There is control, and there is soft control. Soft control we live with all the time. the funder can decline to continue funding. The facilities can stop being free. Visa assistance, motivations can move. I think early Internet had people there from government armed forces computing/networking contexts. Why do I think this? Because the UK end of the ARPA/SATNET link split, with a feed to the MOD. And, because Jon Crowcroft regailed me with tales of a spookish man with medal ribbons out to the left of his chest, pontificating at the various meetings held at SRI. A large tranche of the UK IPv4 address space vested with the MOD. I think we had soft control. Not hard. The money tap was known and understood. Some things were done with nudges to people who otherwise might not have opened doors, or taps. Nobody I know had wired down contract issues enforcing military/government goals, but directing traffic to the UK defence department as well as the academic community, and to government telecommunications research laboratories (Estriel, was pre-privatization BT work as I recall and there was still a regulated mandate on communications trunks and bearers which demands the GPO and BT agreed to do things to you, that were not scheduled communications) SATNET was far from ordinary. You don't just rock up and get a feed into a satellite network. Soft control is ubiquitous. Computer Aided Instruction took funds from NATO, and ran workshops all through Europe in the 70s and 80s. Nobody doing HCI in those times was unaware of interest from these people. The 5th Generation Alvey project had specific drives to use GEC in projects, even when the machine was a classic 'halt and catch fire' design.
