The culture of secrecy created by America leading up to and during the Cold War developed from a perceived need to conceal as much as possible. With tensions high between America and Russia, the administration in charge deemed it necessary to try to protect American intelligence from the Russians, while simultaneously trying to gain Russian intelligence through spying programs. This culminated in a state which valued secrecy and espionage more than any before it, coined a “national security state” afterwards. This also led to domestic contemplations that took the form of the stripping of certain civil liberties in the name of national security.
The formulation of the national security state in specifically Nevada and Utah around the cold war largely centered around the Manhattan Project. The effort to conduct further atomic research “had” to be shrouded in secrecy. This research, only possible through American efforts to attract German scientists and refugees through Operation Paperclip, was too valuable to let slip into Russian hands, or so the American propaganda at the time would let you believe (despite the similar efforts being performed by the other side through similar operations and spy rings). This leads to a much bigger question, however; how has the state of national security changed since then?
From my perspective, I’d argue the national security state still exists today. For one, many of the agencies that were established during this time still exist today and in larger numbers than that time period. Secondly, since then, there have been more efforts to spy on foreign and domestic factors both through and because of the improvement of technology. Notably, since September 11th, the PATRIOT act allows for domestic surveillance to prevent terrorism, there were amendments added to the FISA Act in 2008 for warrantless surveillance of foreign communications, and the FREEDOM Act in 2015 as a response to Snowden and WikiLeaks still allows for significant surveillance capabilities under specific conditions (AI – references Brennan Center “Rolling back the Post-9/11 Surveillance State”, Wikipedia “Mass surveillance in the United States” and the BJA page on the FISA of 1978 (bja.ojp.gov)).
Will Wright 
I like your definition of the culture of secrecy since you not only explain that it was born out of a desire to hide information but also, contextualized it by mentioning that the US was spying on Russia during the Cold War, leading to a need to keep things out of the open. I find it interesting that you put the creation of a culture of secrecy first before the national security state, since to me, that comes first, but your reasoning is that the US is being consumed by a need to hide and protect its information even at the cost of its own people. At the end of your post, you mention a few of the ways in which the US government still spies on its people and their communications as a way in which the national security state has persevered. While I do agree with that understanding, I don’t think that it’s gotten worse than it was then, since it’s a little more known about the spying than it was then along with there being more ways to protect your information even though the government can still access some they have to try and justify it.
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