Lying is the Option?

For a senior seminar, we're studying the history of the radio and television. We have spent a lot of time reading and discussing Erik Barnouw's great work, "Tube of Plenty." We recently read about the increase of spy TV shows in the '60s, getting Americans prepared for the Vietnam war they knew little about, and continuing propaganda about the Cold War and communists. Barnouw talks about how basically through these new spy dramas it was shown that it was ok to lie, cheat, and steal because that's what the enemy was doing and we had to outsmart the enemy. It is well summed up in, "the official lie was enshrined. Justification for deception was provided by the vastness and monstrousness of schemes devised by enemy forces, which were 'arrayed as never seen before.'"
This is a great example of a way the that Americans were basically subliminally sent a message in the form of entertainment. In what other ways have we been groomed towards something without realizing it? Fed information that we soaked in and took at face value? Is lying justifiable if "the enemy" is also doing it? Is it ever justifiable? What kind of values could we be learning from TV and be completely unaware of? What could they be teaching children?