In the shadow of an ongoing war, the Pentagon turned its gaze inward this summer, subjecting dozens of its most senior military officials to polygraph examinations in a rare and sweeping effort to trace the source of classified weapons information that had surfaced in public reporting. The investigation reflects an enduring tension at the heart of democratic governance — between the state's need for secrecy and the public's claim to knowledge — while raising the more unsettling possibility that the breach may have served a foreign power rather than an informed citizenry. That no one failed the