Sunday, October 19, 2014

Roger Wescott, Roscoe Hillenkoetter and MJ-12


Although I really don’t have time for this, meaning more nonsense about MJ-12, Stan Friedman has complained that I, and Barry Greenwood and Robert Hastings, have ignored the report by Dr. Roger Wescott, who examined the Eisenhower Briefing Document to determine if it had been written by Rear Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter.  There is nothing to say that he had been the author, no real reason to assume that he was, except that he had been the Director, Central Intelligence Agency, but this seems to be the belief. To me this is a ridiculous exercise simply because, without additional information, that question cannot be answered.

Here’s what we know. Wescott was a linguistics professor at Drew University and Stan wanted him to try to determine if Hillenkoetter had written the EBD. Along with the EBD, he gave Wescott some twenty-seven samples of what he believed to be Hillenkoetter’s writings. I’ll explain that “believed to be” in a moment.

Wescott, in his first analysis said, “In my opinion, there is no compelling reason to regard any of these communications as fraudulent or to believe that any of them were written by anyone other than Hillenkoetter himself.”

Okay, not exactly a ringing endorsement, but certainly doesn’t eliminate Hillenkoetter as the author. But then, in his book on MJ-12 (oh, I suppose I could be petty and not mention the title… Top Secret/Majic) Stan wrote, “Some people are upset that Dr. Wescott didn’t make a positive statement that his work proves Hillenkoetter wrote the briefing. Obviously, no such statement could be made. Somebody working for the CIA, for example, could have read Hillenkoetter’s papers and simulated his style.”

Seriously? You’re saying that someone could have simulated Hillenkoetter’s style? You’re saying that no matter how valuable Wescott’s analysis might be, it would never prove that Hillenkoetter wrote the EBD… then what is the point of even bringing him in to the discussion in the first place?

Wescott, in a letter in the July/August 1988 International UFO Reporter, wrote, “First, it’s clear that I’ve stepped into a hornet’s nest of controversy. Since I have no strong conviction favoring either rather polarized position in the matter, I may have been a bit rash to become involved, even as a somewhat detached consultant, in what amounts to an adversary procedure. On behalf of those who support the authenticity of the memo, I wrote that I thought its fraudulence unproved. On behalf of its critics, I could equally well have maintained that its authenticity is unproved. Whatever the probabilities of the issue, inconclusiveness seems to be of its essence.”

There is an additional problem here. Wescott was a NICAP special advisor in the late 1960s. He was familiar with the world of the UFO. It might be suggested that his analysis wasn’t that of a disinterested third party, and while he might not have had a dog in the MJ-12 fight, he knew something about UFOs.

Wescott’s analyses are not all that impressive. They are best described as he said himself as “inconclusive,” which means that Wescott’s analyses proved nothing and certainly are not supportive of the conclusion that Hillenkoetter wrote the EBD.

Now, here’s what I meant by those documents were “believed to be” written by Hillenkoetter. At the time the EBD was written, Hillenkoetter was a high-ranking military officer in a position of great responsibility. Are we to believe that he actually wrote all these sample documents himself, or is it more likely he turned to an aide, a secretary, a staff officer to actually write the various documents? In other words, Hillenkoetter said, “I need a briefing (or whatever, just insert your own sort of document in here) on (insert the situation here) and have it to me by Friday.”

This means that while Hillenkoetter might have provided the initial information, would have reviewed and edited the document, he didn’t actually write it. I can’t tell you how many times I was given information and told to put it together for a report or briefing for a higher ranking officer. While in Iraq, I was involved in a white paper in which I interviewed a number of generals, took documents created by operations officers and combat commanders, to create a single document which was authored by that higher ranking officer. Or, to put it bluntly, there were so many of us involved that no one author’s voice came through.

Sure, you all are thinking that MJ-12 was classified much higher and access to the information would have been available to far fewer people. But the overall concept still holds. Hillenkoetter would have assigned the initial work to some other officer, and while it might only have been one or two others, the point is, those one or two others would have been responsible for the first draft of the paper. Hillenkoetter would have reviewed it, and knowing how these things work, would have made alterations to it, but the overall voice would not have been his.

