Their Secret Is Out

The men and women who worked on the project can now tell the world about the ultra secret spy satellites they made during the cold war.

For more than a decade they toiled in the strange, boxy-looking building on the hill above the municipal airport, the building with no windows (except in the cafeteria), the building filled with secrets.

[...]

They spoke in code.

Few knew the true identity of "the customer" they met in a smoke-filled, wood-paneled conference room where the phone lines were scrambled. When they traveled, they sometimes used false names.

[...]

Clearance could take up to a year. During that time, employees worked on relatively minor tasks in a building dubbed "the mushroom tank" — so named because everyone was in the dark about what they had actually been hired for.

  AP via Windstream Business

I wonder about people who would take a job not knowing what they’re working on (as did those working on the A-bomb). Can’t be particularly moral. You could even be working on something that will be used to kill or enslave you or your family. An irony that wouldn’t be totally unmerited.

Waiting for clearance was a surreal experience as family members, neighbors and former employers were grilled by the FBI, and potential hires were questioned about everything from their gambling habits to their sexuality.

"They wanted to make sure we couldn't be bribed," Marra says.

You can’t be bribed, but you’ll work on a project about whose outcome you have no idea. You are a perfect government puppet. A citizen any despot would be thrilled to have.

Mark Boughton, only discovered that his father had worked on Hexagon when he was invited to speak at an October reunion ceremony on the grounds of the former plant.

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"Learning about Hexagon makes me view him completely differently," Boughton says. "He was more than just my Dad with the hair-trigger temper and passionate opinions about everything. He was a Cold War warrior doing something incredibly important for our nation."

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Standing in the grounds of her late husband's workplace, listening to the tributes, her son and daughter and grandchildren by her side, [Betty] Osterweis was overwhelmed by the enormity of it all — the sacrifice, the secrecy, the pride.

"To know that this was more than just a company selling widgets ... that he was negotiating contracts for our country's freedom and security," she said.

[...]

For employees at Perkin-Elmer, the vow of secrecy was considered a mark of honor.

"We were like the guys who worked on the first atom bomb," said Oscar Berendsohn, 87, who helped design the optics system. "It was more than a sworn oath. We had been entrusted with the security of the country. What greater trust is there?"

Oh, I don’t know…maybe the trust that you’ll investigate whether what you’re doing actually IS securing the country? The trust that you will analyze, investigate and assess the things you do before you do them, in case they might be harmful? The trust that you’ll think and consider rather than blindly follow anyone claiming to be doing something good?

"We were born into the World War II generation," says Linda Bronico, whose husband, Al, told her only that he was building test consoles and cables. "We all knew the slogan 'loose lips sink ships.'"

Good little citizens. Easily frightened. We believe whatever we’re told. We do whatever we’re told.

And Perkin-Elmer was considered a prized place to work, with good salaries and benefits, golf and softball leagues, lavish summer picnics (the company would hire an entire amusement park for employees and their families) and dazzling children's Christmas parties.

"We loved it," Marra says. "It was our life."

Did I forget to mention that, in spite of the intense clearance procedures, the truth is that we really ARE easily bribed?

 I don’t think involvement in something you have willingly gone into blindly is something to be bragging about.
 
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.