The classified portion of United States defence spending, appropriated without public line items. Because the unclassified budget submitted to Congress carries accurate service totals, the black figure can be derived by subtraction: The Hunt for Zero Point computes roughly thirty billion dollars for research and secret programmes in 1988, more than the entire annual defence budget of a major European NATO member at the time.
The book’s interest is less in the sum than in the structure. Access runs by compartment and by layer, so that managers inside one compartment have no oversight of anything outside their own need to know, which is how a programme such as Have Blue could be run from the office of a general not cleared for it. This is the mechanism the whole concealment argument depends on.
Connections
Have Blue · The Hunt for Zero Point · Groom Lake · Signature Management