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Perhaps as a way of calming the public in that heated time of disillusionment with the government because of Vietnam & Watergate, a Senate committee in 1974-1975 conducted an investigation of the intelligence agencies.  It discovered that the CIA and the FBI had violated the law countless times (opening mail, breaking into homes and offices, etc.).  In the course of that investigation, it was also revealed that the CIS, going back to the Kennedy administration, had plotted the assassination of a number of foreign rulers, including Cuba’s Fidel Castro.  But the president himself, who clearly was in favor of such actions, was not to be directly involved, so that he could deny knowledge of it.  This was given the term plausible denial.

As the committee reported:

“Non-attribution to the United States for covert operations was the original and principal purpose of the so-called doctrine of “plausible denial.”  Evidence before the Committee clearly demonstrates that this concept, designed to protect the United States and its operatives from the consequences of disclosures, has been expanded to mask decisions of the Presidence and his senior staff members.”

- Howard Zinn – Declarations of Independence

Wondering what has changed? Read about it here.