Aliens On Earth.com Resources for those who are stranded here Our Bookstore is OPEN Over 5000 new & used titles, competitively priced! Topics: UFOs - Paranormal - Area 51 - Ghosts - Forteana - Conspiracy - History - Biography - Psychology - Religion - Crime - Health - Geography - Maps - Science - Money - Language - Recreation - Technology - Fiction - Other - New Search... for keyword(s)   in Page Titles in Book Title/Author in Contents of Pages ---other searches--- Metacrawler Yahoo FAST Search Google Altavista Dogpile Inference Find Northern Light IWon.com MSN Search Las Vegas Sun Location: Mothership -> UFO -> Updates -> 1997 -> Apr -> Re: Intelligence Agencies and NICAP

UFO UpDates Mailing List

From: jan@cyberzone.net (Jan Aldrich)
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 18:20:42 -0700
Fwd Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 09:25:13 -0400
Subject: Re: Intelligence Agencies and NICAP

> Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 20:42:41 +0100
> To: updates@globalserve.net
> From: Ian Read <i.read@netcom.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: UFO UpDate: Intelligence Agencies and NICAP
> Perhaps you did not see my early posts.  Greenwood no long supports
this theory.

> NICAP History

> "The UFO Cover-UP" by Lawrence Fawcett and Barry J. Greenwood (1984)

> During NICAP's first year of exstence under it's original founder, T.
> Townshend Brown, several mysterous persons managed to fit themselves
> into NICAP's structure. One, named Nicolas de Rochefort, was a Russian
> immigrant who, among other jobs, wrote scripts in French and Russian
> for the Voice of America. He was also employed by the Psychological
> Warfare Staff of the CIA. De Rochefort became NICAP's Vice-Chairman,
> alongside Brown. Another NICAP staffer in 1956 was a man named Bernard
> J.O. Carvalho, a native of Portugal, who was also involvd in CIA-owned
> companies (secretly owned, that is). Perhaps the involvement of two CIA
> employees was not all that mysterious. After all, T. Townshend Brown's
> leadership of NICAP was short lived and, in fact, ended near the end of
> 1956.

These people disappeared early on and had no influence when NICAP
became operational under Major Keyhoe took over.

> Well-known UFO authority Major Donald Keyhoe managed to beef up NICAP's
> prestige by looking for and appointing prominent people to NICAP's
> Board of Governors. One of the first board appointees was Vicie Admiral
> Roscoe Hillenkoetter, a Naval Academy classmate of Keyhoe's and the
> first Director of the CIIA, when it formed in 1947. Hillenkoetter made
> a number of positive statements on UFO reality, thus endearing himself
> to Keyhoe. This relationship reversed itself, however, when Keyhoe
> developed NICAP into a fierce opponent of government secrecy and pushed
> for Congressioinal hearings in the early 1960s. Hillenkoetter abruptly
> resigned from NICAP, expressing the opinion that NICAP went as far as
> it could go, and no further criticism should be aimed at the Air Force
> for its handling of UFOs.

> It can probably be surmised that Hillenkotter was pressured out of NICAP
> by the CIA, since it was of considerable embarrassment to the CIA to
> have a former Director making pro-UFO statements.

Surmises are fine, but why did it take Hillenkoetter so long
 to resign?  He could have easily resigned earlier when
Fahrney left.  Have no definite facts one answer is as good
as another.  Hillenkoetter was never was very active in
NICAP.  His big contribution was his name.

>
> Further evidence of CIA influence in NICAP developed during the period
> immediately before NICAP's decline. On December 3, 1969, Donald Keyhoe
> was ousted as NICAP's Director during a Board meeting. Who led the
> effort to remove Keyhoe? The Chairman of the Board, Col. Joesph Bryan,
> former Chief of the CIA's Psychological Warfare Staff (1947-1953). And
> who replaced Keyhoe? John Acuff, who was the head of the Society of
> Photographic Scientists and Engineers (SPSE), a frequent target of
> Russian spying attempts and a group that had many members involved in
> Defense Department intelligence units, including the CIA. His
> management of NICAP was financially "tight' (in the cheap sense) and
> totally inept in a research sense.

