People who talk about the handing over of such ‘projects’...usually go back to the final 12 months of the Nixon administration and how he was convinced that the companies were better managers of the secrets/technology, than the Pentagon.
Just from the typical mindset of companies engaged in Pentagon relations...they always believe they can do a better job without the Pentagon in the middle of things.
The degree of pushback tells you there is lots of money involved in the technology the defense contractors are hiding. Eisenhower made a deal with these entities while he was in office - let us have access to your technology and you can use planet earth as your laboratory to conduct your experiements. The fatal flaw in this deal was that Eisenhower sold out his sworn duty to defend Amerians in exchange for technology. Let me tell you some of these ‘experiments’ are very very dark. Worse yet, the defense department turned over the technology secrets to private industry and they have assumed ownership of the secrets. Now we are the tail waging the dog. As with Big Pharma, the private military industrial complex (MIC) has become a runnaway ‘government’ onto itself. Now, the MIC is bribing our representatives to keep a lid on the biggest story in the history of the world.