Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency office memorandum, dated 4 April 1958 and sent by W. E. Lexow, Chief of the Applied Science Division, comments on letters to the Director of Central Intelligence from Leon Davidson and Donald E. Keyhoe about Edward J. Ruppelt's book. It says Ruppelt misstated the mission of the January 1953 Scientific Advisory Panel. It recommends sending them the declassified panel report without revealing any CIA link. The attached report concluded that UFOs posed no direct threat to national security.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
Office Memorandum . UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT TO :Assistant Director, Scientific Intelligence DATE: 4 April 1958 FROM :Chief, Applied Science Division, SI SUBJECT: Comments on Letters Dealing with Unidentified Flying Objects REFERENCES: (1) Letter to Director, CIA, from Leon Davidson, dated 11 March 1958 (2) Letter to Director, CIA, from Donald E. Keyhoe, Director of National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena 1. As a result of the action taken by the IAC on 4 December 1952 (IAC-M-90, Paragraph 3a), a Scientific Intelligence Advisory Panel was convened 14-18 January 1953. The panel consisted of the following scientists: H. P. Robertson, Luis W. Alvarez, Lloyd V. Berkner, S. A. Goudamit, and Thornton Page. The panel concerned itself with the evaluation of any possible threat to National Security by unidentified flying objects. The panel issued a report dated 17 January 1953. This report was classified Secret. 2. The letters from Leon Davidson and Donald Keyhoe to the DCI concerned themselves primarily with Edward J. Ruppelt's book on Unidentified Flying Objects. At the time that the scientific panel met, Ruppelt was a Captain in the Air Force and attended the panel meetings. His book, however, is concerned with the identification of unidentified flying objects. Ruppelt's statements regarding the mission of the panel are in error. He has led the reader to believe the panel's mission was to identify the flying objects and to make recommendations on methods to further identify such objects. This is the basis for the apparent contradictions which arose during the Mike Wallace television interview. This is also the basis for Mr. Keyhoe's misgivings. 3. In late October 1957, Major James F. Byrne of AFCIN-XIA requested a declassified version of the panel report. This office contacted each member of the panel and an agreed upon, declassified version was written and sent to the Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence, Department of the Air Force on 20 December 1957. It was the decision of all the panel members and the CIA that while no member of the panel objected to the use of his name in connection with the declassified version, they desired that no connection of the panel members with CIA be disclosed.
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.