“We actually put out a false message to mislead people,” said Jay Coupe, then the spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “The idea was not to give information about the movement of our carrier. We were trying to confuse people.”

In a letter to the editor four days later, Coupe sought to clarify that “no public affairs personnel were involved in the message’s preparation or release. It was a strictly internal message put out within military operational circles with the expectation that it might be leaked. And that is exactly what happened.” In his experience, military public affairs officials “never lied to journalists,” Coupe wrote. “That distinction is important, and I am confident it will remain the military’s policy.”