And then came the list of all the covert things that were allowable under this new dispensation—the sabotage, the economic warfare, the “assistance to underground resistance movements,” and all the rest of it—all born secret and meant to stay secret: “so planned and executed that any US Government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons and that if uncovered the US Government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them.” “Plausibly disclaim” is the almost comical circumlocution in place of the simpler word: “lie.” Later “disclaim” was sharpened to “deny,” and the doctrine of plausible deniability became a sacred phrase.

Nicholson Baker, Baseless- My Search for Sec…, loc. 385