SUBJECT: A CUFON EDITORIAL 16-MAY-1994 FILE: UFO2135 This the second in a series of CUFON editorials: 16-MAY-1994 ========================================================================== In our constant effort to verify material, we noticed that a reproduction of a National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) "Withdrawal Notice," (NA Form 1400 (4-85)) appears on page 525 of _Above Top Secret, the Worldwide UFO Coverup_, Timothy Good, Sidgewick & Jackson Limited, London, 1987, ISBN 0-99496-7. Such withdrawal notices retain the place of restricted or classified documents in the holdings of the NARA. The implication made in Mr. Good's statement in the caption to the withdrawal notice reproduction is that the document which this particular withdrawal notice represents is a "... Top Secret UFO report...". This does not appear to be the case. Dale Goudie, Director of the UFO Reporting and Information Service has filed requests with the NARA for the document, "Report TR-DE-3A," represented by the withdrawal notice which Mr. Good reproduces. Correspondence and a sample page from the "sanitized version" of the report are reproduced below. The "sanitized version" of Report TR-DE-3A is very heavily censored making it difficult to ascertain the actual report contents in detail. But by the title and the text that does remain, it is apparent that this report concerns the collection and analysis of "electronic intelligence", (ELINT). While it is possible that ELINT collection might have to do with UFOs, it seems unlikely that this particular report is related to UFOs judging by the context of the released text. We also wish to point out that although the records of "Project Blue Book," the official records of the United States Air Force UFO projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book which are in the custody of the NARA are included in NARA Record Group 341, "Records of Headquarters, United States Air Force." The withdrawal notice in question is _not_ from the Blue Book records. According to a NARA official, there are no withdrawal notices in the Blue Book records. Simply stated, the Blue Book records are a component of RG-341. The withdrawal notice does, however, represent a restricted document from RG-341. We are not claiming that Mr. Good has stated that this withdrawal notice is from the Blue Book records, but neither does he make the distinction between RG-341 and Blue Book. We believe that the reproduction of this withdrawal notice with the caption Mr. Good has applied to it is misleading. It cannot currently be said that this withdrawal notice represents a withheld "... Top Secret UFO report.". We agree that there are many UFO related documents being withheld by the various government agencies. In reply to a request from Congressman Steven Schiff's office (R-NM), we have provided a letter and a full photostatic copy of the "sanitized version" of Report TR-DE-3A. Our letter to Rep. Schiff is also reproduced below. Jim Klotz - CUFON SYSOP Dale Goudie - CUFON Information Director =========================================================================== National Archives Washington, DC 20408 November 10, 1993 Reply to: NNRM94-1360-ER Mr. Dale Goudie Dear Mr. Goudie: This is in response to your Freedom of Information Act inquiry (NN93-1216) dated October 15, 1993. Your letter was received in this office on November 8, 1993. Project BLUE BOOK files contains no withdrawal notices. They were all declassified when we accessioned them. We cannot identify any other series in Record Group 341 as "UFO related files." In order to request a declassification review of withdrawn items you must identify the specific withdrawal notices that would be found among the records you examine in our search room. We have no listings of withdrawal notices that have been placed in our records. Sincerely, /s/ Jo Ann Williamson JO ANN WILLIAMSON Chief Military Reference Branch Textual Reference Division National Archives and Records Administration ============================================================================= National Archives Washington, DC 20408 November 10, 1993 Reply to: NNRM94-1361-WM Mr. Dale Goudie Dear Mr. Goudie: This is in response to your Freedom of Information Act request (NN93-1217) of October 23, 1993, which was received in this office on November 8, 1993. The original document is currently security classified. Since we must submit the document to another government agency, we are unable to complete the processing of your request within the ten days provided for by the Act. The amended Act [5 U.S.C. 552 (a)(6)(B)] provides that an agency may be allowed additional time to complete its review of the requested records if that agency is exercising due diligence in responding to the request. We will inform you when the review is complete. We can furnish a sanitized copy of "report TR-DE-3A, Elint Progress Report Supplement" 15 October 1955, Documents Relating to Intelligence Activities, (entry 267, NM-15), Records of Headquarters, U.S. Air Force, Record Group 341, for $6 (our minimum mail order fee). We can also make it available in our research room. Remittance should be made payable to "NATF-NNRM94-1361-WM" and sent to the National Archives Trust Fund Board, P.O. Box 100793 Atlanta, GA 30384. Please return the enclosed NATF Form 72 with your remittance. Instructions for ordering are printed on the back of this form. We have a minimum fee of $6 for all mail orders. If you wish to pay by using a