[LWB note: In a near-historically timely response to my 19 Feb 09 FOIA request (posted as Item 2.20 of this blog - http://ufoview.posterous.com ), a staffer at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kan., has sent me a snail-mail reply dated Feb. 20, 2009. Though he - Tim Rives - apparently has done no actual records search for the alleged UFO-E.T. film footage in question, he nevertheless declares that the library contains no such material. I'm quoting his reply, below. Meantime, his denial raises some key points, e.g.:
(1) Either he's been misinformed or is lying about the whereabouts of the film's original negative, or he's keeping the door open on whether the (inherited) copy now in the hands of a fellow named "Bob" may indeed be the original version.
(2) Here's a professional librarian we'd expect to have some excitement over a citizen's possible discovery of a monumental slice of presidential history, and he refrains from even suggesting how his institution (or some other one) might facilitate the forensic vetting of that specimen.
(3) How many times during his librarianship has Rives encountered such a claimed discovery only to end up so jaded as to greet with an arbitrary shoulder-shrug any public inquiry about it? His reaction to the claim has all the irony of the ending of the movie "Raiders of the Lost Arc," whereby the original negative of the Ike UFO-E.T. film reposes on some obscure, dusty basement shelf amidst dozens of canisters labeled, say, "Army Recruitment Training Films of the 1950s Era."]

   == TEXT OF MR. RIVES'S 20 FEB 09 LETTER TO L.W.B ==

 Dear Mr. Bryant:

 This letter is in response to your Freedom of Information Act request, which we received in this office on February 20, 2009.

 I am sorry, but we do not hold motion pictures, still photographs, or records of any kind documenting President Eisenhower's alleged inspection of alien bodies or UFOs.

 You also inquired whether we would accept such a record should it be offered to us. The short answer is yes, provided it conforms to the criteria outlined in our acquisitions policy below:

 Historical materials sought will be those documenting the private and public lives of General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, as well as the historical events and governmental policies which shaped the mid-Twentieth Century and on which he exercised considerable influence.

 * Materials must have substantial historical value.
* The creator, either individual or corporate, must have had a direct - or if indirect, significant - relationship with, or impact on, the life and/or political and governmental activities of General and President Eisenhower, or the larger social, cultural, political, and economic environments that shaped Eisenhower's private life and public service. Papers and associated historical materials will be solicited from:

 ** The President and the President's family.
** Close personal friends of the President and Mrs. Eisenhower.
** White House staff holding political and policy positions as well as White House career administrative staff whose functions included significant, regular contact with the First Family.
** Executive Office of the President officials who held political and policy-related positions.
** Executive Department Secretaries, Under-, Assistant-, and Deputy-Secretaries. The papers of non-political (career) officials who held solely operational and administrative responsibilities will be solicited only in special circumstances.
** Historical materials of or relating to governmental or nongovernmental organizations with which Dwight D. Eisenhower was associated.
** Collectors of historical memorabilia, particularly those holding presidential and political items relevant to the Museum's exhibit programming.

 Again, we would welcome the donation of any substantial historical material fitting the criteria defined as above. Please note, however, that as a federal agency we are prohibited by law from buying material. It must be given to us.

 Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.

 Sincerely,

 TIM RIVES
Supervisory & Solicitation Archivist
Eisenhower Presidential Library & Museum

TO: Ms. Delores M. Nelson
    Information and Privacy Coordinator
    U. S. Central Intelligence Agency
    Washington, DC 20505

 FROM: Larry W. Bryant
     3518 Martha Custis Drive
     Alexandria, VA 22302

 DATE: February 22, 2009

 1. In accordance with (a) presidential Executive Order 12958 and with (b) the U. S. Freedom of Information Act (as amended by the OPEN Government Act of 2007), this is a two-part request, separate-but-related as to subject matter.

 2. For part one, please subject to mandatory/automatic declassification all of the CIA-generated/housed 57 UFO-related documents that surfaced during the 1978 FOIA lawsuit of Ground Saucer Watch v. Central Intelligence Agency. These documents meet the age threshold (25-plus years) for MDR processing as permanent records of untold historic value. I ask that you keep me promptly and regularly informed of the results of that processing, starting by your assigning a case number to the request.

