something like that yeah, the archetect knows that Neo is stronger than any program and if judiging by Neo's destruction of the calamary then he can be just as deadly in the real world, so Neo could have either way (at this stage the archetect didnt know that smith would end up the way he did) destroyed the machines. To the archetect this was a lie that suited his ends (if Neo beleived him then the archetect wouldnt die) and was definetly worth telling.