and the division is being driven by the populist movement. … We have to accept the reality of it and acknowledge the frustrations in society.”

But, he added, when he meets prospective students who are hesitant to study public policy and government, “I tell them, ‘You are more important now than ever before.’”

  •  
Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security
Schar School of Policy and Government
Van Metre Hall, Room 621
3351 Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA. 22201
 
Phone:  703-993-8164
Email:   hayden@gmu.edu