For Harvard and Kissinger, serving the Cold War machine, whether through the Department of Defense or the CIA, was a patriotic duty.
One memo involving CIA director Walter B. Smith highlights the National Security Risk posed by flying saucers, not just as unknown aerial threats, but as tools that could be exploited by the Soviets to spread hysteria or disrupt air defense systems.
A redacted history of Sandial Laboratories in New Mexico notes that Don Cotter, who was later a Nixon administration advisor on atomic energy and assistant to the Secretary of Defense.
By the late 1950s, the US government was increasingly outsourcing classified research to private aerospace and defense contractors.
Officially, these groups members typically included the National Security Advisor, senior officials from the CIA, and representatives from the State and Defense Departments.
Figures like Richard Bissell, who moved from the CIA into private defense, suggest that real secrecy does not end when someone's ties to an administration does.