Secrets, Revealed

The era when dark truths were kept from us now seems almost quaint

At first glance, the CIA's release on June 26 of the agency's "family jewels"--well-guarded classified documents it had managed to hide for nearly 50 years--seems to be a cautionary tale about the danger of letting the government keep secrets. While the nation wasn't looking, the CIA was hatching plots that could have sprung from the mind of a Hollywood screenwriter: colluding with the Mafia, bugging reporters' phones, domestic spying on anti-- Vietnam War groups.

But even if it took decades --and no small amount of pressure --for the CIA to lift its curtains, the agency at least felt some shame about...

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