Non-denial Denial - Origin and History of The Phrase

Origin and History of The Phrase

The Washington Post editor Benjamin C. Bradlee "is credited with coining the phrase non-denial denial to characterise the evasive Oval Office answers to questions," according to a 1991 retrospective on Bradlee's career in The Times.

The phrase was popularized during the Watergate scandal by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their 1974 book All the President's Men, in reference to evasive statements and equivocal denials by then-Attorney General John N. Mitchell.

William Goldman's screenplay for the 1976 film adaptation put the phrase into the mouth of Ben Bradlee and used it to dramatic purpose. The Bradlee character looks at some White House releases and comments "All non-denial denials. We're dirty, guys, and they doubt we were ever virgins, but they don't say the story is inaccurate." Later, Bradlee worries about the accuracy of a story and asks the reporters "That didn't sound to me like a non-denial denial. Could you have been wrong?" But when other editors suggest that the paper needs to back down, Bradlee writes a note that says "We stand by our story," which he calls "My non-denial denial"; then he adds, "Fuck it, we'll stand by the boys."

A 1976 newspaper article called an Olympic official's statement on blood doping "a non-denial denial, a Watergate denial", an assessment of Ron Ziegler's career dubbed him "the non-denial denier" and placed his tenure as White House Press Secretary in "the Alice-in-Wonderland era that spawned the form of official evasion that came to be known as the non-denial denial."