The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency

by Annie Jacobsen

DARPA as an agency does not conduct scientific research. Its program managers and directors hire defense contractors, academics, and other government organizations to do the work.

placed under AEC jurisdiction. The AEC chairman had a bill introduced in Congress to establish an “Outer Space Division.” Defense contractors also lobbied hard against

“The fact that they didn’t want an ARPA is one reason [Eisenhower] did,” said Admiral John E. Clark, an early ARPA employee.

“Beset by enemies internally, subjected to critical pressures externally, and starting from scratch in a novel area of endeavor, ARPA was a tumultuous and exciting place to be.”

Douglas Keeney had discovered a copy of “The Emergency Plans Book” inside a declassified U.S. Air Force file at the National Archives, the Pentagon immediately reclassified the report. Keeney made public the contents of the copy he had come across, but the original document remains classified.