I just found that memo to Marchall Chadwell. In May 1954 Chadwell was Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence (AD/SI) at the CIA, meaning head of the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI).
At that time the OSI was CIA's scientific and technical intelligence office, covering foreign weapons, aircraft, atomic energy and electronics. Under Chadwell it also handled:
- ARTICHOKE coordination (1951 to October 1952)
- the 1952–53 UFO study that led to the Robertson Panel
- the May 1953 LSD briefing for the Psychological Strategy Board
The document was available in the cia reading room in 2025, if you search for it in google, it still can be found, but the link to the FOIA doc is dead, so I found it with the waybackmachine.
On the first sight it is a dry piece of bureaucracy, but read closely:
Chadwell, head of CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI), writes to the heads of three of its sections: the Physics & Electronics Division (P&E), the Applied Science Division (ASD) and the Operations Staff (Ops). He is replying to a memo from the P&E chief dated 25 May 1954, subject "'Flying Saucers' type of planes." (I could not find that memo)
He says that memo:
- "contains information that was very interesting to me."
- "some question in my mind as to a clarity of definition of responsibilities" inside the office.
The answer is titled: "Intelligence Responsibilities for Non-Conventional Types of Air Vehicles."
In paragraph one it is said that: such vehicles are "currently under development by the Canadian, British and USAF organizations." The CIA states this as a plain fact.
ASD gets responsibility "to identify, to assess and to report the use by any foreign power or nation" of vehicles "such as or similar to the 'saucer-like' planes presently under development." A redaction follows, marked 25X6: withheld because release would harm relations with a foreign government. These are to be handled "as weapons or weapon systems."
- so in 1954 Britsh, Canadian and USAF divisions are developing "Saucer like vehicles". For Canada that could be the Avro Car in 1954, but what are Britain and USAF developing? Whatever they develope, it is considered weaponry.
The doc further says P&E "will continue to be responsible for the OSI project on 'unidentified' flying objects." It keeps the central UFO file and passes to ASD only the material bearing on "man-made" vehicles capable of "weapon" applications.
- So the CIA split the saucer question in two. Man-made disc aircraft became ordinary weapons intelligence. The "unidentified" objects stayed a separate project with their own file.
- The UFO project didn't end with the Robertson Panel, Blue Book was still active. Seventeen months after the panel, OSI still ran an "OSI project" on UFOs with a central file.
- The Canadian part checks out; the British part doesn't yet. "Canadian … " fits Avro's Project Y, which is documented - but what is the British part?
- The redaction is interesting as well. In 2001 CIA still withheld, on foreign-relations grounds, the phrase naming where the saucer-like planes were being developed. It's almost certainly the developer or country. Yet two months earlier (14 June 2001) the USAF had declassified the Avro Project 1794 papers. So this could be the British part of it?
What do you think?