And before I have to hear that this was so highly classified, that there just wouldn’t have been those others involved, are we really supposed to believe that Hillenkoetter typed the thing himself. Regardless of the classification, there would have been underlings involved in the process. Think of the Manhattan Project here. Weren’t there many involved who weren’t physicists or scientists who took care of all the various documents that were created in the process of making an atomic bomb? They might not have had access to everything, but in each compartment, they would have been those responsible for all the paperwork.

So, even if you stipulate that Hillenkoetter is the author of the EBD, he probably wasn’t the writer. That was done by someone else (and let’s not forget about all those tabs which would not have been written by Hillenkoetter but by others considered experts in those specific topics).

This explains why I, and most of the rest of us, ignore what Wescott had to say. First, he suggested his analysis was inconclusive. Second, even though there were all those samples offered of Hillenkoetter’s writing style, they were probably written by someone else. And third, the same can be said of the EBD. The initial drafts probably weren’t written by Hillenkoetter, but probably by someone at a lower level which would have altered the “voice” and made it impossible to determine if Hillenkoetter was the author.

Or, to be blunt, all of this is an exercise in futility. None of it proves anything and our best course is to just ignore it as one more failed proof that MJ-12 is authentic.

And before anyone asks, there is no evidence that the EBD is anything other than a fraud, written by someone who had a specific agenda, and that agenda was not to brief Eisenhower.

12 comments:

Frank Stalter said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Frank Stalter said...

A couple quick things. Hillenkoetter had been CIA director before the EBD time frame but was not at that time. The CIA director was Walter Bedell Smith who had been Eisenhower's Chief of Staff during WW II. If you ever saw the movie Patton, the burly guy who was always bitching Patton out at Eisenhower's request was Bedell Smith. Hillenkoeter was on the NICAP board of governors in the late 50s. He went to the Naval Academy with Keyhoe.

cda said...

I cannot recall exactly why Dr Wescott was chosen to do the analysis of the Ike briefing paper and the other Hillenkoetter papers. I think he was chosen by a guy called Bob Bletchman, of MUFON, but am not positive.

Presumably the reason was that Wescott was known (to Friedman, Bletchman & other MJ-12 supporters) to be interested in the paranormal and UFOs, and therefore likely to give a partial endorsement to the authenticity of the Ike briefing paper. You have already remarked that he was an advisor to NICAP.

The great majority of linguists would have laughed the whole thing off and not wasted one iota of time on it.

Friedman then displayed a 2-page resume of Wescott's career.

With Wescott's great literary expertise and Friedman being a "noted nuclear physicist", MJ-12 just HAD to be authentic (if you see what I mean).

Naturally, Wescott didn't do this analysis for nothing. I believe his fee was around $1000, paid for, presumably by MUFON.

starman said...

Yes, as Friedman wrote, he acted on the recommendation of Bletchman that he seek the services of a linguistics expert.

Anonymous said...

Kevin wrote : "And before I have to hear that this was so highly classified, that there just wouldn’t have been those others involved, are we really supposed to believe that Hillenkoetter typed the thing himself."

Well, Yeah! If this is supposed to be an unprecedented event requiring secrecy at a level never used before...then if I were the President, I'd be highly irritated with Hillenkoetter if he felt that he was above writing his own memo's and getting his secretary, or any other underling, to do the typing for him.

KRandle said...

Paul -

Except that's not how it works. While those at the highest level might have access to everything, each of those would have subordinates who were partially briefed and exposed to partial information.

Besides, MJ-12 is a hoax and was not written by Hillenkoetter so the argument is moot.

John's Space said...

While I agree that MJ-12 in not authentic, I think Hillenkoetter brings up some other interesting issues. At the date on the MJ-12 documents Hillenkoetter had gone back to an active naval command so he wasn’t running the UFO business at that time. However, he was DCI before Roswell through October 7, 1950. So he should have been in the know about what was happening with UFOs. If a crash recovery occurred at Roswell or somewhere else at a later date (my theory) but in time for the Smith/Sarbacher evidence then Hillenkoetter should know about it as DCI.

