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Issue 63, Fall 1996

"When information which properly belongs to the public is systematically withheld by those in power, the people soon become ignorant of their own affairs, distrustful of those who manage them, and — eventually — incapable of determining their own destinies."

The answer: Richard Milhouse Nixon

This gem from Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen, Simon & Schuster, 1995. The occasion was a 1972 presidential proclamation to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act (see Tim Weiner, "The Cold War Freezer Keeps Historians Out," New York Times, May 23, 1993.)