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What is necessary, above all, is a redressed balance in the approach of Government to the public. Secrecy is all too often used as an easy cover for operational failures, as a mask for individual or collective mistakes in policymaking, as a shield for actual wrongdoing and as a cloak to hide the undertaking of new and often costly commitments. In part, the prevalence of covert dealings indicates that the different branches of Government simply do not trust one another very much these days. Can an atmosphere of greater confidence within the Government be achieved? Fortunately there is a pattern. It was little more than 20 years ago that a Democratic Administration under Harry Truman and key Senate Republicans led by Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan established a remarkable, non-partisan relationship of trust that permitted such historic undertakings as the Marshall Plan and the NATO treaty, and gained for them widespread public support. This kind of open policymaking can be done again, but only through more and continued emphasis on full, non-self-serving disclosures. Only thus can increased confidence and tranquillity between those who govern and those who are governed be found. Total and complete disclosure, particularly in dangerous times, represents an impossible dream. But excessive secrecy is a contagious disease that could be fatal to the practice of modern democracy itself.