for the (pretty) new word files...

[Baker, John]

        And here's a 1965 example of this sense of "pretext," though in
this case no verbing is involved:

        <<The defendant testified that he was instructed by his employer
to make a 'pretext' investigation, viz., to represent himself as an
employee of Retail Credit Company but 'to let Mr. Fullerton or Mrs.
Fullerton believe that the report could be going to the Veterans
Administration', and that he was making an investigation 'in behalf of
the Veterans Administration'; that he carried out his instructions to
the letter and did not say that he was 'an employee of the Veterans
Administration' or 'an investigator from the Veterans Administration'.
Other defense witnesses testified that the Retail Credit Company had
been commissioned on numerous prior occasions to conduct investigations
on behalf of the Veterans Administration and its investigators had been
instructed not to represent themselves as employees of the
Administration; that 'a pretext interview is one which we try to conceal
the identity of the purpose of our investigation or for whom we are
conducting our investigation, or sometimes both'.>>

United States v. Napoleone, 349 F.2d 350, 352 (3rd Cir. 1965).  It's
hard to say just how old the term is, though.  From a 1980 Federal Trade
Commission order:

        <<168. The Credit File Audit procedure instituted in 1966,
supplanted Retail [Credit Company]'s previous procedure for interviewing
third-party claimants--the 'pretext' interview, which had been used for
many years (Stubbs 9257-58). [51] Mr. Trotochaud, who wrote the 1966
indirect approach amendments to the Claim Reports Manual, explained the
change:
Over a period of many years, our instructions provided that in the
handling of claim investigations on third party claimants, we would use
a suitable pretext, but the instructions did not go beyond that. So,
therefore, the field representative was left on his own as to how he
would proceed.
I felt strongly that this was not a proper procedure and had made up my
mind that, given an opportunity, I would correct that to lay out clearly
and completely how he should approach an investigation on a third party
claimant.
I was given that opportunity, and this claim reports manual was written
in 1966. I wrote it and at that time implemented instructions that they
would handle these investigations on what we termed an indirect approach
basis. And that indirect approach basis was spelled out, and it stated
that the field representative must, must, in every instance, identify
himself as being with the Retail Credit Company. (Trotochaud 6347;
footnote added).

        169. Though the 1966 revision was intended to result in deletion
of the term 'pretext' from the vocabulary of Retail personnel, many
employees used the term pretext interview in connection with the Credit
File Audit interview (Bresnahan 612-13, see also Buckley 1261-62).>>

Equifax Inc., 96 F.T.C. 844 (1980) (footnotes omitted).


John Baker

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