Documents / FOIA release
This is a Central Intelligence Agency letter from General Counsel Lawrence Houston to Congressman Joseph Karth. It answers Karth's inquiry about claims made by Leon Davidson, who had written to the CIA and the Air Force since early 1958. Davidson alleged that the CIA created the flying saucer furor and was holding back parts of the 1953 Scientific Advisory Panel report. The letter calls both claims entirely unfounded and says that since its 1953 review with the Air Force, the CIA has referred all UFO correspondence to the Air Force.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
DATE OF LETTER FROM TO SUBSTANCE 11 March 1958 Davidson DCI Request for the Secret Panel Report. 14 April 1958 Exec/CIA Davidson Davidson's letter referred to Air Force. 27 April 1958 Davidson DCI Dosires Secret report for public dissemination. (Air Force has action.) 15 May 1958 Davidson Exec/CIA Letter forwarded by Chapin to Air Force for reply with acknowledgment letter from Chapin to Davidson. 20 May 1958 Department of Air Force Davidson Answer to Davidson's letters of 27 April to Air Force and CIA. Attempts to clarify the purpose of withholding certain information for security reasons. 3 July 1958 Davidson DCI Inquires whether CIA is carrying out Sociological Warfare in creating UFO stories. 26 June 1951 Davidson Congressman Karth Accuses CIA of creating UFO furor and misleading persons such as Major Keyhue. NOTE: In addition, we have on file letters from Mr. Davidson to Members of the 1953 Panel requesting in essence their supporting him in obtaining information which would implicate CIA or the OCB in a "1984 type of thought control developing in America."
FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 4 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.