This is going to sound crackpot, but there is an NRO staffer who started with the CIA who made a deathbed confession about a request the Eisenhower White House made concerning activities at the secret base outside of Nellis AFB in Nevada.
When Ike asked what was going on at Area 51, the response back was that he was not cleared for that information. This gent and one other were sent down to Area 51 to deliver a message:
“Either comply with the President’s order for status of all operations and budget for the base, or the 7th Army would be sent into the base and take it over.”
Guy who told this held a Cosmic TS clearance for 35 years and signed a doc that stipulated he couldn’t talk about the matter for 40. He died two weeks after the expiration of the NDA.
There’s precedence if you believe this guy for the Marine’s securing an agency that has gone off the rez.
one glaring problem with the Ike and Area 51 story is with ‘sending in the 7th Army.’ The Seventh Army was stationed in Germany with all of its subordinate corps and divisions from the end of WWI to current date. Ike would have had to bring it back from Germany when there were other Army units here in the states.