Originally Posted by
RetiredBA/BY
Thank you !
I, too, was in the RAF during the cold war, was PV cleared, co pilot on nuclear armed squadron assigned to SACEUR !
But 50 years ago !
What we knew and what was publicly available was often the same. We often did not know this. However had we spoken out we would have given 'official' credence to public knowledge or speculation. Investigative journalists such as Duncan Campbell would then exploit such confirmation.
As an example of protecting secrets that aren't secret was a Russian magazine that had a full description of NATO ASW detection systems from sonobuoys, through towed arrays to SOSUS.