I know what you mean, although I enjoyed the book very much. The stories about Clark hearing that <scientist X> was working on <project Y> openly when they had

I know what you mean, although I enjoyed the book very much. The stories about Clark hearing that <scientist X> was working on <project Y> openly when they had already worked on classified <project Y>, so they had to get Y declassified quickly so they could scoop X were particularly unappealing.