Document Dump Bares U.S. Diplomacy

An attack on WikiLeaks’ website didn’t stop its promised batch of secret government documents from making a splash Sunday afternoon. Hours after the German news magazine Der Spiegel hit stands early, The New York Times and London’s The Guardian went live with a trove of a quarter of a million secret diplomatic cables between the State Department and 270 diplomatic outposts around the world. The Times will publish stories detailing the cables over the next nine days, but previewed their contents on Sunday. "The cables reveal American diplomats pushing to engineer the collapse of the North Korean regime, bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison, suspecting the Afghan government of entrenched corruption, and fighting to keep European nations from arresting CIA agents who violated international human-rights laws." Diplomatic cables usually stay secret for decades, and the State Department has warned WikiLeaks that publishing them is illegal and “will endanger lives.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to make a dozen international phone calls to allies to smooth over any tensions.