REVIEW BOARD: SECRECY LEADS TO DISTRUST

A curious thing happened last week: A federal review panel announced that government secrecy has created a sense of distrust among the American people. It was a long overdue conclusion, but it represents a represents a significant breach in the heavily guarded fortifications that keep far too many Americans in the dark about what their government is doing.

The Assassination Records Review Board had been created by Congress to evaluate thousands of documents created by various government agencies subsequent to the 1963 shooting in Dallas of President John F. Kennedy. Most of those records were withheld from the public for reasons that were never clear and, in the estimation of the review board, never should have been kept secret.

The overwhelming secrecy, the board said, "led the American public to believe that the government had something to hide."

That is generally always the case when government agencies, for one reason or another, attempt to keep information that is either vital or mundane away from the public.

For the most part -- except for special instances like the investigation into the Kennedy assassination or records involving juveniles who break the law -- government agencies have recognized that the benefits of free-flowing information from official sources are far better than the rumors, unfounded "facts" and half-truths that are generated any time those agencies hide behind the wall of secrecy.

The review board was not given the task of determining if any of the documents could shed light on any of the conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination. It did have the opportunity, however, to look for any evidence that might lead to one conclusion or another. In the end, the board chose simply to make everything available to the public -- and let the public reach its own conclusions.

No doubt access to so much heretofore inaccessible information about the killing will lead to new speculation, much of which might have been prevented if Americans had been told what was in those files from the beginning.

At the same time, the author of one book about the various assassination theories agrees that the newly released documents will "help fill in the details of this horrible event in Dallas 35 years ago."

There are lessons that can be learned by other government agencies from the review board's conclusions -- only if they choose not to ignore them.