Here is another myth.  NICAP never spent much money of "research."
Most research was provide by members, technicians and specialists for
free.  If you could find Keyhoe's and Hall's books, you would also see
little or no expenditures in this area.


> Criticism of government UFO policy
> was gone, and NICAP merely served as a sighting collection center.
> Acuff's management drove loyal NICAP Board members away and ultmately
> led to Acuff's downfall in 1978.
> This above account is not accurate.  Leadership of NICAP went
> from Keyhoe to Lore to Nixon to Acuff and finally to Hall.

Letters cited in previous posts and conversations with the some of
the people involved do not support this version of events idea.
There are still plenty of people who should be talked to and
correspondence looked at.  As I wrote in a private conversation
perhaps if someone talked Diane Sinkler she may say something
like, "That worm, Staurt Nixon, was alway bragging his
intelligence connections."


> Who replaced Acuff? None other than Alan Hall, a retired CIA employee,
> who accepted the position after a number of other CIA employees were
> offered the job. Support for Hall from the NICAP Board came from
> Charles Lombard, an aide to Senator Goldwater and former CIA covert
> employee.

Former or retire are important words here.  I don't understand
Alan Hall's role is this.  Richard Hall does think that he had
some active CIA connects.  Richard Hall also thinks that Stuart
Nixon was CIA connected, however Hall could not explain why NICAP's
files were not destroyed.

> NICAP eventually became so ineffective that it was dissolved, and the
> group's UFO files were absorbed by the Center for UFO Studies in
> Evanston, Illinois.

So the CIA wanted NICAP's material, but then let it fall into
CUFOS' hands?

> There certainly seems to be a pattern behind NICAP's destruction. Is it
> a coincidence that so many ex-CIA people became deeply involved in the
> operation of NICAP? It is possible that the CIA wanted to influence
> NICAP activities for several reasons:


>   1) To gather intelligence through NICAP's investigators network.

>   2) To identify and plug leaks from government soures (NICAP was
>      renowned for receiving military-oriented reports).

>   3) To monitor other hostile intelligence agencies (NICAP received
>      several overtures from the Soviet KGB).

If these were goals of the CIA, then they would have put money
into NICAP and strengthen the subcommitee system.  The opposite
is true.   So how were these goals to be meet?

> After Acuff's bungled management of NICAP, the CIA may have felt that
> NICAP's effectiveness as a "front" was gone and allowed it to be taken
> over by CUFOS.

> Speculation? Yes, but not without justification, as one can clearly
> read. A new question now arises. Would the same thing happen to another
> UFO group that became effective and efficient? We can only watch for
> the signs.

> The structure of CAUS underwent changes (not CIA-induced!) in the
> 1980s. Peter Gersten became its new Director, with Lawrence Fawcett as
> Assistant Director. A Board of Advisors was formed, containing
> well-known names in UFO research such as Raymond Fowler, Stanton
> Freidman, Dr. Bruce Maccabee, and others. The focus, to this day,
> continues to be the release of government documents on UFOs, although
> pressure by the Reagan Administration to restrict the Freedom of
> Information Act may hamper the work of CAUSE in this area.

> It is important that the public become involved in the search at this
> time. To prevent further dissolution of the FOIA, we urge ccitizens to
> write to their elected officials telling them to support the free flow
> of government information, particularly about UFOs. Use this book as a
> source of documented evidence. Make copies of the reports and send them
> to your Senators and Congressmen. CAUS has been effective in obtaining
> new data, but there is strength in numbers. The more support behind
> CAUS's efforts to inform the public, the better off both the public and
> CAUS will be.

It is important that ufologists examine and re-examine what they
think they know about the ufo situation instead of repeating
as if by rote these nice little neat speculations.  Perhaps
some one will get angry "with that crazy Aldrich," and say I'll
say, "I show him proof his version of events is wacko."
There are a lot of question about the demise of NICAP that are
not clear.  It would be nice if some of the major players were
talked to before they die.
involved at the time, before they die,

_Jan Aldrich