MasterCard or VISA credit card, you should return the enclosed form (annotated with type of credit card, account number, expiration date, and your signature) to the Cashier (NAJC), National Archives, Washington, DC 20407. Your account will be verified before the copies are shipped. Beginning in December 1993, the National Archives will move more than 800,000 cubic feet of records from several facilities to its new building, Archives II, in College Park, maryland. the move will continue through 1996, and during that time, various record groups will be closed for research and reference activities, including requests for information and reproductions. If planning a research trip to Washington, within the next years, verify with each reference branch that records that you will want to see will be available. The "Archives II Researcher Bulletin" publishes updates of the move schedule. You should write the Textual reference Division (NNR), National Archives and records Administration, Washington, D.C. 20408 to obtain copies and be put on its mailing list. You may write this division or call the Reference Service Branch (202) 501-5400, for more information on the move status of specific records. We know this massive move will inconvenience people; we ask your patience and understanding while we move records to Archives II. Sincerely, /s/ Jo Ann Williamson JO ANN WILLIAMSON Chief Military Reference Branch Textual Reference Division ============================================================================= SANITIZED COPY SENSITIVE INFORMATION DELETED USAF (B)(1) TECHNICAL REPORT NO. TR-DE-3A (TITLE UNCLASSIFIED ELINT PROGRESS REPORT SUPPLEMENT PROJECT NO. 20024 15 OCTOBER 1955 DEPUTY FOR ELINT AIR TECHNICAL INTELLIGENCE CENTER WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE OHIO __________________________ | DECLASSIFIED | |Authority _NND-857013____ | | | |By_______NARA, Date______ | |__________________________| =========================================================================== SECTION I SIGNALS ASSOCIATED WITH [------------------------] (TOP SECRET)(AFOIN-4C2) 1. Analysis of [--------------------------------] of nine recent [--------------------] made by an Air Force Security Service [-----------] [------------------------------] has indicated that these [----------] may be associated with a [---------------------------------------------------] (para 22b) [-------------------------------------------------------------] 2. The principal characteristics of these signals as summarized from USAFSS data are shown in Table I. All of the intercepts were made at the [---------------------------------------------------------] and [--------------------------------------------------------------] (para 23c) [-------------------------------------------------------------------] a. Laboratory analysis at ATIC has shown that the [----] of these [------------------------------------------------------------------] [--------] In one case [------------------------] both of these [--------] occurred simultaneously. A correlation between the recordings and the operators' logs indicates that a [-------------------------] is used with the [--------] and a [----------------] is used with [--------------] [------------] para 23c) [-----------------------------------------------] b. Two different [----] modes were observed. They are: (1) [--------------------------------------------------------------] and (2) [----------------------] Both [----] modes have been seen at [-------] [-------------] (para 23c) [---------------------------------------------] 3. A comparison of the [----------------------] with collateral information has provided a tentative association of this group of sig- nals with the [----------------------------------------------------------] [-----------------------------] (para 22b[-------------------------------] a. There is very little intelligence on this [------] but it is estimated to have the following [--------] design characteristics: (1) [------------------------------------------------------] (2) [------------------------------------------------------] [------------------------------------------------------------------------] (2) [------------------------------------------------------] [------------------------------------------------------------------------] [------------------------------------------------------------------------] [------------------------------------------------------------------------] * denotes source of material. AFOIN-4C2 is the Analysis Division under the Deputy for ELINT ay ATIC. 1 __________________________ | DECLASSIFIED | |Authority _NND-857013____ | | | |By_______NARA, Date______ | |__________________________| ============================================================================= National Archives Washington, DC 20408 December 14, 1993 Reply to; NNRM94-02320-KS Mr. Dale Goudie Dear Mr. Goudie: This is in response to your letter of December 4, 1993. Record Group 341, Records of Headquarters United States Air Force, consists of 7,739 cubic feet of material, arranged in over 500 series. Project BLUE BOOK, the documentation relating to investigations of unidentified flying objects, is just one series in this record group. The copy of the withdrawal card you enclosed with your letter is from RG 341, Entry 267. This entry consists of the records of the Dissemination Branch of the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Operations. These are not the BLUE BOOK records. We