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From: Brad Sparks <RB47Expert@aol.com>
Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 16:35:01 EDT
Fwd Date: Sat, 08 May 1999 13:01:25 -0400
Subject: Re: Ruppelt the Liar?


>From: Jan Aldrich <jan@cyberzone.net>
>Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 11:40:25 -0700
>Fwd Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 20:50:54 -0400
>Subject: Re: Ruppelt the Liar?

>Dear Brad, Fran, and Mike,

>Since I posted the above title, it has been cross-posted all
>over the Internet without the context of all the other messages,
>so there is a lot of heat coming down on my head.  However, the
>idea was to simulate further discussion.

>In any case my correspondents pointed out several things
>which are interesting and are further developed here:


Hi Jan,

I finally got a chance to respond to your thoughtful posting.
See comments below:

>  1)  Ruppelt's original manuscript was much larger than the
>final book. Only Brad and Michael Swords have read the larger
>version, to my knowledge.

Yes, few have read the full-length Ruppelt manuscript.  The
longer version is very dull, and I can see why it needed to be
edited down for popular readership.  Very few if any deletions
have any hiding-a-secret connotation to them.  Most of these
kinds of secrets Ruppelt simply kept hidden in his unpublished
papers.  One deletion took out a Sept 23, 1948, AEC case that
gave a last time-frame for the Top Secret Estimate of the
Situation, as Ruppelt claims this sighting was in the Estimate.
However, Keyhoe told me he was shown the Estimate in 1952 and it
had a Received date at USAF HQ of Aug 5, 1948, and that it was
signed by two colonels (apparently Col Howard M. McCoy and L/Col
William Clingerman of AMC Intell Dept).  So there's a conflict
here that will not likely be resolved till an actual copy of the
Estimate turns up someday.


>  2)  In cutting down the book to a reasonable length, did the
>Fort Monmouth sighting get compressed in time to make it a "good
>read?"

Nope.  Ruppelt falsely compressed the dates of the sightings and
ATIC investigation into a tight 4-day period instead of the
actual 3-week period, to cover up ATIC's bungling of the case,
and he made up the date and time of the message that triggered
the Rosengarten-Cummings field investigation, claiming it was an
Operational Immediate teletype received at "the EXACT TIME" of
3:04 PM on Sept 12, 1951.  In fact, Ruppelt's own 1955 interview
notes in preparation for his book avoid giving a bogus exact
date and they give the time of receipt differently, as "about
1300" or 1:00 PM -- not 3:04 PM.  Ruppelt's notes say nothing
about it having an "Operational Immediate" message precedence
either.  Apparently all these phony details were jazzed up later
for dramatic effect and appearance of authority in the book.

The files reveal that the message that "initiated" the
Rosengarten-Cummings ATIC investigation was actually a
transcribed telephone conversation (NOT a teletype) from AF
Intelligence received at about 2 PM on Sept 28, 1951 -- more
than TWO WEEKS LATER than the bogus Sept 12 date given in
Ruppelt's book (p. 91).  The Rosengarten-Cummings trip actually
extended over 4 days not 2 days, from Sept 28 till briefing Gen
Cabell's staff and the general informally late on Oct 1, before
the formal briefing the next morning.


>  3)  Considering that MG Cabell, was hot and heavy on the
>Fort Monmouth, NJ, sighting, there was pressure to come up with
>something on the sighting to get him off ATIC's back.  Any
>reasonable sounding answer would do.  (McDonald also
>investigated this sighting and was critical of the explanation.)
>Ruppelt being successful in deflecting the heat on this case was
>probably please with himself and just used his explanation which
>he seemed pretty proud of in his book.

This sounds reasonable.

>  4)  ATIC was in a funny position.  The ATIC was part of AMC
>although the Directorate of Intelligence considered ATIC in a
>special relationship as field unit of DI.  Even so, unless your
>name is Patton or Hollingsworth you don't go firing people in
>commands run by a superior officers.  I have discussed staff
>and command relationships elsewhere.  Basically, staff "pukes,"
>as one commander put it, are not important.They are adjuncts
>of the commander.  The important relationships are commander to
>commander.  Staff officers exercise supervision--not command--in
>their areas of expertise.  Now if Cabell wanted to clean people
>out of ATIC, he might have gotten with personnel to reassign
>people at ATIC, but not without first taking the matter up with
>the AMC commander in a back channel.  In his own office,
>obviously, he is the authority to move or fire people as
>required.  (It also goes without saying that superior staff
>have their commander's ear, so you cross them at your own
>peril.)  (Perhaps there is something, I haven't seen here.
>Was ATIC actually under DI in a command relationship?  Was
>it simply attached to AMC at the time?  It seems that has
>to be answered.  I did see a memo concerning the "special
>relationship" with DI as a field unit, but was that formalized?
>Gad, you have to copy everything you see, because there is no
>telling when it will show up as something important.)
 When ATIC was established in May 1951, it became part of AF
Intelligence and the intelligence community for the "first time"
in the history of it and its predecessors, according to the
FTD's 1967 history.  Prior to that time T-2 and AMC's Intell
Dept were part of the R&D side of the Air Force.

