What Kind Of State Secrets Does A President Know?

Recent posts by a few members here, speculate about exactly what kind of deep sinister secrets that President Elect Obama was recently briefed on by the CIA & that GW Bush has obviously known for a while. While Hollywood always manages to provide great movie plots for "Action" films with super-villains & sinister world ending stories, I think reality is usually far less dramatic than this creative but fictional Hollywood world.
I think we can all get a pretty good understanding of the "types" of REAL secrets most Presidents knew about (during their terms) by looking back at the real history of these state secrets.There have been many laws passed since WWII making the classification process more open & setting limits on the length of time state secrets can be maintained as classified.


To show that most "State Secrets" turn out to be far less dangerous to U. S. security than their Hollywood counterparts, here is a quick list (off the top of my head) of "once classified" MAJOR State Secrets that has been made public, . There are many more, but this will help show that, while these are fascinating to look back on, they are not the stuff that would keep most President awake at night:


FDR- during WWII
1. We had broken the German & Japanese secret codes. ( Code named: Ultra & Purple respectively) So important it was really a "War Winning" secret!
2. We (the US) were engaged in a massive, nationwide program to build the Atomic Bomb (Code named: Manhattan Project)
3. That FDR (personally) had authorized the shooting down (assasination) of Japanese Combined Fleet Admiral Isoroko Yamamoto based on "Purple" intercepts. (this one event shortened the Pacific war & saved many thousands of American lives in WWII)


Dwight D. Eisenhower-during the cold war
1. That we were sending manned spy aircraft (Lockheed U2's) over both China & The Soviet Union ever since Kruschev had rejected Ike's "Open Skies" diplomatic effort to allow legal overflights by each side.
2. That there was no "Bomber Gap" or "missile Gap" that the American public feared so much. (revealed by the U2 flights)


John F. Kennedy- Early 1960's

1. That the Soviet Union had deployed nuclear capable bombers & missiles within Cuba. (led to the Cuban missile Crisis) While this was very dire indeed...It was so dire that it was made public almost immediately in order to deal with the threat.




Richard M. Nixon

1. That Howard Hughes mystery ship "Glomar Explorer" was not built to recover precious metals off the deep sea floor (as told in the "Cover Story") but was designed to raise an entire Soviet nuclear-tipped missile submarine from the deep pacific ocean floor.




These are historical facts &, while fascinating to look back on, I would guess that GW Bush &, now Barak Obama will not be losing much sleep over things the CIA knows & has told them. It's what the CIA doesn't know that will cause sleepless nights!


I'm a bit of a buff on this stuff & would love to hear any other additions that I missed.

OK, so here are a couple of wingers for you. What about Roswell and of course the supposedly staged Apollo missions to the moon? Would these qualify as state secrets or should these be listed in the Government is lying to us category?

kootch88 wrote:K, so here are a couple of wingers for you. What about Roswell and of course the supposedly staged Apollo missions to the moon? Would these qualify as state secrets or should these be listed in the Government is lying to us category?

In my opinion...They should be categorized under the "Nutcase" category.

Contrary to popular belief here, aside from current crimes being covered up, I'm the world's least believing conspiracy buff:
I believe that:
1. Oswalld alone assassinated JFK
2. James Earl Ray alone assassinated MLK
3. Roswell fairy tales are just that
4. We landed on the moon.
5. GW Bush did not attack this country on 9/11(proof: If he had....he would have missed! )
6. FDR did not know about Pearl Harbor, b4 the attack
7. Winston Churchill did not sacrifice Coventry
8. Elvis is REALLY dead.

I hear through my sources that one of the Roswell crash survivors is still alive and living somewhere in southeastern Massachusetts.

But honestly all the conspiracy stuff is fun to listen to late at night. Some of those folks really get into it. Its funny how the mind works, and you know there is a saying about just because you're paranoid does not mean no one is after you.

