A real life example of why it IS possible for the Government to keep secrets, even when 70,000 peopl

Quite often, I hear the argument that those who do not believe in government conspiracies use, namely using the phrase "That is impossible, since so many people had to keep this secret."
Well, today I came across an interesting item on another website, yielding a real time example of how it is possible.
I'm sure most people are very familiar with the Manhattan Project during World War II.
Well, recently, U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge office started to digitize photos from the town of Oak Ridge, which was a town of 70,000 people, who worked on the Project. Again, I know that most people know that each person was given such a compartmentalized task, that they did not understand what they were working on.
However, the degree to which this town of 70,000 people was created,has been captured in photos, which are now becoming available for all to see. I urge members to view these photos, which show the extent to which this town has been created as a model Americana town, complete with shops, baseball teams, and just about anything else that you would want in a "perfect" community.
Now consider this question.
How many of you could be working on a project which has a purpose, perhaps evil, perhaps totalitarian, and perhaps with the final intent of making you completely subservient to the PTB?
I would love to hear from members that believe that they may be involved in projects, and do not know the real intent, but have wondered.
Here is the link to the story and the photos of this "perfect Americana community":
www.acontinuouslean.com...

In 1942, as part of the Manhattan Project, the U.S. government acquired 70,000 acres of land in Eastern Tennessee and established a secret town called Oak Ridge. The name chosen to keep outside speculation to a minimum, because Oak Ridge served a vital role for the development of the atomic bomb. The massive complex of massive factories, administrative buildings and every other place a normal town needs to function, was developed for the sole purpose of separating uranium for the Manhattan Project. The completely planned community was designed by the architecture firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, and had a population of more than 70,000 people. Due to the sensitive nature of the work at Oak Ridge, the entire town was fenced in with armed guards and the entire place — much like the Manhattan Project in general — was a secret of the highest concern. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge office recently started to digitize its collection of archival photos and share them through Flickr; and this group of images from the 1940s are part of those recently released.

Sounds like a military base (including base housing, shools, shopping centers, restaurants etc.) minus the gate and security police. Many people in the military struggle to find out how they fit in the scheme of things, what they are doing for "the mission" also, there are many similarities.

Peace

This is how the military keeps its Top Seceret information under wraps. The TS SCI (Sensitive compartmented information) often never allows one person to know the "whole truth" about a single subject. Most of the time it is just enough information to allow the person to complete the task assigned.

I would say it has everything to do with something that is almost impossible for modern America to imagine. Losing World War II wasn't an outlandish theory when Oak Ridge was conceived, it was a real possibility. In fact, it was very likely to be the outcome if the Manhattan Project had failed and the German version hadn't been sabotaged from within. After the end of the war, it was a matter of really not wanting to have to learn to speak Russian. It's an easy language to learn..but sounds so...foreign.

Those were the days when men were men and Americans could see the need some things needed to remain secret. The Rosenberg's also served quite a nice lesson for those who didn't see simple patriotism as sufficient reason to keep one's secrets to themselves. bzzz...

This is something I've always thought about and seen in many threads, the argument that not everyone can keep the secret. But who's to say they knew the secret to begin with?

It's like a magic trick, you can participate in the trick, but not know what that trick is until the very end.

You've brought up a very fair example as well, that I haven't seen/heard much about. Which makes me want to find out more.

Thanks again OP, S&F

Yeah.
I've always wanted to look into this but never got round to it.
Maybe now's the time.

There is a HUGE difference with the people the and the people of today.

Back then, people cared about their country before themselves. They were honorable. Back then a promise meant something, no matter who it was given to.

Today, people care for themselves only. Most don't look to the big picture of what goes on around them. The mind set is almost always "Whats in it for me." People are alos interested in getting the 15 minutes of fame.

Unfortunatly most today are selfish A holes. In my opinion.

That is why 70,000 can back then can keep a secret, and today it seems no one can.

This is something I've always thought about and seen in many threads, the argument that not everyone can keep the secret. But who's to say they knew the secret to begin with?

reply to post by BourneConspiracy

You hit the nail on the head. That is exactly how the government keeps secrets Very few of the people that were involved KNEW that there was a secret. I am still unsure of what really happened on 9/11, but certainly the possibility exists that many were involved, but few knew what the outcome would be. For instance, we know that a "practice" had been scheduled for the Air Force, that coincided with the time frame of the attack, and that resulted in delays of Air Force response, since some thought it was part of the practice drill.
The best kept secret are those that are unknown to the majority of the participants, as certainly was the case in Oak Ridge.
Peace.

Thank you for the link! I have lived within a half hour of Oak Ridge my whole life. I go their very often, actually saw a movie their over the weekend. My soon to be Grandmother-in-law (age 90) as well as her late husband both worked their for the Manhattan Project. She has great photos of her husband working in communications. She is interested in the topic and loves to read/watch about historic Oak Ridge. I have a great relationship with her (see her every weekend and she loves to kiss and hug on me lol). I would love to have a long talk about it with her, though first I need to do my own research. Thought this might interest some people. Thanks again for the link.

reply to post by ProfEmeritus


Looks like atypical military housing and post facilities to me.

I would love to hear from members that believe that they may be involved in projects, and do not know the real intent, but have wondered.

Ah, but you won't hear from 'them' until it's de-classified

My soon to be Grandmother-in-law (age 90) as well as her late husband both worked their for the Manhattan Project.

reply to post by FelixFelicis

That's fantastic. I hope she gets to enjoy all of the photos that they are putting up. If I were you, I would interview her, and publish the interview. It would be a great piece of history to hear her first hand account of life there during the project.

reply to post by ProfEmeritus


Wow, that's a trip! Its funny how I always heard how massive the Manhattan project was, but never actually thought about how they did it.... DAM the social programming !

