These files were recovered from a storage unit in Bethesda, Maryland in June 1987 following the death of Commander Jack "Blackjack" Harrigan, OSS (Retired). The legal status of the archive is contested. The contents have been partially reviewed by parties whose names do not appear in this record.

The author of the editorial notes is identified only as R.D. The files are published in the order in which they were found, not in the order in which they occurred. Whether that distinction matters is a question the reader will have to answer.

Each file documents an operation built around a real historical figure and an event that sits so precisely inside the historical record that no one can prove it didn't happen. That is not an accident. That is the architecture.

The Blackjack Harrigan Files are works of fiction. All characters, operations, and events are invented. Historical figures appear in fictional contexts. The author makes no claim regarding the factual accuracy of any operation described. The archive is the fiction. The fiction is the archive.