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A padlock around the Pentagon.

The Left-Wing Origins of ‘Deep State’ Theory

Those who wish to restore democratic rule, regardless of political orientation, must take it seriously.
by Christian Parenti via Compact on February 28, 2025

Opus Dei, Embezzlement, and Human Trafficking

The Catholic order has branches all over the world, and a deep history of unethical and illegal behavior.
by Mark Oppenheimer, Gareth Gore via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on January 21, 2025
A hallway in the Greenbriar bunker, lined with steel and cement walls

The Town That Kept Its Nuclear Bunker a Secret for Three Decades

The people of White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, helped keep the Greenbrier resort's bunker—designed to hold the entirety of Congress—hidden for 30 years.
by Emily Matchar via Smithsonian on April 9, 2024
Illustration of McCormick at his desk, hunched over a typewriter.

Hellhounds on His Trail

Mack McCormick’s long, tortured quest to find the real Robert Johnson.
by Michael Hall via Texas Monthly on April 4, 2023
Daniel Ellsberg at a press conference in New York City, 1972.

My Fifty Years with Dan Ellsberg

The man who changed America.
by Seymour M. Hersh via seymourhersh.substack on March 8, 2023
Illustrated figure standing in front of a massive wall of classified documents.

The Cult of Secrecy

America’s classification crisis.
by Patrick Radden Keefe via Foreign Affairs on February 13, 2023
Wilbert Lee Evans (left) and Alton Waye (right).

NPR Uncovered Secret Execution Tapes From Virginia. More Remain Hidden.

Four tapes mysteriously donated reveal uncertainty within the death chamber—and indicate the prison neglected to record evidence during an execution gone wrong.
by Chiara Eisner via NPR on January 19, 2023
Black and white photo of J. Edgar Hoover sitting at his desk.

J. Edgar Hoover, Public Enemy No. 1

The F.B.I. director promised to save American democracy from those who would subvert it—while his secret programs subverted it from within.
by Margaret Talbot via The New Yorker on November 14, 2022
Haitian refugees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, carrying trash bags on their heads as they walk beside barbed wire fences.

Guantánamo’s Other History

The Haitian migrant crisis is the latest stage in a decades-long legacy of mistreatment by the U.S. government, much of which unfolded at Cuban detention facilities.
by Jeffrey Kahn via Boston Review on October 14, 2021
Cover of the book, "Restricted Data: the History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States" by Alex Wellerstein

Secrets, Sins, and Nuclear Insecurity

Only a certain kind of person, both foolish and resolute, would choose to study a subject so extensive, yet so restrictive, as the secrets of nuclear weapons.
by Joshua Roebke via Los Angeles Review of Books on May 19, 2021

The Keeper of the Secret

After decades of silence, one man pursues accountability, apologies and the meaning of racial reconciliation.
by Stephanie McCrummen via Washington Post on March 30, 2019
Political cartoon of Grover Cleveland's trade policy.

Can History Avoid Conspiracy?

Historians still lack a good way to define, discuss, and address historical actions that appear to be "conspiracies."
by Andy Seal via U.S. Intellectual History Blog on June 4, 2018
Svetlana Stalin being photographed

My Secret Summer With Stalin’s Daughter

In 1967, I was in the middle of one of the world’s buzziest stories.
by Grace Kennan Warnecke via Politico Magazine on April 29, 2018
Chuck Schumer talks with a staffer in shadow beneath the seal of the U.S. Senate.
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Secrecy in the Senate

To the framers, working in secret was meant to deliver enlightened legislation.
by Katlyn Marie Carter via Made By History on December 12, 2017
Robert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society, standing next to a portrait of the group's namesake, Captain John Morrison Birch.

