Politics & Current Affairs — January 12, 2011

When Secrecy Saved the World

After President Kennedy’s public blustering over Russian nuclear missiles in Cuba, it was secret diplomatic communication that prevented war. Is secrecy sometimes necessary?

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Will the WikiLeaks disclosures prompt diplomatic moves to avoid war, as in 1962, or prepare for it? Some leaks, it seems, are more troublesome than others. When Germany’s military authorities produced a fictitious Serbian plan, Operation Horseshoe, to justify the war in Kosovo, or when The New York Times passed on the Pentagon’s little white lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the White House did not call for sanctions. It’s claimed the Wikileaks disclosure that certain people visited the US embassy could have put innocent lives at risk…

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