false-flag operation

[Joel S. Berson]

I don't have "false flag operation" in the Ventura/Lighter sense, but
if anyone is looking for "false flag[s]" = "false colours", these are
the only hits I found in EAN:

1)  1813:

Thursday, Nov. 4.---Sailed, Gerrymander-Joe, Story; Three-tailed
Bashaw, Johannas Caspar, ; [sic] George's Mistress, Von Richter;
Honey Duck, Von Cronenskeldt---false flags, full freight for Salem,
consigned to supercargo Senator Ben.

Commercial Advertiser [New York}; Date: 11-10-1813; Volume: XVI;
Issue: 6632; Page: [3]; col. 2.

[A little skeptical of this as ship news, are we?  (EAN actually has
classified it as "Legislative Acts or Legal Proceedings".)  A ship
named "Gerrymander-Joe"?  What is the date of "gerrymander"? (OED:
1812). A ship named "George's Mistress"?  (1813 -- the War of
1812).  Capts. "Von Ritcher and "Cronenskeldt?  (richer?  crown
gold?).  Etc. Well, the article is titled/subtitled:
      HORSE-AND-OX-MARINE LIST
      "Free Trade and Teamsters Rights."

[The article must be a satire upon the Embargo Act of 1807 and
subsequent Nonintercourse Acts, which (I'm told by Wikipedia) were in
effect up to 1812 but "led to the War of 1812" -- so perhaps the
issue was still festering in 1813 for those who had opposed the
embargo.  In the absence of overseas shipping, the "Ship News" was
transferred to land -- waggons, teamsters, internal colonial
merchandise, etc.  Names of ships and persons are non-fictional, and
taken from events of the year.

[There are many (more than 20), varying. incarnations of this theme
in 1813.  I searched for "horse-and-ox" and "horse marine".  Other
terms from within the various articles might bring up additional (or
earlier) articles, and there are false negatives as well.  The
Commercial Advertiser article seems to be one of the longest.  The
earliest I saw was:

      New-Bedford [Mass] Mercury, page [3], vol. 7, iss. 11; Date:
October 8, 1813]


2)  1824:

The second article authorized the national vessels of the parties to
enter and search merchant vessels under foreign flags. It necessarily
resulted, that the boarding officers must, in their discretion,
decide, whether this be a true or false flag, and of the character of
the vessel, as well as the trade.

[The article is about the "Convention with Great Britain, respecting
the further Suppression of the African Slave Trade".]

Enquirer, published as Richmond [VA] Enquirer; Date: 06-11-1824;
Volume: XXI; Issue: 10; Page: [2]; col. 2.


3)  1830 for figurative use:

NOMINATIONS
... it was proposed to hold a State Convention ... at the Capitol in
Frankfort [KY] to nominate as a candidate for the Presidency "such
person as will secure the triumph of the _American System and the
Union_ of the States, against the now alarming doctrines of
dissolution and nullification."---Insidious and subtle and false
enough!---So Henry Clay is to be brought out under a false flag---and
the friends of Jackson are to be held forth as the friends of Disunion.

Enquirer, published as Richmond Enquirer; Date: 09-28-1830; Volume:
XXVII; Issue: 41; Page: [3]; col. 3.

[Apparently a popular expression in Richmond.]

19th Century U.S. Newspapers does not have anything earlier for
"false flag[s]".

Joel


At 4/16/2011 01:09 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Former Minnesota Governor Jesse "The Body" Ventura explained to Piers Morgan
>on CNN that "most wars are begun by false-flag operations." (I bet that
>includes the American Revolution and the Civil War. Obvious when you think
>about it!!! But maybe he just means recently.)  The discussion concerned the
>events of Nine-Eleven and Ventura's assertion that John F. Kennedy's
>assassination signaled a successful "fascist coup d'etat," which is still in
>place. (He explained how the Obama administration proves it.)
>
>OED has no entry for "false-flag" anything.  GB has nothing on "false-flag
>operation" before the 1980s.   Not that the idea hadn't been around.
>
>Of the Civil War, Whitman famously wrote that "The real war will never get
>in the books."  What did he really know?? When did he know it??  Later, he
>was dead.
>
>
>JL
>
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org