Area 51_ An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base - Annie Jacobsen [210]
7. The UFO division was placed: Office Memorandum, United States Government, To: Acting Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, From: Todos Odarenko, Chief, Physics and Electronics Division, SI, Subject, Current Status of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOB) Projects, 17 December 1953.
8. Walter Bedell Smith: Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, 4, 87, 122, 131.
9. included the flying disc retrieved at Roswell: This is my defensible speculation based on interviews with the EG&G engineer and my understanding of Bedell Smith’s role, particularly with James Forrestal, secretary of the Navy during the war and the nation’s first secretary of defense, who committed suicide on May 22, 1949.
10. Bedell Smith was the ambassador to the Soviet Union: CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, Directors and Deputy Directors of Central Intelligence, Walter Smith, General, U.S. Army.
11. Governors Island, New York: National Archives Records Administration, RG 338, Box 27, G-2 Section, Headquarters First Army, Governors Island, New York, 4, New York, Case Files.
12. summarily rejected the idea that UFOs: There are several CIA documents, declassified starting in 1996, that I base my interpretation of General Bedell Smith’s attitude toward UFOs on during his tenure at CIA. All quotes come from these documents: Central Intelligence Agency, Washington 25, D.C. Office of the Director, ER-3-2809, Memorandum to Director, Psychology Strategy Board, Subject Flying Saucers, 2 pages, signed Walter B. Smith Director, undated; Memorandum for file OSI, Meeting of OSI Advisory Group on UFO, January 14 through 17, 1953, 3 pages; Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects 14–17 January 1953, Evidence Presented, 2 pages; CIA Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, Comments and Suggestions of UFO Panel, 19 pages; Minutes of Branch Chief’s Meeting of 11 August 1952, 3 pages; Memorandum for Director of Central Intelligence, From Deputy Director, Intelligence, Subject Flying Saucers, Dated September 7, 1952, 5 pages.
13. flying discs appeared in many different forms of art: http://www.crystalinks.com/ufohistory.html.
14. like the boy who cried wolf: Memo, CIA Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, Comments and Suggestions of UFO Panel, 10. “Potential related dangers. c. Subjectivity of public to mass hysteria and greater vulnerability to possible enemy psychological warfare.”
15. “hysterical mass behavior”: Haines, “CIA’s Role,” 72.
16. the publishers of Life magazine: H. B. Darrach and Robert Ginna, “Have We Visitors from Space?” Life magazine, April 7, 1952.
17. originally called Project Saucer: Haines, “CIA’s Role,” 67–68.
18. Green Fireballs: Project Twinkle, Final Report, November 27, 1951.
19. curious members of Congress: Interview with Stanton Friedman.
20. Air Force concluded for the National Security Council: U.S. Air Force Air Materiel Command, “Unidentified Aerial Objects; Project SIGN.”
21. UFO convention in Los Angeles: “Minutes of the Meeting of Civilian Saucer Investigations.”
22. Dr. Riedel had been working on Hitler’s bacteria bomb: Neufeld, Von Braun, 206.
23. There were rumors of “problems”: Ibid., 216–22.
24. “going to execute a planned ‘hoax’”: CIA Office Memorandum to Assistant for Operations, OSI, From Chief Contact Division, CO, Date: 9 February 1953, Subject California Committee for Saucer Investigations.
25. set off alarms in its upper echelons: Special National Intelligence Estimate 100-2-57, No. 19, “Soviet Capabilities for Deception,” Submitted by the Director of Central Intelligence, 16 pages. Based on recommendations made by the Technical Capabilities Panel, chaired by Dr. Killian, the recommendation read: “We need to examine intelligence data more broadly, or to invent some new technique, for the discovery of hoaxes.”
26. trailing a colleague of Riedel named George P. Sutton: Curiously, the CIA document referenced above names George Sutton as a Riedel colleague and ufologist. Was he a plant? Was he turned? Did he reform on his own? According to the Smithsonian Papers,