Edward Shils's _The Torment of Secrecy_ is one of the few minor classics to emerge from the cold war years of anticommunism and McCarthyism in the United States. Mr. Shils's "torment" is not only that of the individual caught up in loyalty and security procedures; it is also the torment of the accuser and judge. This essay in sociological analysis and political philosophy considers the cold war preoccupation with espionage, sabotage, and subversion at home, assessing the magnitude of such threats and contrasting it to the agitation-by lawmakers, investigators, and administrators-so wildly directed against the "enemy." Mr. Shils's examination of a recurring American characteristic is as timely as ever. "Brief...lucid... brilliant."-_American Political Science Review_. "A fine, sophisticated analysis of American social metabolism."-_New Republic_. "An excitingly lucid and intelligent work on a subject of staggering importance...the social preconditions of political democracy."-_Social Forces_.