"Baxter, Stephen - Marginalia" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baxter Stephen)

Sources or Methods Involved", "ORCON" - "Originator Controls Further
Dissemination."
What's the cost of all this secrecy? When does secrecy increase military strenght, and
when does it weaken security?
We should be told.
...Or is that classified too??
The space probe evidence, naturally, was covered up. I should be used npw to our
natural disposition for secrecy. But over an issue as immense as this, it utterly dismays
me.
That's why I fight on.


(Teletype uncovered during review of FOIA materials:)
FBI DALLAS 10-20-1983 4-28 PM
DIRECTOR AND SAC, CINCINNATI URGENT
NEVADA EXPLOSION, INFORMATION CONCERNING
(blanked)

TELEPHONICALLY ADVISED THIS OFFICE THAT (blanked) SATELLITE OBSERVED DEBRIS
AND DESTRUCTION AT (blanked) TELEPHONIC CONVERSATION BETWEEN THIS OFFICE AND
(blanked) FAILED TO BEAR OUT BELIEF PHOTOGRAPHS AND NEGATIVES BEING
TRANSPORTED TO THIS OFFICE BECAUSE OF NATIONAL INTEREST IN THE CASE AND FACT
THAT NATIONAL BROADCASTING COMPANY ASSOCIATED PRESS AND OTHERS
ATTEMPTING TO BREAK STORY OF EXPLOSION AND/OR AIRCRAFT CRASH TODAY NO
FURTHER INVESTIGATION BEING CONDUCTED
END.


Here's the story, as best as I can reconstruct it.
In 1971 - armed with space probes information about a secretive, advanced and
possibly hostile civilization on Mars - President Nixon ordered preparation to begin for
covert missions to Mars, manned and otherwise. These were to include the possibility of
launching a pre-emptive nuclear attack against the planet. The project was under the
command of the USAF, and would use Apollo moonrocket technology with nuclear
rocket stages.
(And that, sir author, is the truth about Nixon's decision on going to Mars after Apollo.
He didn't decide we wouldn't go. He decided we would - but the program would be run
by the USAF, not NASA, and it would be run in secret. Even the publicly declared
Apollo follow-on program, the Space Shuttle, had a military flavour and had a role in the
defence of Earth against the Martians, which I've yet to determine.)
Elliot Becker trained as an astronaut in the 1960s. In 1971 his death was faked in a T-
38 airplane accident, and he was assigned to the secret man-to-Mars program.
But Nixon fell, and the project was abandoned, the Nevada launch complex and the
space hardware mothballed. Elliott was moved into senior Air Force positions, with a
central responsibility for maintaining the integrity of a Mars program cover-up.
In 1981, things changed.
By now, the additional Viking data was in hand. President Reagan ordered the
mounting of a secret manned flyby scouting mission to Mars, under the command of the
USAF, using what was left of the 1970s-era Saturn technology. This limited-objectives
mission was achievable relatively easily. Meanwhile Reagan revived preparations for a