Annie Jacobsen Quotes
Back in the 1950s, there was a top-secret program code-named SUNTAN being conducted at a top-secret facility called Skunk Works. Its objective? To develop a liquid-hydrogen-powered spy plane. Because liquid hydrogen is incredibly volatile, early experiments were conducted inside a bomb shelter with eight-foot-thick walls.
Jacobsen, Annie. Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base. Little, Brown and Company, 2011.
Agree resigned from the CIA in protest to its political positions.
Kellis was the first of the Central Intelligence Agency whistle blowers. The President acted promptly on the letter and appointed General Jimmy Doolittle to conduct an investigation which confirmed the Kellis letter.
This quotation is important because it illustrates the important research and development role that the Government has played for the most important technological innovations of the second half of the 20th century. Even though most of the computer breakthroughs were developed by private companies, the government paid for most of the R&D and purchased the vast majority of the first computers on the market when private companies had not yet realized the value of computers and with the exception of IBM most of the private sector would invest no money in this unproven technology. This was the same as the telegraph, the railroads and others before and the Internet and more afterward.
Annie Jacobsen is an American investigative journalist, author, and a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist. She was a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Times Magazine from 2009 until 2012. Jacobsen writes about war, weapons, security, and secrets. Jacobsen is best known as the author of the 2011 non-fiction book, Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base, which The New York Times called "cauldron-stirring." She is an internationally acclaimed and sometimes controversial author who, according to one critic, writes sensational books by addressing popular conspiracies.
