Why didn't DD reveal Voldemort's identity?

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 186838


> 
> 
> Marion:
> 

> If Dumbledore had given this interview on the Wireless and in the
> newspaper back in the early seventies, Voldemort would *never* have gotten the support he got, and what could Voldemort have done against it?
Any grandstanding, any big threatening gesture would've been met with a barely suppressed giggle of 'Tom Piddle! Hihihihi!' and he would've been powerless.

Pippin:

A boggart dementor can be controlled with a simple ridikkulus. A real dementor will suck your soul out while you're trying to think of something funny about the worst day in your life.  And Voldemort was very good at providing people with days like that. 

But he was always careful to refrain from taking public credit for deaths and disappearances until he had built enough support underground to post the Dark Mark with impunity. Until then, he was quite happy to have outsiders think he was no real threat. 

Voldie's original servants, the people from his Hogwarts days, already knew his real name and background. But that would be more than outweighed by the knowledge that he was the Heir of Slytherin and had proved it by opening the Chamber and being a parselmouth. Any DE incautious enough to imply the opposite would have been made an example for the others. If Voldemort wanted the name Riddle forgotten, they'd forget it -- anything to prove their loyalty.

The new recruits were drawn from people who already hated Albus Dumbledore and everything he stood for. Why should they care about anything he had to say? Ridicule from him would only show how blind he was to their master's greatness.

Pippin