“The task of a public officer seeking to explain and gain support for a major policy is not that of the writer of a doctoral thesis. Qualification must give way to simplicity of statement, nicety and nuance to bluntness, almost brutality, in carrying home a point. It is better to carry the hearer or reader into the quadrant of one’s thought than merely to make a noise or to mislead him utterly. In the State Department, we used to discuss how much time that mythical “average American citizen” put in each day listening, reading, and arguing about the world outside his own country. Assuming a man or woman with a fair education, a family, and a job in or out of the house, it seemed to us that ten minutes a day would be a high average. If this were anywhere near right, points to be understandable had to be clear. 

If we made our points CLEARER THAN TRUTH, we did not differ from most other educators and could hardly do otherwise.”