chankljp
Donor
An idea that came into my head just now while I was having lunch at work, inspired by a movie that I have not thought about in over a decade (I am posting this thread here instead of in either the Fandom or ASB sub-forums, since as far as I can tell, there is nothing that is inherently unrealistic about the idea):
In the 2007 movie "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" staring Nicolas Cage, the titular 'Book of Secrets' was the idea that there exist a ultra-top secret collection of documents, going all the way back to the United States' founding in 1776, passed down from one president to the next since George Washington, 'For presidents, by presidents and for presidents' eyes only', with no one else being allowed to know about the existence of the Book, and each holder of the documents adding their own entries to it while they are in office, containing some of the nation's darkest secrets that they deemed only the United States's head of state and government could be allowed to be made aware of, with each POTUS being responsible for finding their own hiding place for 'the book' when they are in office.
Of course, a plot hole of the movie and the very concept itself would be that if ONLY the POTUS is allowed to know about the location and even existence of these documents, the chain would have been broken when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, since his death was sudden and unexpected, preventing him from revealing the location of the book to Andrew Johnson... But lets say the rules were more lenient, in that in addition to just POTUS, the Vice President, the leader of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, and after 1981, whoever in the presidential line of succession that was made the designated survivor during the State of the Union address, were also made aware of the existence of these documents (Or at least, were given a secret briefing about the location where the Book was hidden, and that in the event of the current POTUS' death or incapacitation, they need to go recover it... Even if they do not know exactly what it was that they were supposed to recover). That way, it would at least be conceivable that the "Book of Secrets" could have been passed down from Washington all the way to Trump....
But of course, like all conspiracy theories, the problem of this idea is that every step of the way, the list of people that will have to be in on the secret increases exponentially, making less and less likely that the affair could have been kept hidden from the public.
So, my questions is: Realistically, if a "President's Secret Book"-style document does exist and have been passed down from POTUS to POTUS since 1776, could the existence of this collection of documents be kept a secret? If not, even if the public is aware of the Book's existence, could it's contents be kept a secret without being leaked for 240+ years?
Bonus question: If 'The Book of Secrets' could not have been kept hidden from the public, assuming that history developed more or less the same way as OTL, when was the latest that it could have been kept under wraps?
In the 2007 movie "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" staring Nicolas Cage, the titular 'Book of Secrets' was the idea that there exist a ultra-top secret collection of documents, going all the way back to the United States' founding in 1776, passed down from one president to the next since George Washington, 'For presidents, by presidents and for presidents' eyes only', with no one else being allowed to know about the existence of the Book, and each holder of the documents adding their own entries to it while they are in office, containing some of the nation's darkest secrets that they deemed only the United States's head of state and government could be allowed to be made aware of, with each POTUS being responsible for finding their own hiding place for 'the book' when they are in office.
Of course, a plot hole of the movie and the very concept itself would be that if ONLY the POTUS is allowed to know about the location and even existence of these documents, the chain would have been broken when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, since his death was sudden and unexpected, preventing him from revealing the location of the book to Andrew Johnson... But lets say the rules were more lenient, in that in addition to just POTUS, the Vice President, the leader of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, and after 1981, whoever in the presidential line of succession that was made the designated survivor during the State of the Union address, were also made aware of the existence of these documents (Or at least, were given a secret briefing about the location where the Book was hidden, and that in the event of the current POTUS' death or incapacitation, they need to go recover it... Even if they do not know exactly what it was that they were supposed to recover). That way, it would at least be conceivable that the "Book of Secrets" could have been passed down from Washington all the way to Trump....
But of course, like all conspiracy theories, the problem of this idea is that every step of the way, the list of people that will have to be in on the secret increases exponentially, making less and less likely that the affair could have been kept hidden from the public.
So, my questions is: Realistically, if a "President's Secret Book"-style document does exist and have been passed down from POTUS to POTUS since 1776, could the existence of this collection of documents be kept a secret? If not, even if the public is aware of the Book's existence, could it's contents be kept a secret without being leaked for 240+ years?
Bonus question: If 'The Book of Secrets' could not have been kept hidden from the public, assuming that history developed more or less the same way as OTL, when was the latest that it could have been kept under wraps?
