Keep the Peace Tonight
Odd little music video from the
National Reconnaissance Office recently declassified and posted at the Memory Hole.
Check out:
Keep the Peace Tonight
Hat tip to
BoingBoing for the link.
From BoingBoing:
This is one of those cases where reality is far weirder than anything a parodist could imagine: "NRO: Forty Years of Reconnaissance."
It's a now-declassified, um, music video by and in praise of the National Reconnaissance Office, the once super-secret spy agency responsible for the U.S.'s satellite and aerial reconnaissance missions. (Established in 1960, the NRO's very existence was classified until 1992. This was timely, as a couple of years later the agency built itself a $300 million headquarters -- the existence of which it also tried to keep classified, until someone thought to check the local planning office -- using part of the $1.5 billion or so in unspent funding it had socked away in a "rainy day fund.")
The video is a hoot: Over a montage of satellite launches, dial-twiddling technicians, and military hardware, intercut with historical footage from the past 40 years, an overly earnest rock balladeer sings of "Keep[ing] the Peace Alive."
An odd bit of ephemera from our past but I cannot fault the sentiment or the achievements.
Posted by DaveH at April 2, 2007 9:08 PM