THE PENTAGON'S SHADOW BUDGETS: DOD Black Budget Mechanisms and Cover Appropriations

Not every secret is a scandal. Some are the law working exactly as designed.The Pentagon's Shadow Budgets examines a third kind of government funding secrecy this series hasn't yet explored: classification. Unlike the front companies and foundation conduits of earlier volumes, classified defense spending is never hidden from Congress - it's openly appropriated, and its specific technical content is legally secret under a framework Congress itself created and continues to oversee.Using only programs the U.S. government has already fully declassified - the U-2, the A-12/SR-71, the F-117 Nighthawk, the B-2 Spirit - this volume traces how classified aircraft development actually worked, how budget scale itself eventually forced two of history's most secretive programs into public view, and why no reform has yet fully resolved the tension between legitimate national security secrecy and meaningful oversight.This book discusses only history. It speculates about nothing classified today.Volume Eight of The Cover Funding Files.