The film adaptation of The Real Anthony Fauci—Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s bestselling book—opens with an audio recording of President John F. Kennedy’s address to the American Newspaper Publishers Association at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City on April 27, 1961. The President’s subject was the critical importance of maintaining a free press for the maintenance of a free Republic. I’ve long admired this particular speech, especially the lines played at the beginning of his nephew’s new film.
The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society, and we as a people are inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it.
John Leake studied history and philosophy with Roger Scruton at Boston University. He then went to Vienna, Austria on a graduate school scholarship and ended up living in the city for over a decade, working as a freelance writer and translator. He is a true crime writer with a lifelong interest in medical history and forensic medicine.
