Documents / FOIA release

Untitled (to Joseph Karth from Lawrence Houston Regarding 30 June Inquiry Concerning Statements Made by Leon Davidson) (PUBD Is Unknown)

Central Intelligence Agency · 1961-06-30 · 3 pages · text by GLM-OCR

This is a 30 June 1961 letter from the CIA's General Counsel to Congressman Joseph Karth, sent in reply to his inquiry about claims Leon Davidson made in a letter to him. It says Davidson has written to the CIA and the Air Force since 1958 seeking the classified Scientific Advisory Panel report on UFOs, and it calls unfounded his view that the CIA created the flying saucer furor as psychological warfare. The letter comes with a correspondence log and says the CIA has referred all UFO matters to the Air Force since its 1953 panel work.

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	Desires 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."

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About this file

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. 3 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.