OPERATION MAJESTIC 12 DOCUMENTS

 STANTON T. FRIEDMAN

NUCLEAR PHYSICIST - LECTURER

COMMENTS ON CSICOP STATEMENT ABOUT

OPERATION MAJESTIC 12 DOCUMENTS

August 26, 1987

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

      There is no basis whatsoever for the claims by CSICOP members Philip 

Klass and Paul Kurtz that the Operation Majestic 12 documents are "bogus" 

or "clumsy counterfeits" or represent "one of the most deliberate acts of 

deception ever perpetrated against the news media and the public." I am 

dismayed but not surprised by these irrational attempts to discredit some 

of the most important documents ever released. Mr. Klass and Mr. Kurtz do 

a disservice to science which they supposedly serve, though not scientists 

themselves, and to journalism with their inadequate research and their 

totally incomprehensible failure to deal with the relevant information 

with regard to these documents. It is very easy to claim any documents are 

bogus. It is a very different matter to establish the validity of those 

claims.

      The trivial discrepancies to which they refer as noted by the 

National Archives with regard to these documents are easily explained. For 

example, Klass has said his research showed that a brief memo from General 

Robert Cutler at the White House to General Nathan Twining at the Pentagon 

pointing out that there would be a slight change of plans with regard to a 

meeting two days later is phony because Cutler had left the country 11 

days earlier. This is absurd. Cutler was gone, but he had two full-time 

heavy duty assistants! He had instructed them to keep material moving out 

of his in-basket. A trivial matter such as the slight change in a 

classified briefing would certainly have been handled by them in response 

to any request from Eisenhower. The memo is *not* signed by Mr. Cutler. 

Anybody faking such a memo would presumably have attempted to make it 

clear that it was Operation Majestic 12 rather than MJ-12 and would also 

have made clear that MJ-12 or Majestic 12 dealt with flying discs or 

flying saucers. It would be silly to go through the work to fake such a 

memo using old typewriters and old paper and yet not make it totally 

supportive.

      Two other brief TOP SECRET memos from Cutler to Twining located at 

the Library of Congress in 1981 also have no registration numbers. One 

contains identical language.

      Mr. Klass claims the September 24, 1947 memo from Truman to 

Secretary Forrestal is a forgery created by superimposing a fake message 

on a photograph of an authentic Truman letter. There is no evidence to 

support this claim. A print made from the original negative of the 

briefing document which included this very brief memo as attachment A, 

shows no signs of any superimposition. Klass further makes much of the 

fact that it did not have Forrestal's address on the lower left hand 

corner. Considering that it was an EYES ONLY memo, not a letter, and that 

September 24 was the date of the only meeting in the last eight months of 

1947 between President Truman, James Forrestal and Doctor Vannevar Bush, 

who was also named in the memo, it would seem reasonable that it would 

have been written while Forrestal was present. Memos, as opposed to 

letters, do NOT include recipient addresses.

      The third item which Klass attempts to explain away is the entire 

TOP SECRET/EYES ONLY briefing paper. Klass claims that it describes the 

1947 flying saucer crash in New Mexico as if Eisenhower never heard of it. 

That judgement cannot be reached on the basis of the data in the document 

especially if, as was the case, the primary custody of these materials 

resided with the Office of the President. Even if Eisenhower had been 

informed of the crash, he would not have known all the details. Eisenhower 

had already made a public announcement, with presidential approval, in 

June of 1947, *prior* to the crash retrieval, stating that he would assume 

the presidency of Columbia University around the end of the year. The 

other members of Majestic 12 are clearly high ranking scientists and 

intelligence officers and technology experts. There is no reason at all 

why General Eisenhower, despite his military achievements, would have been 

considered for membership in such a group. To suggest that the document is 

phony on this basis instead of on the basis of any mistaken information in 

it (there is none) certainly violates all the rules of science and 

journalism.

      It is interesting that the CSICOP document makes no mention 

whatsoever of the detailed investigation conducted well *before* this 

document was either received, December, 1984, or released. This effort by 

Stanton Friedman and William L. Moore, clearly established, on the basis 

of interviews with 92 different people and extensive travel, 

documentation, etc. that indeed a saucer had crashed outside Roswell, New 

Mexico in July 1947; that an announcement to this effect was made by the 

government; that a cover-up was instigated within 24 hours of that 

announcement; that alien bodies were found; that material was sent to 

Wright field for analysis; that civilians were debriefed with strong 

persuasion to change their stories as appropriate. Mr. Klass makes no 

mention of the fact that five people had been found who described strange 

symbols seen on portions of the crashed saucer. Strange symbols are 

mentioned in the document. Mr. Klass makes no mention of the fact that the 

twelve people named as being members of Operation Majestic 12 all had a 

very high level security clearances [sic] and close interlocking of past 

activities.

      Of special importance in this regard is the inclusion of Doctor 

Donald Menzel. Menzel was a famous astrophysicist at Harvard University 

and, beginning in 1953, wrote three strongly anti-UFO books. It would have 

seemed totally illogical for Dr. Menzel to be named as a member of the MJ-

12 team. However, detailed research by Friedman, clearly established that 

Menzel had the right levels of security clearances, close association with 

various intelligence agencies especially the NSA and the CIA, and a close 

association with Doctor Vannevar Bush, Doctor Lloyd Berkner, Doctor Detlev 

Bronk, all named as being members of Majestic 12. Doctor Menzel was known 

for his discretion with regard to classified manners; was an expert on 

crypt-analysis; had learned Japanese; and would have been an appropriate 

person to look at the symbols. A close friend in his later years, a 

psychiatrist, has indicated that Menzel certainly would have been called 

to work on such a project. He doesn't think Menzel was because the friend 

felt that there would be no reason for keeping security past the first few 

months. That notion is equally absurd. Clearly if there were two crash 

retrievals in three years, there may have been more later. Clearly there 

was no way to learn all the technological secrets of a very advanced 

vehicle and strange beings in just a few years. Clearly there were 

national security implications with regards to the possibility of 

duplicating the technology, of the Soviets duplicating the technology, of 

learning that the investigation by the aliens was not necessarily to the 

benefit of mankind. There was also a great concern expressed in the memo 

with public panic as a result of any disclosures that might be made.

      Mr. Klass has focused on the Cutler Twining memo, making it seem 

much more important by calling it a "report" and a "document" when in fact 

it is a brief two paragraph relatively-informal memo notifying the Chief 

of Staff of the Air Force of a slight change in plans for a briefing. To 

expect the staff assistant doing that under the pressures of time and a 

very busy office with the boss out of town, to be greatly concerned about 

details of handling of classified matters other than to make sure it 

doesn't fall into outside hands, surely is irrational. It should further 

be noted that the 1954 Atomic Energy Act provided for the use of the new 

nomenclature Secret Restricted Data and Top Secret Restricted Data. 

Twining in a September 23, 1947 letter about flying saucers had clearly 

indicated a nuclear connection. Thus Top Secret Restricted Security 

Information typed in, apparently in the absence of a new rubber stamp 

hardly constitutes evidence of fraud.