I think most of the military "cover stories" were and are designed to fool the Russians, Cubans, North Koreans, Iranians, etc., etc. I learned a few military secrets while in the news business but I was told to keep them quiet. These weren't "big" secrets, but our military didn't want the Russians knowing all the details that I knew.

Another example... I worked with a news cameraman who was also in the National Guard. He worked on a special project at Camp Shelby Mississippi where the Army built an exact replica of General Noriega's house and living quarters, where the Army practiced the invasion of Panama and the capture of Noriega. So, our lowly news cameraman knew about the big invasion long before the rest of us in the news department knew about it, but he couldn't tell us.

The rumor about the house finally got out after the invasion and after the replica house was completely torn down. Then our cameraman would say a few things about it, such as "It was remarkable," and "you should have seen it", but he would never actually say that it had really existed because the Army, at that time, did not acknowledge that they were capable of making exact replicas of houses of foreign leaders they planned to invade and capture.