will inform you when we have received a response concerning your FOIA request (NN93-1216). Sincerely, /s/ Kenneth D. Schlessinger KENNETH D. SCHLESSINGER Military Reference Branch Textual Reference Division National Archives and Records Administration =========================================================================== March 12, 1994 The Honorable Steven Schiff District Office 625 Silver Ave., Suite 140 Silver Square Albuquerque, NM 87102 Dear Congressman Schiff, We are writing to follow up on our February 6 letter; we are in receipt of your reply. Since you, as a congressman, received what you considered inappropriate response to a request for information from the Department of Defense, we thought that you would be interested in the existing situation which we describe here with the help of an example. We are writing to provide an example of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in action; of how the FOIA works. We became interested in a document which was supposed to have been retired to the National Archives and maintained in NARA Record Group 341: records of the Headquarters, United States Air Force. This document was not in the collection, however. In its place was a "withdrawal slip." A withdrawal slip holds the place in the files of a document which is being withheld by an agency. Dale then made a FOIA request to the Modern Military Branch, Textual Reference Division, NARA for the withdrawn document. We are informed that NARA then requested the document from the activity of the Air Force withholding the document on Dale's behalf as a requester. Apparently, that Air Force activity provided a "sanitized" copy of the document to the NARA which, in turn, for a nominal fee, was reproduced and shipped to us. We have attached a copy of the sanitized report. As can be readily seen by even a cursory examination, a great deal of the text has been selectively deleted, (redacted), before release. We'd say that this document has been "well sanitized!" At this point, we want to be clear that we sincerely believe that there is a need and a proper use for secrecy, precisely for the protection of the national security. Use but not abuse. A case can be made for the continued protection of intelligence sources IF any living person could be compromised from the release of names. However, in this case, human intelligence is not the subject but electronic intelligence (ELINT). Similarly, an equally strong case can be made for withholding site names and locations of intelligence monitoring sites, IF the sites are still active. However, it is very difficult to understand how most, if not all, of the information excised from the report can have any relevance to the protection of the national security now, nearly 40 years later. Certainly, technology issues are no longer relevant. The vacuum tube and discrete transistor technology, and the extremely limited and cumbersome computational hardware of 1955 is far outstripped by the high speed digital technology of today. Consequently, signal analysis methods in use in 1955 would also be obsolete. Right along with the advancement of digital computer technology, information coding and decoding techniques must have also evolved. In this light, it is hard to understand the need for secrecy now about methods which were in use in 1955. Perhaps more importantly, it seems likely that the political situations or entities no longer exist which inspired the collection of intelligence and the attendant secrecy. Even if the political entities still exist, the immense changes in the political structures and interests of the world since 1955 would surely make intelligence, or the fact that it was gathered, obsolete today. Again, it is difficult to understand how any of this material need remain classified. In short, it seems unreasonable in these days of the decline of world communism, and announced openness, that a citizen would receive such an answer to a legitimate Freedom of Information Act request. A recent position Memorandum from President Clinton to heads of federal departments and agencies reads, in part: "I therefore call upon all federal departments and agencies to renew their commitment to the Freedom of Information Act, to its underlying principles of government openness... We believe that eliminating unnecessary secrecy such as in this case is one of the goals of President Clinton's Presidential Review Directive (PRD) 29. PRD 29 orders a sweeping review of secrecy and classification in general with an eye to a re-write of Executive order 12356. There are many more examples like the attached sanitized report; such apparently unnecessary secrecy is pervasive. We have been told by an ex-military intelligence officer that the standard practice (in the informant's unit) was " ... when in doubt, classify ... when in doubt about at what level to classify, classify higher.", "... we routinely classified everything Top Secret ..." Any researcher who uses the Freedom of Information or Privacy Acts to any extent learns by experience that although most agencies act in a businesslike manner, the agencies do not make things easy. On the contrary, even if one can identify a specific document to inconsistently applied standards, the resulting search may be made only among previously released records. Or so many portions of a document are withheld (redacted) that the meaning of the contents can only be guessed at as in the attached example. Illegible copies are another frequent result of