There was no such thing as a cover-up. The F+P cell reproducibly worked, but their **theory** was flawed. In fact, Fleischmann, who had been working on this since the '60s, resisted any open publication because his theory (explanation) was not yet complete.
Pons, however, wanted to go ahead and "show off". And that became the fateful press conference we all know.
In February 2002, a laboratory within the United States Navy released a report that came to the conclusion that the
cold fusion phenomenon was in fact real and deserved official funding for research. Navy researchers have published more than 40 papers on cold fusion. (Wikipedia)
Here's the very interesting TR, and an excerpt:
http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sti/publications/pubs/tr/1862/tr1862-vol1.pdf In 2004, the United States Department of Energy decided to take another look at cold fusion to determine if its policies towards cold fusion should be altered due to new experimental evidence. They set up a panel on cold fusion. The nearly unanimous opinion of the reviewers was that funding agencies should entertain individual, well-designed proposals for experiments that address specific scientific issues relevant to the question of whether or not there is anomalous energy production in D/Pd systems, or whether or not D-D fusion reactions occur at energies on the order of a few eV. These proposals should meet accepted scientific standards, and undergo the rigors of peer review.
Having said that on cold fusion, I don't think the 12" tube is necessarily cold fusion. The materials are different, the construction is different, so it may be something else. Provided it works, who really cares?