To the applause of the major media, the State Department has reached back into history to announce the release of over 1,100 documents having to do with events in Chile from 1968 to 1978. Another major release of documents will take place early next year. One purpose of this exercise is to support the British Government campaign to put the former President of Chile, General Augusto Pinochet, on trial for alleged crimes committed during the general's successful effort to save his country from Castro-style communism. Pinochet was arrested by the British as he was in London for medical treatment.

By contrast, the State Department hasn't seen fit to release a single document in its possession which bears on the issue of holding the terrorist leader of Libya, Moammar Gadhafi, responsible for an incident that took the lives of 189 Americans. This was the Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.

According to various press accounts and sources, the State Department has a copy of a letter from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to Gadhafi that basically offers him immunity from prosecution for this crime of international terrorism. The letter may explain why Gadhafi recently turned over two Libyan officials to be tried in the case. He may have an assurance that he will not be held accountable for ordering the bombing.

The evidence of the Libyan role was so strong that the U.N. Security Council imposed economic sanctions on Libya for the bombing. Over the years, Britain and the U.S. led the effort for justice in the case. But with the election of the left-wing Tony Blair Government in Britain, things changed. At the same time that the Blair government was arresting Pinochet, it was signaling an interest in dropping the sanctions on Libya and resuming business as usual with the Gadhafi regime. Soon after Gadhafi turned over the two Libyans for trial, Britain announced that it was resuming diplomatic relations with Libya.

The Clinton Administration is moving in the same direction. The Kofi Annan letter, which may also have been signed by representatives of the British and American governments, may indicate how the Administration has violated its own stated policy of not making deals with terrorists.

The former associate deputy director of the FBI for investigations, Oliver "Buck" Revell, who supervised the investigation of Pan Am 103, says the purported letter could constitute obstruction of justice in the trial scheduled to take place of those two Libyan agents charged in the bombing. It means "that we could not pursue evidence developed in the trial to wherever it led - even if it was to the head of a foreign government." He added,"As a former law enforcement officer, I would view that as an obstruction and an absolutely improper action on the part of any government and the United Nations. It's not enough to let these two [Libyans] pay the price. They were certainly not acting on their own behalf." The Clinton Administration gets away with this sleazy deal -- and a cover-up -- because there is no media pressure for justice in the Pan Am 103 case.

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