FOIA requests. The rubber stamped admonition "BEST COPY AVAILABLE," or "POOR ORIGINAL" appear often on largely or completely unreadable copies. Per page reproduction fees are charged in some instances for illegible material. Through personal experience with the FOIA, we find it very odd that on repeated occasions, an agency or storage facility will have extensive records of mundane day-to-day activities, but will deny possessing any records pertaining to much more dramatic events. In one instance, voluminous records were available of a post Korea Air Force construction unit making repairs in local public buildings in spare time, but made "no records" responses to requests for regulations and other records of events which had garnered media attention. It appears from our experience that each Department, each branch, each Agency and some units have regulations and other special unit specific documents which define the procedures for that activity in handling FOIA and Privacy Act requests. In one case, "canned responses" to use in reply to certain specific FOIA requests appeared in an Army "FOIA SOP" (Freedom of Information Act Standard Operating Procedure) document. Upon obtaining a partial copy of this document, we were informed that the document was being withdrawn from use. The apparent simplicity of the FOIA is crushed under the weight of large complicating requirements imposed by less well known documents such as Department of Defense (DoD) Directive 5400.7, "DoD Freedom of Information Act Program." The feeling that the spirit of the FOIA does not enter into most FOIA or Privacy Act cases is pervasive among those who use these Acts to any extent. Many stories of FOIA adventures appear in literature. Dale is in the process of appealing the withholding of so much from the attached report. We feel that it is important to follow the prescribed procedures to their conclusion. As indicated in our previous letter, we are not actively pursuing the "Roswell Case," we do have much similar information about other, similar cases of unnecessary secrecy and non-responsiveness of government departments and agencies. Most notable among these is probably "Project Aquarius." At least two Senators have requested information on this matter with inconsistent result. Should you be interested in the outcome of the appeal on the enclosed document, or if we can provide you with additional information, please do not hesitate to write us. Sincerely, /s/ Dale Goudie /s/ James Klotz Dale Goudie James Klotz P.O. Box 832 Mercer Island, WA 98040 ============================================================================ March 23, 1994 Reply to: NNRM94-04986-ER Mr. Dale Goudie Dear Mr. Goudie: This is in response to your Freedom of Information Act inquiry (NN94-306) dated February 20, 1994, and received in this office on March 15, 1994. The document you cite "Report TR-DE-3A, ELINT PROGRESS REPORT SUPPLEMENT" dated 15 October 1955, was filed under a Top Secret Register number 5-2862, Record Group 341, Entry 267. This entry is a arranged by Top Secret register numbers. The Top Secret register number was placed on each document in this entry when it was received by Headquarters U.S. Air Force while in their custody. There is no index to this series and the register number to a particular document does not relate to other documents that may be on the same subject. We examined the contents of the archives box in which 5-2862 was found but did not locate the report on "TR-DE-3", nor have we located any ELINT progress reports or a separate series for the Deputy for ELINT. Research in this series requires one to examine all boxes of this entry. "TR-DE-3A" (5-2862) was withdrawn by our Declassification Division, based on guidelines provided by the originating agency the Air Force, after we accessioned the records; the withdrawn document is retained in that division. When you submitted a FOIA on this document we forwarded it to the Freedom of Information Office of the United States Air Force for declassification review. Sincerely, /s/ Timothy K. Nenninger TIMOTHY K. NENNINGER Chief Military Reference Branch Textual Reference Division ============================================================================ April 26, 1994 Reply to: NNRM94-6304-TKN Dale Goudie Dear Mr. Goudie: This is in response to your letter, dated April 3 which we received April 25, regarding your October 23, 1993, FOIA request (NN93-1217). As we indicated in our November 10, 1993, letter to you (copy enclosed), we have forwarded a copy of the document you requested to the Department of the Air Force for further declassification review. This review is to determine whether any additional portions of the document deleted during the original Air Force declassification of the document can now be declassified. Because the Air Force has not completed its review and informed the National Archives of its outcome, your appeal of these deletions is premature. The established procedure for handling your original FOIA request is still underway and not yet run its course. When the Air Force completes its review, we will inform you of the outcome. Sincerely, /s/ Timothy K. Nenninger TIMOTHY K. NENNINGER Chief Military Reference Branch Textual Reference Division Enclosure ============================================================================= ********************************************** * THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo * **********************************************