The American Political Science Association has presented Mark Danner with the 2006 Carey McWilliams Award for his involvement in exposing the Downing Street Memo in 2005. The NYRB essays on the Downing Street memo, which were recently expanded into his book, The Secret Way to War, link the Administration's secrecy policies to its foreign policy and illuminate the degree to which the strategy of preemptive war has relied not only on distortions of evidence but also on the suppression of public debate through the deliberate marginalization of the democratic public itself in foreign policy deliberations.

This award is presented each year to honor a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics.