The end of the Cold War has ushered in a period of contrition on the American left. While most liberals, like Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., never had any illusions about the Soviet regime, the sixties New Left included revolutionary romantics who were outright apologists for communism. Lately, however, many of those leftists have belatedly conceded that the Soviet Union was an evil empire after all.

Ever since Harpagus conspired with Cyrus against his uncle, the King of Medea, by placing letters to Cyrus in the belly of a hare, secrecy has always been part of government—and particularly part of the conduct of foreign affairs. Secrecy is obviously an indispensable part of espionage and intelligence gathering, and there are times, to be sure, when even a nation's own people need to be kept (temporarily) in the dark if foreign policy interests are to be best served. But this is dangerous; secrecy can become an end in its own right, or a tool by which political leaders can arrogate more power to themselves than a democratic system warrants.