The way FET theory is laid out, the government as a whole cannot be involved in the conspiracy, only the space exploration branch.
This is because the primary funding for the conspiracy (as I have heard) is the government giving money to programs like Nasa who tell the government that they are going to use it for space exploration, but then stuff it in their pockets.
If the conspiracy was run by the government as whole, then it would have no motive, because it wouldn't bring any extra revenue. The government gets most of its funding from taxes, and those would not change if the world was known to be flat or not. In other words, if the government was running the show, it would be using the conspiracy as an excuse to sneakily give itself its own money.
So that's my question: is the government as a whole involved in the conspiracy, and if so, how is it benefiting them?
Note: for the sake of argument, we will stick to only FET and RET theories. SF-FET already answers this question.