ABSTRACT
In crusading against traditional nineteenth century statecraft, Woodrow Wilson always made a point of condemning in the strongest terms possible the basic immorality of secret diplomacy. Foreign relations have always featured ambiguity and risk, but never to the present extent. Nuclear diplomacy deals with grave uncertainty, where so much depends on a mix of situational and motivational factors. Policymakers, to be sure, insist there are valid reasons for maintaining secrecy. Freedom of action must be preserved where national security is at stake. Military-strategic affairs involve the greatest sensitivity. Governments are charged with having an inordinate passion for secrecy. Diplomatic accords may indeed be made public in the end, but only after secret channels and perhaps unorthodox, devious means were used to achieve them. In the absence of conclusive empirical proof one way or the other, semi-private diplomacy-the combination of secret and public-can be given neither unqualified endorsement nor blanket rejection at present.