Thus, Watson came directly under AF Director of Intelligence Gen
C. P. Cabell for the "first time" in May 1951 and within a month
Watson was transferred out.  As you say, if Cabell had been
dissatisfied with Watson prior to that time, he would have had
to take it up with AMC's commander.  But now he could fire or
transfer Watson on his own.  I think the last straw was when
Great Falls UFO filmer Nicholas Mariana filed a libel suit on
May 4, 1951, against Hearst publications for a vicious anti-UFO
article that prominently quoted the anti-UFO Watson.


>5) Ruppelt in his book does not do justice to those people
>that thought UFOs represented a possible Soviet jump ahead
>especially in the early days.

Ruppelt seemed unaware of the Top Secret Air Intelligence Study
of Dec 1948, or else he was extremely good at covering it up.


>6) Exactly what was Ruppelt's mission?  When you consider
>that, then you might understand why he acted the way he did.
>What do the higher ups want from him?

Good questions.  At times Ruppelt's "mission" as he understood
it clashed with what his superiors in AF Intelligence wanted,
e.g., with his attempt to investigate the first Washington
National incident while he was in Washington and the abrupt
orders home on July 22, 1952, (which he completely falsifies and
covers up in his book with the fictitious "staff car" story) and
his efforts to inform the CIA of the results of his staff's UFO
investigations prior to the Robertson Panel, which were
suppressed and kept from CIA on orders from AF Intelligence.

At other times, Ruppelt's vision clicked with what higherups
wanted, e.g., his plan (NOT the CIA's) of July 1952 to turn Blue
Book into a PR/propaganda shell to debunk UFO sightings and
reduce public interest in the subject.  Yes, you read that
right, this was planned by Ruppelt and AF Intelligence long
before the Robertson Panel came into existence and well before
any of the steps by the President and the CIA leading up to the
Panel.

>(From the Hynek and Friend tapes it is obvious that they
>are both interested in UFOs and delving into the subject, but
>they also understand that what they were required to do is to
>offer some kind explanation for UFO cases that sounded
>reasonable.) (Asside: I might add sounded reasonable--it did
>not have to be reasonable.)

>Ruppelt did recommend an enlargement of Project Blue Book in
>1952.  He pulled out all the stops here.  He also complained
>about lack of access to CRIVIS reports and other intelligence
>materials.

Yes, Ruppelt even recommended a quadrupling of Blue Book to the
Robertson Panel on Jan 18, 1953, which agreed with it, as proven
in the minutes/records of the Panel, contrary to Leon Davidson
and other critics who mistakenly pounced on this as a falsehood
by Ruppelt, while overlooking numerous other actual falsehoods.

I'm not familiar with Ruppelt's complaints about lack of access
to CIRVIS reports.  I think it is true that JANAP 146 did not
include AMC or ATIC as a recipient along with AF Intelligence
until their successor FTD was added in 1966 apparently.  I do
recall that Ruppelt had trouble getting complete Sign/Grudge
files reconstructed and had to go to AF Intelligence on Jan 29,
1952, to locate complete copies or copies of about 50 missing
reports -- which shows you who was really running the show and
maintaining the most comprehensive coverage of the UFO subject
(it was NOT Wright-Pat).

According to the FOIA expert on the history of CIRVIS/JANAP, Bob
Todd, the reporting instructions began in WW2 and the first
JANAP 146 was in July 1948 but did not include UFO's or
Unconventional Aircraft.  These were CIRMIS (Communications
Instructions for Reporting Military Intelligence Sightings).  In
Sept 1950, UFO's were first included in the revision called
JANAP-146(A), as "Unconventional Aircraft" (if I recall
correctly), and CIRMIS was changed to CIRVIS.  You might ask Bob
what is the current or latest known successor to the CIRVIS and
JANAP-146.


>Ruppelt did criticize the Air Force publicly on several
>occasions concern their investigations after he left the USAF.
>Did he perhaps hope that he might be recalled to lead a new,
>better investigation?  Perhaps this was also the purpose of his
>book.

This is a very perceptive and excellent interpretation.  Yes I
think Ruppelt was hoping his book would make the case for his
return to head up Project Blue Book or something better.  Notice
that if that is so, the purpose of the book wasn't to reveal
cases to help support ETH but to help support the need for
investigation perhaps with Ruppelt at the helm.  There's a
difference.


Also, Ruppelt was all over the map on UFOs, sometimes
>depending on with whom he was talking.  When Halstead visited
>with him he said one thing and another to the press.

Ruppelt was caustically anti-UFO in his private papers, with no
one holding a gun to his head making him call Keyhoe "Psycho" or
making him utter other anti-UFO comments or making him suppress
pro-ETH belief which is nowhere to be found in his papers.