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Frank StantonFrank Stanton
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Session:         Page of 755

Stanton:

Well, you had secret and top secret, and I think the ultimate was a Q-clearance, but I'm not even sure that's the right nomenclature. I know I had it at one time, and sometimes you had an identification, other times you didn't have an identification. I guess most of my clearances, my special clearances, came either from the White House or RAND, the White House only because of that Eisenhower period. I don't think I ever had any other clearance from the White House. The other was because I was chairman of RAND and the whole building was full of all kinds of secret documents, so we had to have top secret clearance for that stuff. In some ways, I used to think it was overdone, but maybe not. But, I also had, over the years, developed a lot of respect for the guy who said, “I'm going to get this information,” and got it without too much trouble because there are so many open sieves in our security system. All you've got to do is be a little clever, and you can work your way through it.

Q:

In the 1984 group, were you the only person from the world of media, or were there other people there --?

Stanton:

I was the only infidel in the group, yes.

Q:

It seems like that happened a lot of times.

Stanton:

Yes, it did. Yes, I think I might have mentioned a meeting in the Kennedy years, when there was a White House group put together for something (I've forgotten what it was now), and there was a group of scientists. I was roped in, not for anything having to do with media, but I was roped in presumably on the science side, for which I wasn't qualified at all.





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