Top Secret

You have two considerations here. One is whether you are violating an ethical principle. For our purposes here, I'll assume that your charity is not breaking the law by accepting the fruits of what might be illegal or wrongfully put before the public; that is, what the government decides about the book's content is a separate matter. Even working within that framework, however, you must go through the process of ethical decision-making, which means that you must assess all the facts and determine a course of action based on your value system. If you are committed not only to helping veterans but also to doing so only when it is clear that the help is not the result of nefarious activity, then you will decline the gift. But the decision-making process requires you to examine the facts. So far (as you have described the situation), the Pentagon is the only entity that has complained, and its concerns have not been outlined in a legal challenge. Even so, for you, that might be enough to stay away. But it might not be. It's possible that you – or some of the other charities that are to receive royalties – can legitimately conclude that accepting the royalties is ethical as well as lawful.

You must also deal with a second consideration, which is deciding whether the money will further your mission. Alone, a cash gift doesn't taint your mission, but questions of its roots might. This is where you and your board must revisit your mission (as you regularly should anyway; you'd be surprised at how many boards don't do this). Is there anything in the mission statement, a statement of vision or of principles that speaks to this matter? Many charities are caught after the fact and must retrofit their policies to account for money that comes from a questionable source. A charity might decide to accept gifts from a tobacco company, for example, because, even though we all know smoking is unhealthful, those who make tobacco products aren't breaking the law. Neither are liquor companies. Neither is McDonald's. And so on. While a legal backstop might not sound sufficient for an ethics policy, it at least provides a framework. Your board might go through the same process of generally taking into account a gift's origins; it is not unrealistic to think that a veterans' charity should consider matters of national security in its gift acceptance policies.

One example of how the issue spawns several permutations is considering the author's apparent generosity. Some board members and staff might think the generosity alone would be reason to accept the gift; others however, might wonder if the offered donation is really masking a sense of guilt. Trying to get into a donor's head is usually pointless, but you can at least consider the motive.

I don't have a clear-cut answer. The work, as it always is in ethics decisions, is that of one charity – no broad templates here – that needs to weigh and contrast its own values. I do know, for what it's worth, that at least one of the others of the handful of charities that have been offered royalties from this book (you believe correctly) has accepted the gift. I don't, however, know if the staff or board examined the question fully.