SECRECY OR DECPTION IN THE NEVADA DESERT?
By William Moreau
Part II of III
SECRECY AND THE BLACK BUDGET
NEVADA, June 1994 — Secrecy in the military and intelligence communities exists primarily through the black budget: appropriations not revealed to taxpayers. The method originated in 1941 when the White House, fearing opposition against the costly development of the atomic bomb, secretly paid some costs with outside funds, deceiving taxpayers by making the project appear less expensive. While political strategists might claim the ends justified the means, they cannot deny the constitutional violation that cracked the foundation supporting America’s political ideology.
Formation of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947 furthered the rift by asserting a new standard in government affairs: SECRECY. Certain secrets are necessary to protect America’s sovereignty, but there exists a threshold and once crossed the secrets can pose a threat by creating a tyranny of power within certain government circles.
The black budget soared above $35 billion annually during the eighties. Current estimates place the annual outlay near $28 billion, translating into a 1.5 percent skimming of the federal budget for projects outside the constitutional chain of command.
WHO CONTROLS THE BLACK BUDGET?
Congress stamps its seal of approval on federal budgets. Congressional representatives serve on various committees where most considerations for funding are made. Two congressional committees sanction the funds for most of the black projects: the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the National Security Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. Yet even the demigods on Capitol Hill often know little about how the money is used. Most had never heard of the Groom Lake airbase until it made its way to the mainstream press, further proof that the black programs lack proper oversight.
The lack of congressional understanding also raises questions about why the funds are approved. One motivating factor is Political Action Committee (PAC) contributions that congressional members receive from lobbyists. Campaign finance reform laws set by Congress after the Watergate scandal created a loophole, allowing government contractors to make campaign contributions directly to politicians via PACs.
Ten-term Congressman Walter “Storm” Langston (Republican-Texas) has served four terms on the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee. During his last two-year term from 1990 to 1992, he collected $537,500 from various defense contractor PACs. Contributions of $143,000 came from a PAC controlled by Global Resources and Technologies Corporation (GRATCOR — previously known as Ground Rail Air Transportation Corporation until a 1988 modernization of the name.) GRATCOR is also the government defense contractor most associated with the Groom Lake airbase. Congressman Langston denies that the contributions are intended to persuade his views or have an impact on decisions he makes involving GRATCOR.
Langston’s conflict of interest is not unique. Some worry that PACs create a three-way handshake, transferring control from the government to its contractors. Congress gives the military and intelligence agencies money and anonymity to build their toys, they in turn pay huge sums to the contractors, and the contractors fund the politicians’ campaigns so they remain in office and keep the relationships stable.
As political practices redesign the country’s foundation, ask yourself this: Will America still be beautiful with spacious, high-tech filled skies and black budget waves of greed?
CHAPTER 5
Janice hiked deliberately up the mountainside. After several slip and falls the previous night she had adapted to the footing of scattered rocks and dead cacti. In her peripheral vision, she glimpsed something tall and dark looming on her right. She halted while her pupils strained to focus through the nighttime shadows on the hillside. She flicked a power switch on her night vision binoculars and raised them to her face, realizing that she had been tricked again by a cactus; Joshua tree cacti, with their erect trunks and bifurcated limbs sometimes resembled menacing soldiers.
The dry night air lingered above eighty degrees. As Janice continued to hike, a soft wind caressed her cheeks and gave her cottonmouth, making her yearn for an ice cold drink, but because the journey was long she rationed water stowed in her backpack and several canteens. The weight made it harder to hike, but without the water the journey would be impossible. As it was, she decided dehydration and heat stroke were easier combatants than the intelligence agents.
Traveling at night and hiding during the day, Janice plotted the journey over a four-night period: two nights in, two nights out. She hoped that after four days the Americans would figure she had already left the state, and maybe the country, making her escape easier.
She routinely checked a handheld scanner clipped to a utility hook on her vest, making sure the batteries hadn’t died. The scanner monitored close-range radio transmissions. If she triggered a motion sensor, base security would be alerted via radio waves and the scanner would sense the transmission, warning her a few minutes before security forces arrived.
Janice’s biggest fear was the invisible infrared surveillance equipment used in the region. Besides contacting Ben Skyles, she had met many people in the past few months that offered her insight about the base. She had sucked a wealth of information about base security from a UFO aficionado in Los Angeles who gave her detailed insight about her present journey and the surveillance.
After two hours of hiking, Janice saw that she was nearing the mountain’s crest. Pausing for a moment, she stretched and massaged her thighs, hoping to ease the burning in her muscles. Her hands rubbing against her thick hiking pants made the only discernable noise in a quiet desert … until the sound of tumbling rocks somewhere in the darkness below disturbed her. She squatted low to the ground and again turned her night vision on, peering at the incline she had just conquered. Nothing caught her attention. The Nevada desert was populated with a myriad of creatures — bats, coyotes, scorpions, sidewinders, tarantulas, even cattle and wild horses in some areas — that could have caused the noise. She continued up the crest, still disturbed by the tumbling rocks.
From a patch of desert scrub behind Janice, a dark figure draped in a camouflage poncho emerged. The six-foot-tall man wore a black helmet with a shield that covered his face. The poncho blanketed his body and equipment, and was adapted from a Ghillie suit — frayed straps of burlap tied to clothing and typically worn by snipers seeking to match the terrain. The worn burlap bounced with his movement like Rastafarian dreadlocks as he gamboled up the hill, taking care not to make any more noise.
Standing in awe at the crest of the Papoose Mountain Range, Janice gazed wide-eyed at a lonesome valley only a handful of Americans had ever seen. Papoose Valley stretched eight miles north to south; its floor spread four miles across at the widest point. Papoose Dry Lake was a third that size, occupying the northern portion of the valley floor. She had reached Papoose Valley near the center, at a narrow mesa that extended a quarter mile into the valley like an ocean jetty.
There was no evidence of a base, no lights like there were at Groom Lake, no evidence of anything other than barren desert; but then, she didn’t expect there to be. She was looking for signs of an underground base: portals, vents, or cave-like entrances. With her night vision binoculars, she spied across the valley at the hillsides, studying two dark patches that were possibly tunnel entrances, large enough for vehicles to enter. She was too far away to discern any great detail and opted for a closer look.