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WikiLeaks has revealed the secrets of the Pentagon, Scientology, and Sarah Palin—and the explosive video of a US attack on civilians and journalists in Iraq. Meet the shadowy figure behind the whistleblower site.

— By David Kushner

The clock struck 3 a.m. Julian Assange slept soundly inside a guarded private compound in Nairobi, Kenya. Suddenly, six men with guns emerged from the darkness. A day earlier, they had disabled the alarm system on the electric fence and buried weapons by the pool. Catching a guard by surprise, they commanded him to hit the ground. He obliged, momentarily, then jumped up and began shouting. As the rest of the compound's security team rushed outside, the intruders fled into the night.

Assange, a thirty-something Australian with a shock of snow-white hair, is sure the armed men were after him. "There was not anyone else worth visiting in the compound," he says, speaking on the phone from an undisclosed location in Africa.

The self-centeredness and shadowy details of Assange's tale—and his insistence that he must be taken at his word—are typical. They're part of his persona as the elusive yet single-minded public face of >>>