Documents / Official release
This is a confidential CIA memorandum dated 9 January 1958. The Chief of the Chicago Office sent it to the Chief of the Contact Division, Support Branch, about closed Case 17708 and Dr. Leon Davidson. It reports that Davidson was told by telephone that his question about a space message and its transmitter could not be resolved, because the evaluating agency had destroyed the records. The memo calls this answer evasive and unfair to him. It notes that Davidson apparently knew he was dealing with CIA and expects to hear more from him.
From the source:Release of 2026-06-12 This 1958 CIA memorandum discussing a phone conversation with Dr. Leon Davidson regarding concerns about a destroyed "space message and its transmitter." A redacted version of this memorandum has been available on CIA's public website.
“Leon Davidson”1 page
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Approved for Release 2026 Chief, Contact Division FOR : Support Branch 9 January 1958 Chief, Chicago Office CHI-58-17 ≤-49559. Case 17708 (Closed) and Dr. Leon Davidson PEF : WA 26643, and Connell, Lohmann, LaMountain Telecon of 8 Jan 58 1. We have contacted Dr. Davidson by telephone advising him that we cannot resolve his problem concerning the space message and its transmitter because records on the matter have been destroyed by the evaluating agency. Davidson accepted this statement with the comment that he had been told this before, that he now had a second article for publication concerning Air Force handling of space sightings in the hands of the Pentagon security review people (which he thought was mild enough to pass them), and he hinted that he might wish to take up again at a later date the matter of this particular message. 2. We appreciate that there have been many cooks in the kitchen on this dish and that, as a result, the extraordinarily noncommittal and evasive answer we were instructed to give Davidson was perhaps the only one possible if we were to avoid crossing up previous statements of our own, and other involved agencies, to this man. But the answer was hardly fair to Davidson, and one not likely to be fully accepted by him. 3. Referenced telephone conversation disclosed that there is nothing in the record to show that Davidson knew he was dealing with the Agency in his contacts with Walker and Skakich, that in fact, an effort had been made to conceal their CIA identity from him. We are reasonably sure that when Davidson talked to us in the Court of Appeals Building conference room, he knew very well with whom he was dealing, and in the Davidson-LaMountain telephone conversation, Davidson specifically mentioned "your agency" by which he presumably meant CIA. 4. We are sure more will be heard from Davidson. R.P.B. LOHNANE PllaMountain:rs FULL TEXT COPY DO NOT RELEASE CONFIDENTIAL
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Official release, from the pursue 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. 1 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.