 2. The second part of this request seeks your prompt FOIA release of any and all currently segregable portions of the 57 documents from their classified portions. Please promptly report to me the results of your segregable-portion-releasability review under a case number separate from the number you'll be assigning to the above-requested MDR case.

 3. Since I submit these requests as a representative of the news media (as evidenced by my publication credits cited in my web log - http://ufoview.posterous.com ), I expect you to acknowledge that requester status by waiving all records-processing fees incident to your fulfilling them.

 4. By snail-mail, I'm sending to you a signed printout of this e-formatted letter.

  
LARRY W. BRYANT
Columnist for UFO Magazine

 Copies furnished to:
  Editor, UFO Magazine
  Chair, Select Committee on Intelligence, U. S. Senate
  Peter A. Gersten, Esq.

LWB Note: Although Project Cherry - a rogue operation that fielded CIA-managed assassination teams in certain areas of Southeast Asia during the Vietnam-war era - has nothing to do with the UFO cover-up, its existence does reflect how a U. S. agency easily can abuse its authority and lose its constitutional moorings in the absence of sustained public oversight. Why should such an agency be entrusted with managing the official U. S. embargo on UFOtruth - especially when you consider that, according to certain State Department records, the National Security Council treasonously disregarded certain presidential directives against continuing such activity as Project Cherry?]

 TO: Director
  U. S. Central Intelligence Agency
  Washington, DC 20505

 FROM: Larry W. Bryant
  3518 Martha Custis Drive
  Alexandria, VA 22302

 DATE: January 29, 2009

 My April 2, 2008, letter to your agency FOIA coordinator, Subject: Request for CIA Action, includes the following excerpt, requesting --

   "2c. Prompt submission of all 'Project Cherry'-related records to the
  declassification-review process mandated by applicable presidential
  executive orders, along with your promptly notifying me once your
  agency completes that review."

 Since I have received no response to that request for declassification, I hereby reiterate it here. In addition, I submit this letter (a signed copy of which is being snail-mailed to you) as a formal, written FOIA request that you send me a copy of all CIA records generated as a result of your agency's receipt of the above-cited excerpt.

 Please note that this FOIA request is being submitted in my capacity as a representative of the news media (RNM), a requester status automatically entitling me to full waiver of all records-search/review fees incident to your fulfilling this request.

 Should you ignore or otherwise deny my RNM requester status, I shall pursue all necessary remedial action, including judicial review. For direct evidence of my RNM requester status and of its related publication credits, I refer you to my web log, as follows: http://ufoview.posterous.com .

  
LARRY W. BRYANT
Independent Writer (specializing in national-security affairs)

 Copies furnished to:

   Jonathan L. Katz, Esq.

   John McCarthy (a fall-guy victim of Project Cherry -- as per his web site at http://johnmccarthy90066.tripod.com/id38.html )

TO: Director
     ATTN: Freedom-of-Information Manager
     U. S. Federal Bureau of Investigation
     170 Marcel Drive
     Winchester, VA 22602-4843

 FROM: Larry W. Bryant
      3518 Martha Custis Drive
      Alexandria, VA 22302

 DATE: February 20, 2009

 Under terms of the U. S. Freedom of Information Act (as amended by the OPEN Government Act of 2007), I hereby request that you furnish me a copy of any and all FBI-generated and FBI-received records pertaining to the activities, associations, and motivations of the late UFO researcher Robert H. Bletchman, former Avon, Conn.-based director of public relations for the public-interest organization called Mutual UFO Network, Inc. Bletchman's UFOlogical career included offering consultative service to the public-interest group Citizens Against UFO Secrecy, which is partly based at my home in Alexandria, Va.

 Please see the enclosed copy of his obituary from the Hartford, Conn., Courant of Dec. 7, 2008, as reprinted by the January 2009 issue of the MUFON UFO Journal.

 I hereby construe your acceptance of this request as your formal acknowledgment of my previously demonstrated "requester status" as a representative of the news media (RNM), thus entitling me to full waiver of all agency records-processing fees incident to your fulfilling this request. As with most of my other recently submitted FOIA requests, I hereby cite pertinent contents of my web log - http://ufoview.posterous.com - as evidence of my RNM status.

 By snail-mail, I'm sending to you a signed printout of this e-formatted letter.

