Documents / Official release
This file from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library holds press releases and statements that House Republican Leader Gerald R. Ford issued between January and April 1966. Most cover Vietnam policy, the war on poverty, inflation, foreign aid, the federal budget and changes in his press staff. An April 21, 1966 statement says the Air Force told Ford it would contract a university with no close Air Force ties to have scientists study unexplained UFO sightings and make the report public. According to Ford, his call for congressional hearings led to this study.
“The Pentagon”5 pages
CONGRESSMAN GERALD R. FORD HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER FOR SUNDAY A.M. RELEASE NEWS RELEASE APRIL 3, 1966 STATEMENT BY HOUSE MINORITY LEADER GERALD R. FORD, R-MICHIGAN As I had expected, some persons have ridiculed ~y call for aoongressional. investigation of unidentified flying objects (UFO's). These people are a fraction of those who have given me their reaction to my proposal. The overwhelming majority of those expressing a view in letters to me believe a congressional investigation would be useful and is needed. Those who scoff at the idea of a congressional investigation of UFO's apparently are unaware that the House Armed Services Committee has scheduled a closed-door hearing on the matter Tuesday with the Air Force and that Rep. Joseph E. Karth, D-Minn., headed a three-man subcommittee which held two days of hush-hush hearings five years ago on behalf of the House Science and Astronautics Committee. Karth has confirmed in conversation with a member of my staff that he conducted these secret hearings. The present Science and Astronautics Committee chairman, Rep. George P. Miller, D-Calif., has shied away from a UFO probe at this time, saying his committee does not have jurisdiction over the Air Force. But the late Rep. Overton Brooks, D-La., obviously had different ideas because he tapped Karth to summon Air Force witnesses and question them after a flurry of UFO sightings in 1961. Karth has informed me that his subcommittee made an oral report to the full committee but never released anything to t.he public. According to Charles F. Ducander, the committee's staff director, no record was made of conversation between Karth s·ubcommittee members and Air Force witnesses. The hearings, he said, took place in Karth's congressional office. I have never said that I believe any of the reported UFO sightiags~ indicate visits to earth from another planet. Apart from pranks and natural phenomena, some of these objects may well be products of experimentation by our own military. If this is so, why doesn't the Air Force concede it and in this way reassure the American people? There would be no need to go into detail on the nature of the experiments.
Official release, from the nara collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 55 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.