Secrets Inside

The Wikileaks saga is provoking thoughtfulness on the nature of secrets.
We tend to forgive those who may have violated an oath of secrecy - as Daniel Ellesburg did with the release of what were to become known as The Pentagon Papers - if we sense good intentions. Linda Tripp, on the other hand, is not being smiled on by history, since her efforts to tease the secrets of a Presidential infidelity from Monica were asbout as far from noble as it's possible to sink.

Julian Assange came out of hiding this week and voluntarily turned himself in for questioning (and incarceration) after months of hiding. So, too, Mr Ellsburg, who (understandably) was in fear of his life: only after the Watergate scandal did it become known that the Nixon Administration - unable to combat the truth of what was revealed in the documents - attempted instead to smear his reputation by using the same team that bungled the Watergate burglary to break into the office of Ellsburg's psychiatrist, hoping to locate evidence of an unhinged mind. Unlike Ellsburg, it's not yet possible to know Assange's innocence...though headlines of "sex crimes," "rape" and "molestation" seem so far removed from the latest assessment - that his failure to use condoms transmogrified the liaison into non-consensual sex - gives food for charges of "smear campaign." I'm not sure that WikiLeak's release of the State Department's documents led to a plan by the American and/or Swedish governments to actively bait-and-trap Assange, but I am sure that this diverts attention away from the much larger topic of state secrets - and what they tell us about the gulf between what governments (and corporations*) say and what they think and do.

A second standard by which whistleblowers are evaluated is the effect of the secrets they release. One has to wish that WikiLeaks had access to White House and Downing Street conversations in 2003: unlike Tripp's revelations - which crippled a Presidency by appealing to a darker part of our Nature (Puritanical outrage) - knowledge of the effort to scam the public into support of an expedition that had no legal or factual underpinning might have prevented or, at least, minimized the impacts, of the Iraqi War.

The telling of a secret can be cathartic. Someone undergoing chemotherapy - as my father is - might try to muscle through the experience in silence, but that's too hard a road to go on your own, and once the secret's out, the outpouring of love and support can be enormous. Lifesaving, even. Divulging a secret about an STD takes on a slightly different feel because a moral thread is there for anyone who wants to grab onto i; for example a statement like "I have Hepatitis C" invariably makes the listener wonder "Are you an IV drug user?" That makes keeping this sort of secret even more stressful for its keeper.  "Secrets affect you more than you’d think. You lie to keep them hidden. You steer talk away from them. You worry someone'll discover yours and tell the world. You think you are in charge of the secret, but isn’t it the secret that’s using you?"¹ In Alex van Warmerdam's Abel the father's infidelity with the woman who his son has taken as a lover slumps deliciously, giddy and uncaring after everything comes out into the open. Even if he has been more or less destroyed in the process.

Several years back the man with whom I share a father let me in on a family secret. Its release caused not so much catharsis as belly laughter then sadness - both from the scope of the misunderstanding. It had to do with the use of a 4-syllable word I'd flung at him (the father) many years ago when - it seemed to me - he fell flat at coming through on a promise. In my mind these longer expressions utterly trump their 4-letter counterparts...there are so many inflections possible: the Mother- can be a slowly-spoken lead-in to its more-vulgar trailing term; they can both be delivered machine-gun style; one can channel the delivery style used in Blaxploitation films. Endless possibilities! But what if your listener takes a literal interpretation of the insult? And for years the lines you deliver - "Dad, I love you" or "What is going on with your software these days?" goes into their ears with a "Yeah, but you think I shagged my mother!" always tacked onto the end of it. I'm left wondering which caused more damage: this vulgarity, or all of his letters to me I sent back a few days later. And of how much smaller  the rift might have been had everything been brought out into the open.

This is only one of many secrets we have as a family and like other families there's always a constant weighing of what's to be gained vs. how much damage could be done with their release. In the case of Wikileaks you have former Presidential contender calling for the execution of Assange² - but not calling for an investigation of the war crimes committed by the Administration that have led to an excess of 100,000 deaths.

The Photo: This is a 2006 portrait taken of my father, George Swindle, who's possessed of a truly brilliant mind and an unequivocally good heart. Needless to say our relationship has had a lot of ups and downs, but never with any lapse in the love, affection or irritation we feel for each other.I picked this because it suggests the opacity, guardedness and inscrutability I've known - and loved - him for - as well as the thoughtfulness he summons before speaking.

*Netherlands-based Royal Dutch Shell's infiltration of the Nigerian government - and the corresponding green light to engage in the destruction of the Niger River Delta - came to light this week as part of the latest release of documents by WikiLeaks

¹ From Back Swan Green, by David Mitchell.
² "Whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason, and I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty," he told reporters while signing books at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, Calif. [Huffington Post]