According to Victor Marchetti, a high-level CIA official gone rogue in the 1970s, “limited hangout” is espionage jargon for a strategy of acknowledging facts when a cover story is blown in order to preserve the bigger operation. Doing so can intrigue the listener with the illusion of coming clean, and buy time to adjust the strategy. It amounts to a standard cover-your-rear approach that can also lay the groundwork for blaming others for the damages.
The 1970s gave us the example of the Watergate transcripts, in which you’ll find a reference to the term. The Nixon White House couldn’t avoid the fact that a burglary happened at Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. So the plan was to acknowledge a burglary while leaking an “official” report showing there was no White House involvement.
President Nixon asked his advisors: “You think we want to go this route now? And the – let it hang out, so to speak?” Bob Haldeman and John Dean assured him it was a “limited hang out.” John Ehrlichman then chimed in, “a “modified limited hang out.”
According to USA Today, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton applied a limited hangout when she confessed to using a private email server instead of the State Department server she was legally required to use for official business. Since she couldn’t deny it, she gave a non-apology apology explaining it was simply for the sake of convenience. She insisted the server would remain private, and then got by with help from well-placed friends.
So whenever you see truth escaping from the lips of liars like steam from a pressure cooker, you should assume something bigger is cooking (possibly explosive) under cover. But what’s behind the fearmongering?
Hellbound and Down 