"...everybody is not entitled to his own facts" 1975

[Stephen Goranson]

 From the archive (unsigned--from Barry?): the question whether Daniel Patrick
Moynihan was first to say this (or similar words) and:

Robert Debs Heinl  Jr.. The Washington Post (1974-Current file).  Washington,
D.C.: Jan 28, 1979. p. C7 (1 page):
While he was at the Pentagon, James Schlesinger had a favorite saying:  "Each
of us is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts."

At a conference in Washington DC on  December 2, 1975, in a debate on
comparing
the military power of the US and the USSR, with Daniel P. Moynihan
participating, James R. Schlesinger said:

I think that we might well have a debate on the facts. We have had much
talk in
this country in recent years, quite justly, about deception. I think our
greatest problem may be self-deception. Everybody is entitled to his
own views;
everybody is not entitled to his own facts.

Page 100 in Pacem in Terris IV, vol. 1, American-Soviet Detente, Peace and
National Security, ed. Fred Warner Neal, published 1976, Fund for Peace
and the
Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions.

Stephen Goranson
http://www.duke.edu/~goranson

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