Documents / FOIA release
This undated Central Intelligence Agency letter from Philip G. Strong, Deputy Assistant Director, to Dr. Lloyd V. Berkner is about the Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects that met in January 1953. It says the Air Force asked for the panel's conclusions to be declassified for press use. Strong, Robertson and Goudsmit agree to release only certain paragraphs and want the Agency's link to the panel kept secret. Strong asks for Berkner's view and whether his name may be used.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
Dr. Lloyd V. Berkner President Associated Universities, Incorporated Room 6920 350 Fifth Avenue New York 1, New York ## Dear Lloyd: You will recall in January 1953, we constituted a Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects with Drs. H. P. Rotartson as Chairman, Samuel Goudsmit, Luis W. Alvarez, Thorton Page, and yourself as members. After its deliberation, the Panel reached two conclusions and made two recommendations which were included as Tab A of the report. Very recently, the Air Force has requested that the conclusions of this report be declassified so that they may be used in the press. A copy of the report is enclosed herewith for your information. I have discussed this matter with Dr. Robertson and Dr. Goudsmit who agree that the conclusion contained in paragraph 2 and the recommendation contained in paragraph 4a can be declassified. But, they, as well as this Agency, will not agree to a declassification of the conclusion in paragraph 3 or the recommendation in paragraph 4b. It is our feeling that the association of the Panel with this Agency should not be disclosed; that paragraph 1 could be rewritten to eliminate this connection; and that the final six lines of paragraph 4 can stand as written. I have queried the Air Force as to whether the names of the Panel members would be used. They have replied that names would be used only within official circles and would not be given to the press. Such information has a tendency at times to filter out, it should be recognized that, if approval is given for use of the names, they may well become common knowledge.
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. 2 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.