theresponseblog:

kontextmaschine:

So how did the Cold War security state react to domestic corporate espionage? Like, there’d be actual agents attached to Boeing projects to keep the Russians from knowing what they were doing, how did they deal with Lockheed trying to look into it?

For the most part everybody used (and uses) the same technology; the relevant advantages were in facilities and competent staff, which you can’t really steal. The only company-confidential data that might be useful would be costs for labor and materials. (and the only time anyone stole that stuff in recent history led to Lockheed and Boeing both losing their rocket-booster divisions, those being divested and combined into ULA.)

Really. No manufacturer made significant, not-immediately-obvious advances in aircraft design through the entire Cold War?