You're the President tomorrow- what's the first secret thing you ask about?

The title pretty much says it all.

Personally, I’d probably ask about

aliens

If it isn’t clear: I’m operating under the assumption here that there are certain government secrets kept from us common folk for our own good. I know the first thing I’d want to know about, what about you?

What kind of black ops projects are currently ongoing in the Middle East and elsewhere?

Aliens, meh. Without even seeing those files, I already know the government isn’t hiding the slightest evidence for extraterrestrials.

Interestingly, though, I once saw Dick Morris state in an interview that the first two secret things Bill Clinton wanted to see were the files on UFO’s, and on the JFK assassination.

Even before the above post, I was going to say: Aliens and JFK are the obvious ones. They’re also the ones it’s least likely that there’s anything to see. And Diogenes has the right idea as well for what one will be able to find nontrivial information about.

area 51. but on my first day as president, I’d prolly screw it up and ask about area 52.

“Well, sir, it’s right off the freeway in Detroit and we store our unused MREs there. Why do you ask?”

I’d be currious to know if the Freemasons really have any infuence or pull in our government.

Probably not, but why do so many of them join this boy scout club?

Almost 30 years ago when I was still on active duty, I was assigned to the Pentagon in a job that required a top secret clearance. I worked in the communications center and we received and distributed all incoming message traffic (back before the ease of email.)

I remember when I was shown the top secret message vault and I got all excited to read some of those messages. Man, could they have been any more boring??? What makes most of the info so highly classified is not the content, but the source.

But to address the OP, I’d like to know exactly what the CIA is doing. This isn’t a tin-foil-hat curiousity, either. I always figured most of what they do falls into the same boring category as the message traffic of my early years. But I would like to know about any whiz-bang cool stuff they have/do.

Of course, there’s the need-to-know rule. Does the President really need to know certain things? I expect the security briefings don’t include such things as “And Tom Jackson is our man who has infiltrated the Z-Cell of the Taliban and his undercover name is Achmed and he lives in the third cave from the bend in the road from the Khyber Pass and his code word is Milk Dud.”

So now I wonder, has anyone ever had to say “I’m sorry, Mr. President, but you don’t have the need to know that.” :eek:

BESIDES UFOs (including what really crashed at Roswell) and JFK, I am sure the Pres can get the British Gov’t’s straight dope on who really was Jack the Ripper. (I think Aaron Komisnki or someone like him.)

snip

Since the President is the highest link in the military chain of command I don’t think you CAN keep anything from him.

But how would he know if you’re telling him everything?

Then there’s the whole “plausible deniability” thing…

Page 47.

clarify, please.

JFK.
Of course, since they murdered one president, and got away with it, why would I be so marvellous that they would tell me without some sort of incentive?
I would press for info on the JFK/Marilyn Monroe files, however.

hh

Where Osama bin Laden is and what he’s been doing? The anniversary of 9/11 is coming up and if there is the possibility that anything will remotely happen I would want to be caught on camera acting Presidential, not sitting in a kiddie chair listening to someone read My Pet Goat.

Prior to WWII due to a lapse of security at the White House the president was removed from the list of those people who were allowed to read the intercepted messages between Japan and its embassies. He was eventually re-added. But at times the military certainly has kept things from him, and at times has been explicit as to why.

I forget the details, but in the movie National Treasure: Book of Secrets part of the plot concerns a book of Presidential Secrets. Nick cage’s character is given access to this book and told to look at page 47, which supposedly contains a “life-altering” secret. We aren’t given any hint of what it involves, however.

Thank you.

What are our people doing in which countries to affect their politics in which ways?

The Illuminati!!!111!!!

What’s really going on with the War On Terror.

I figure it’s fifty-fifty that it seems all FUBAR because we don’t know some vital secret information that fills in the dots.

Or it could be that the Bush administration really did bungle up that badly. But the thing with international security is, you never know.
(Not about American secrets, but I think Israeli commandos are planning to do an Entebbe and rescue Gilad Shalit in a surprise raid; the negotiations about releasing convicted terrorists are just a stalling measure).