Grace Hopper was a Navy rear admiral and a pioneer of computing. She repeated one rule in her speeches. “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.”
Hopper did not invent the sentence. It appears in print as early as 1846. Her talks in the 1980s made it an American business rule.
The misattribution is part of the evidence. The rule was so useful that Americans attached it to their favorite admiral.