Cables Shine Light Into Secret Diplomatic Channels

[lsanderson]

President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, left, with William J. Burns, a State Department official, in Damascus.
By SCOTT SHANE and ANDREW W. LEHREN
Published: November 28, 2010

WASHINGTON — A cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the past three years, provides an unprecedented look at backroom bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats. More