Keyhoe Has Not Investigated a UFO Case in Ten Years: 1968 Don Berliner Letter

A 1968 letter apparently written by Don Berliner described the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena as suffering from a lack of leadership, consisting of paid employees who were playing instead of working, and devolving to the point of being incapable of contributing significantly to the investigation of UFOs. Berliner explained to British ufologist Julian Hennessey how his protests escalated until he was ultimately fired by NICAP Director Donald Keyhoe.

Don Berliner

Keyhoe "has not investigated a case in some ten years," Berliner wrote. His real interest was his next book, Berliner asserted, adding that Keyhoe was withholding good cases from NICAP to include in the book.

A disappointed Berliner further described watching the NICAP money dwindle and pushing for publication of Air Force Project Blue Book reports to increase income. He sold management on the idea and proceeded to present the necessary tools to Keyhoe, "who did absolutely nothing for two months," adding that the entire venture could have been set up in two weeks.

The letter, apparently written on Don Berliner letterhead and signed by the investigator:

The document was recently provided by writer, researcher, and former International Director of the Mutual UFO Network, James Carrion, along with some other NICAP material, all of which may be accessed in a folder on Google Drive. Carrion explained the source of the letter was the MUFON files.

The additional material consists of two pdfs, one of which contains NICAP special bulletins and newspaper clippings. The second pdf contains 1979 MUFON Journals, the first of which includes NICAP apologist Todd Zechel's narrative on the alleged CIA sabotage of the UFO organization that supposedly led to its demise. The MUFON Journal provides an interesting snapshot of the era, as it was edited by former NICAP Assistant Director Richard Hall and included content submitted by longtime NICAP investigator Ann Druffel as the MUFON associate editor.

NICAP was incorporated in 1956 under tumultuous circumstances involving substantial intelligence community assets. Its initial director soon departed, making way for Donald Keyhoe to take the helm for some 13 years. As documented in Wayward Sons: NICAP and the IC and subsequently explored by the Wayward Sons Book Group, Zechel's narrative dubiously credits almost certain CIA asset Nicolas de Rochefort with working himself into a key position with the organization. As the story is typically told in UFO circles, Keyhoe chased away the bad spooks while inviting the good ones, other than for the honest mistakes he supposedly made, such as trusting Joseph Bryan III.

A closer review, however, shows de Rochefort actually negated his own appointment to a leadership role. Moreover, by deferring the recommendation that he become Executive Vice Chairman, it was none other than Nicolas de Rochefort himself who arguably assisted in clearing a path for Keyhoe to become the face of the organization.

From a January 1957 NICAP Progress Report (see pp93-94):

There are many such discrepancies and inaccuracies in not only Todd Zechel's version of events, but in the narratives popularly held within the UFO subculture about NICAP as well. It could be added that Mr. Zechel failed to address a number of additional connections to the intelligence community, which would include but by no means be limited to the relationships between T. Townsend Brown and Counsel Services officers Mary Vaughan King and former State Department man Thomas O'Keefe, a trio which incorporated NICAP; and career intelligence officer Albert Wedemeyer who served in an advisory capacity yet cited the publication of his name as a reason for his 1957 departure.

It is this writer's contention the evidence available through archived records and the results of FOIA requests indicates the intelligence community was instrumental in many aspects of the life cycle of NICAP, likely including its very inception. Your author further asserts the praise often delegated to Donald Keyhoe as a competent investigator and transparency advocate is not fully justified. Keyhoe may have been most talented and effective as a public relations man, an expertise that does not always align with truth-seeking and transparency. A significant part of the material published by NICAP is arguably subpar and used claims of conducting scientific investigation as a dubious means of adding credibility to the otherwise unsubstantiated proclamations of extraterrestrial visitation and the orchestrated government cover-up thereof made by its leadership, often times including intelligence officers.

Don Berliner is a former NICAP staffer turned independent investigator. He may be best known for his writing on the alleged Roswell UFO incident with Stanton Friedman. Berliner's work in the UFO genre includes serving on boards for the Fund for UFO Research and the Center for UFO Studies.