Like the secrets you mention of days gone by the secrets of today will not seem that important years from now but like the secrets past they had good reason for keeping a lid on them at the time. Maybe when Obama takes office we will see a secret or two leaked as a way of changing a particular policy direction, who knows, I guess it all depends on what they know and we don't.

gaw wrote:Like the secrets you mention of days gone by the secrets of today will not seem that important years from now but like the secrets past they had good reason for keeping a lid on them at the time. Maybe when Obama takes office we will see a secret or two leaked as a way of changing a particular policy direction, who knows, I guess it all depends on what they know and we don't.

I'm not saying that the secrets I listed above were not important..Far from it!! Many of them were war winners & peace keepers.

My point in writing this post is that I'm hearing that Sen. Obama somehow even "looks different" now that the immense weight of the secrets, previously known only by GW Bush have now been shared with him. I think that's pure fiction!
(I fear the CIA still really knows allot LESS than it should, & only things that can be visually seen or heard technologically from outer space. We have far to little "human intelligence" as is evidenced from CIA Congressional testimony.....Hell...we have very few people in the middle east who can even speak the language over there!

What always amazed me about Roswell, the moon landing and other conspiracies is the faith that we (citizens, and military) have the ability to keep a secret that would range from the floor sweeper to the head of the program. Heck, we can't even get through a campaign without leaks breaking out all over the place. I wonder when the Obama camp will spring some leaks about the campaign. SO far not a word has leaked out, and that is unusual.

Devil505 wrote:

kootch88 wrote:K, so here are a couple of wingers for you. What about Roswell and of course the supposedly staged Apollo missions to the moon? Would these qualify as state secrets or should these be listed in the Government is lying to us category?

In my opinion...They should be categorized under the "Nutcase" category.

Aside from current crimes being covered up, I'm the world's least believing conspiracy addict:
I believe that:
1. Oswalld alone assassinated JFK
2. James Earl Ray alone assassinated MLK
3. Roswell fairy tales are just that
4. We landed on the moon.
5. GW Bush did not attack this country on 9/11(proof: If he had....he would have missed! )
6. FDR did not know about Pearl Harbor, b4 the attack
7. Winston Churchill did not sacrifice Coventry
8. Elvis is REALLY dead.

I have a couple of engineering friends who are geekishly smart and both do not believe we went to the moon. When I first spoke with them about it I thought they were nuts, but they make some pretty interesting observations. How was that big moon rover carried there in the little Apollo capsule? Why have we never gone back? Or even circle the moon in the shuttle, it would be a quick trip...

See http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/cosmicapollo.html

kootch88 wrote:What always amazed me about Roswell, the moon landing and other conspiracies is the faith that we (citizens, and military) have the ability to keep a secret

Agreed!...It reminds me of the quote attributed to Al Capone that goes something like this:

"Two men are perfectly capable of keeping a secret...............................Provided one of them is dead!"

coalmeister wrote:How was that big moon rover carried there in the little Apollo capsule?

It was launched folded up in the LEM. (Lunar Excursion Module)

coalmeister wrote:Why have we never gone back?

Lack of funding for this expensive program.

coalmeister wrote:Or even circle the moon in the shuttle, it would be a quick trip...

Again, funding & lack of reason to do so. Why would we need to send a manned mission to orbit the Moon again, when we could not risk anyone & save billions by sending an unmanned probe???

How was the flag blowing with no air? It was filmed at Roswell.

"Why would we need to send a manned mission to orbit the Moon again, when we could not risk anyone & save billions by sending an unmanned probe???"

The shuttles go up all the time, there would be little added cost, it would take like 2 days to get there.

ken wrote:How was the flag blowing with no air? It was filmed at Roswell.

The flag was not blowing. It was propped/wired open & moved only on LEM liftoff when rocket exhaust hit it.

The shuttles go up all the time, there would be little added cost, it would take like 2 days to get there.

The shuttle doesn't carry enough fuel!!!! It dumps it's tanks before reaching orbit.

You guys are loons. And the flag was a stiff material.

coalmeister wrote:"Why would we need to send a manned mission to orbit the Moon again, when we could not risk anyone & save billions by sending an unmanned probe???"

The shuttles go up all the time, there would be little added cost, it would take like 2 days to get there.

You're wrong but don't take my word for it. Seriously.....write or call NASA & ask them.

Oh, I'm sure they would give me an unbiased story