What then become very notable is that he was later a board member of NICAP for several years. While he never broke is security commitments publically, he was working through the system to get it revealed legally. Doesn’t this say a lot about the reality of the UFOs? If he knew that all of this was nonsense why involved in such an effort?

cda said...

John's Space:

Hillenkoetter was interested in UFOs from the early days. He and Donald Keyhoe were colleagues at the Annapolis naval College. When NICAP was formed and when Keyhoe became its director, it was the natural thing for Keyhoe to seek a long-standing friend to be on the board of governors, especially someone in the military with a high rank. This is why Admiral Hillenkoetter became a governor of NICAP. It had nothing to do with H being a former head of the CIA or having any secret knowledge of UFO reality.

Keyhoe was dismayed when H suddenly resigned from NICAP, putting it down to 'pressures from above'. In fact H had got disillusioned with NICAP, with their constant internal strife, and wanted out.

There is nothing whatever to show H had ever heard of the Roswell 'crash'. Nothing, that is, until the phony MJ-12 papers surfaced in 1987, by which time H was long dead.

You can argue that the reason the forger put H's name on the Ike briefing paper was because he had once been a governor of NICAP and, before that, a director of the CIA. This would immediately point to a supposed link and bolster the 'conspiracy' thesis.

cda said...

One other thing:

Did Hillenkoetter actually DO anything during his tenure as 'board member'? I suspect his name was on the board to help give NICAP some status. Did the governors ever meet as a group or did decisions rest almost entirely with Keyhoe?

OK, so this is going off topic, so I'll cease the digression.

John's Space said...

CDA wrote: It had nothing to do with H being a former head of the CIA or having any secret knowledge of UFO reality.

I would think that being a former Director of Central Intelligence during the period that include beginning of the modern UFO era and the Roswell Incident would be a lot more significant that just being an admiral in terms of secret knowledge about whatever the government knew about the UFO issue. After all the DCI is the focal point for providing intelligence to the President. You are saying that if Roswell (or a similar incident) happened he wouldn’t have known about it? Conversely, if the best information the government had, when he left the directorship in late 1950, was that it was all misidentification and hoaxes he would have known that. So if the later was true why would he join his friend Maj. Keyhoe in a fool’s errand? So what makes sense is the he knew there was a lot the government was keeping secret and he believed that the policy should change. But, he wanted to do it lawfully.

One clear alternative is that Hillenkoetter was still supporting the cover up and he was getting close to Keyhoe to spy on him and undermine is effort to get a Congressional hearing. That alternative too points to there being a big secret about UFOs that Hillenkoetter knew.

Jack Brewer said...

Some might be unaware that about seven years ago writer/researcher Michael Heiser, Ph.D. facilitated linguistic analysis of select MJ-12 docs and conducted by linguist Carol Chaski, Ph.D.

Heiser's resulting report:

http://www.michaelsheiser.com/MJ%20Test%20article.pdf

The gist of it is that Chaski was extremely confident that the docs examined were inauthentic. The report explains methodology, which included comparing phrases and terminology used in known authenticated docs composed by matching authors, as well as specifically why Chaski thought it so likely the docs examined were not written by those claimed.

Worth a review, in my opinion, for those who find the subject interesting.

cda said...

John's Space:

If you sincerely believe that Hillenkoetter knew the secret of the Roswell crash, then it is up to you to provide some doumentation of this. Where is it?

I simply said H had never heard of Roswell, let alone knew what it was. I agree that if it was a genuine ET event, then H would likely have known about it (but even that is by no means certain). How do we know that the CIA was interested in such things as visiting ET craft?

I am not willing to follow up on ideas like H being a 'double agent', e.g. joining NICAP to spy on it. That is a separate topic which you'll have to investigate yourself, if you want to.

Until proved otherwise, I am quite satisfied that H had NO secret knowledge of UFO reality.