The Hidden Debt That Apple Owes to the CIA - WSJ
This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/tech/steve-jobs-apple-next-cia-161b65f9 Listen (2 min) By Aug. 19, 2026 7:00 pm ET When the CIA dropped in unannounced at the headquarters of Steve Jobs’s new computer company, NeXT, the Cold War was in full swing. The year was 1986, and President Ronald Reagan was sending billions of dollars to the Pentagon, much of it to fund new technology, including missile defense and spy satellites. Within the national security community, some people understood the importance of the computing revolution unfolding in Silicon Valley—and why they needed to tap into it. Joe Romello and Jeff Harris were two of those people. Working for what was known as the CIA’s “Program B,” a classified initiativ