Originally posted by Submarines
There is a HUGE difference with the people the and the people of today.

Back then, people cared about their country before themselves. They were honorable. Back then a promise meant something, no matter who it was given to.

Today, people care for themselves only. Most don't look to the big picture of what goes on around them. The mind set is almost always "Whats in it for me." People are alos interested in getting the 15 minutes of fame.

Unfortunatly most today are selfish A holes. In my opinion.

That is why 70,000 can back then can keep a secret, and today it seems no one can.

That is unfortunate that you view our society like that. Personally I think we are all wonderful people trying to make it in a sad crazy world that does not care for us. Perhaps you could instead look at the real point of this thread as WAKE UP. We have been lied to. Question all beliefs, Especially your own.

reply to post by ProfEmeritus


It's actually incredibly easy to keep a large amount of people from talking about something. As long as they've got a lot to lose if they do so.

Especially "successful" people (who are deeply in debt). Even without having them sign agreements to keep their mouths shut (or else), the idea of losing their job (and having their lives completely destroyed) is more than enough to manipulate people into keeping their mouths shut.

Originally posted by ProfEmeritus
Quite often, I hear the argument that those who do not believe in government conspiracies use, namely using the phrase "That is impossible, since so many people had to keep this secret."
Well, today I came across an interesting item on another website, yielding a real time example of how it is possible.

Total thread fail. You've proven the opposite of what you were attempting to prove. This secret enclave of 70k people worked on the Manhattan project- one of the worst-kept secrets ever. Everyone knew we were working on nukes, so were Germany and Japan. It was a race to see who would get one finished first. This is a great example of how terrible our government is at keeping secrets- they sequestered all these people inside a fenced-in community ringed with armed guards, yet word of their activities got out anyway.

reply to post by ProfEmeritus


Good point. I think with a few methods you can keep people from revealing a bigger picture.

Content appreciated; but its just like you said - the whole town didn't know the big secret because it was highly compartmentalized. Each laborer had their piece of the pie. 70,000 people didn't keep the same secret. Only a few probably had real interface w/ an assembled weapon - and that may not have even occurred at Oak Ridge.

The Manhattan Project wasn't that secret. It was deeply penetrated by Soviet agents. Like every other big secret of WWII and the Cold War, the Russians knew all about it, and it was only a "secret" until they exploited that knowledge.

Total thread fail. You've proven the opposite of what you were attempting to prove. This secret enclave of 70k people worked on the Manhattan project- one of the worst-kept secrets ever. Everyone knew we were working on nukes, so were Germany and Japan. It was a race to see who would get one finished first.

reply to post by SavedOne

You miss the point of the entire thread.
Compartmentalization is the key.
You fail to understand that those 70,000 ONLY KNEW that they were working on a project. I guarantee that if at the time, someone went in and asked those 70,000 people what they were working on, they would honestly answer that they were working on an effort for the war. They would have had NO IDEA what they were working on. You are looking at this in retrospect, and fail to understand that most people didn't even know that there was such a thing as an "atom bomb".
Compartmentalization is the way terrorist cells also manage to keep entire networks from being exposed. Each cell is extremely limited to what they know, and WHO they know in the larger effort. I suggest that you investigate further, since you don't seem to grasp the concept expressed in this thread.

Originally posted by ProfEmeritus
You miss the point of the entire thread.
Compartmentalization is the key.
You fail to understand that those 70,000 ONLY KNEW that they were working on a project. I guarantee that if at the time, someone went in and asked those 70,000 people what they were working on, they would honestly answer that they were working on an effort for the war. They would have had NO IDEA what they were working on. You are looking at this in retrospect, and fail to understand that most people didn't even know that there was such a thing as an "atom bomb".

Are you sure that they would not have absolutely no idea what they were working on? I would find that hard to believe. I would think that they'd know they were working on a nuclear bomb, but that they wouldn't know the full details about the entire project or have access to the full set of blue prints, documents, etc. They would just have limited information as apposed to being completely clueless.

From what I've read about the Manhattan Project and the compartmentalization. The scientists were divided up into various teams and were not allowed to talk or look at what another team was working on. There were times when they needed to communicate with one another and there was a detailed agreement on what information could be interchanged and what couldn't. 100% compartmentalization couldn't work.

Some scientists also felt that the compartmentalization led to delays within the project:

From: www.fas.org...
Project scientists, such as Leo Szilard, held that over-compartmentalization was a primary cause of extended delays in achievement of scientific and technical objectives of the program. Testifying before a committee of Congress after the war, he asserted, for example, that "compartmentalization of information was the cause for failure to realize that light uranium U235 might be produced in quantities sufficient to make atomic bombs.… We could have had it eighteen months earlier. We did not put two and two together because the two two's were in a different compartment.…" On another occasion he contended also that compartmentalization was not really "too successful" because "significant matters gradually leak through anyway."

So compartmentalization might work, but that doesn't necessarily mean it works well. It certainly sounds inefficient way of doing things.

The funny thing about the population today is that they don't really care if they know about secret projects or not. The Manhattan Project would have really been a popular subject if it had been exposed at the time. In my city there is a building with secret floors owned by the feds. Nobody knows or cares to know. In Washington there is a whole building with thousands of workers and there is nobody, except for the people who work there, that knows it exists. It is off the books and we don't care. We also gave up space exploration, sad.