December 9, 1958: The John Birch Society Is Founded

“Together with other ‘know nothing’ organizations scattered through the country, it represents a basic, continuing phenomenon in American society.”
by Richard Kreitner, Hans Engh via The Nation on December 9, 1958
Cardinals walking through the Vatican.
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Why Papal Conclaves Have Drawn the Attention of Spies

Intelligence agencies have long gathered information to help their governments get a sense of who the next pope might be.
by Yvonnick Denoël via Made By History on May 7, 2025
Arthur Zimmerman and his intercepted telegram.

Worse Than Signalgate

Accidentally sharing attack plans in a group chat is bad. Causing a rising superpower to declare war on you because of a Western Union telegram is worse.
by Timothy W. Ryback via The Atlantic on April 11, 2025
Donald Trump and the presidential seal in an empty theater.

The Hoax that Spawned an Age of American Conspiracism

Donald Trump and Elon Musk are just the latest populists to weaponise fears of a sinister “deep state”.
by Phil Tinline via New Statesman on April 2, 2025
Frank Wisner's photo covered with official seals.

The Making of a Cold War Spy

The life and work of Frank Wisner, one of the CIA’s founding officers, offers us a portrait of American intelligence’s excesses.
by Adam Hochschild via The Nation on March 11, 2025
A woman with a rifle, superimposed on an American flag.

From Philly to Derry: On the Americans Who Armed the IRA During The Troubles

Vincent Conlon’s secret life in the United States as an operative and gun-running Irish rebel.
by Ali Watkins via Literary Hub on March 11, 2025
Document stamped "classified."

Trump Breaks Washington’s Secrecy Addiction

The president is right to release the Kennedy files.
by James W. Carden via The American Conservative on February 14, 2025
Sign along empty road reading "Private Road No Entry" in Hebrew and English.

How Israel Deceived the U.S. and Built the Bomb

Newly declassified documents reveal how Israel operated under the noses of U.S. inspectors.
by William Burr, Avner Cohen via Foreign Policy on February 7, 2025
Herbert O. Yardley and diplomatic codes from the Black Chamber.

The Spy Who Exposed the Secrets of the Black Chamber

In 1931, Herbert O. Yardley published a tell-all book about his experiences leading a covert government agency called the Cipher Bureau.
by Peter Zablocki via Smithsonian on February 4, 2025
Three identical pictures of the explosion of an atomic bomb with different coloring.

How Literature Predicted and Portrayed the Atom Bomb

On Pierrepoint B. Noyes, H.G. Wells, and the “Superweapons” of early science-fiction.
by Dorian Lynskey via Literary Hub on January 28, 2025
Chinese workers standing in the streets.

The Long Shadow of the Chinese Exclusion Act

The true cost of the immigration policy can be measured in the generations of Chinese Americans who were never born.
by Jane C. Hu via The New Yorker on January 23, 2025
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Knight Club

Were the Knights of the Golden Circle responsible for Lincoln’s assassination? No one knows, but far-right secret societies always draw power from speculation.
by Devin Thomas O’Shea via HNN on January 14, 2025
Sound waves.

Listening Devices

The veterans of Kagnew Station saw the early growth of the surveillance state. Has the passage of time given them a new understanding of their work?
by Ann Neumann via The Baffler on January 6, 2025
CIA memo about LSD use.

CIA Behavior Control Experiments Focus of New Scholarly Collection

Agency sought drugs and behavior control techniques to use in “special interrogations” and offensive operations.
by Michael Evans via National Security Archive on December 23, 2024
Man burning a picture of Abraham Lincoln.

City on Fire

The night violent anti-government conspirators sowed chaos in the heart of Manhattan.
by Betsy Golden Kellem via The Atavist on September 24, 2024
Parade of U.S. Olympic team members, 1960.

At the 1960 Olympics, American Athletes Recruited by the CIA Tried to Convince Soviets to Defect

Al Cantello, a star of the U.S. track and field team, arranged a covert meeting between a government agent and a Ukrainian long jumper.
by Erik Ofgang via Smithsonian on August 1, 2024
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