During the Cold War, the USSR, the Middle East, China and other parts of the world were off-limits. After the Cold War traditional rural areas like Oaxaca or Chiapas or in the north the Inuit are threatened either by the consequences of trade agreement, or devastation by PCBs. Either way anthropologists are increasingly unwelcome and scientific work suffers. Historians tell of the struggle in American universities since the post Civil War, to maintain a relationship of arm's length from government and industry. In this present post Cold War era, the entanglement of government with corporate interests and university administration will both have changed the landscape.
Secrecy is on a sliding scale.
No practicing science statesperson publicly advocates secrecy in science, only science administrators do. No anthropologist publicly advocates jeopardizing those we stud.y. Hired guns are another story. The situation I glean, while varied, is not encouraging of an open scientific anthropology. My own special research now is centered on the controlling processes and constructs of hegemonic culture.