  
LARRY W. BRYANT
Columnist for UFO Magazine

 Copies furnished to:

   Editor, UFO Magazine

   Chair, Select Committee on Intelligence, U. S. Senate

   Lewis Kannon

TO:  Director

         ATTN:  Freedom-of-Information Manager

         Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library

         200 S. E. 4th Street

         Abilene, KS  67410

 

FROM:  Larry W. Bryant

             3518 Martha Custis Drive

             Alexandria, VA  22302

 

DATE:  February 19, 2009

 

On February 3, 2009, a de facto UFO-E.T-coverup whistleblower 

surfaced during the live broadcast of the nationally syndicated radio 

show "Coast-to-Coast AM" (hosted by George Noory).  Please see my 

following transcript of that show's segment in which caller "Bob" 

reveals his acquisition of certain 1940s--1950s-era film footage 

showing Pres. Eisenhower observing, inside a warehouse, certain 

artifacts from an apparent UFO-crash-retrieval operation -- to 

include alien bodies on stretchers.

 

Accordingly, assuming that "Bob's" collection of film constitutes a 

copy made from the original version, I hereby request, under terms of 

the U. S. Freedom of Information Act (as amended by the OPEN 

Government Act of 2007), that you provide me a copy of any and all 

NARA-maintained original film clips showing the Eisenhower presence 

in the scene "Bob" describes in his account.

 

NOTE:  If your ensuing records search determines that your library 

contains no such film footage, I ask that you forward this letter to 

the library official authorized to acquire a copy of such historic 

footage for the library's own collection.  If that official declines 

to accept such an acquisition opportunity, please ask him/her to 

provide me an explanation for that non-acceptance.

 

Since I submit this request as a representative of the news media (as 

evidenced by my publication credits cited in my web log -- 

http://ufoview.posterous.com ), I ask that you waive all 

records-processing fees incident to your fulfillment of this request.

 

By snail-mail, I'm sending to you a signed printout of this e-formatted letter.

 

 

LARRY W. BRYANT

Columnist for UFO Magazine

 

Copies furnished to:

 

   Editor, UFO Magazine

   George Noory

   Chair, Select Committee on Intelligence, U. S. Senate

   Lewis Kannon

 

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

 

      == TEXT OF C2C CALLER "BOB'S" ACCOUNT ON 3 FEB 09 ==

 

[LWB Note:  at the last minute of the guest segment's final hour, 

wherein guest Whitley Strieber and host Noory fielded listeners' 

calls, a man named "Bob" (from east of the Rockies) gives this 

account.]

 

Hello, Mr. Noory.  I have a unique -- unique-- situation to 

volunteer.  I'm in the military, and I monitor satellite cameras. 

What I've got to tell you is based on UFOs -- uh, very unique 

situation:  I have acquired eighteen canisters -- reel-to-reel film, 

military film, based in the forties, early fifties.  Uh, I inherited 

it.

 

[Noory:  16-mil, black-and-white?]  They're black-and-white; I had a 

[garbled] on the majority of them.  The cans show military insignia 

like eagles and stuff like that.

 

[Noory:  Have you looked at the film yet, Bob?]  I have looked at a 

few of them.  Uh, what I've seen so far scares me to death.

 

[Noory:  of what? -- give us a quick glimpse.]  Uh, we gonna have to 

talk off the air at some point in time; it's not . . .. [Noory, 

interrupting:  I'm gonna have you give Tom your phone number if 

that's okay.]  What I've seen so far on the ones that I've looked at 

-- well, back to the first one that I looked at showed President 

Eisenhower and, uh, the, uh, that eccentric guy, he, uh, 

that had the airplanes -- what was his name? -- the one who went into 

seclusion.

 

[Strieber:  Oh, Howard Hughes.]  Howard Hughes in a warehouse, 

looking around and, uh, people laying on stretchers (and they weren't 

from this earth).  [Noory:  Oh, my gosh; all right, look . . ..] I 

want to stop there and . . ..  [Noory, interrupting:  Bob, I'm 

putting you on hold, we're gonna get your phone number and we will 

talk at length.  Could be fascinating.  Whitley, my friend, stay in 

touch.  [Strieber:  thank you very much, George, as always . . ..]

TO: Freedom of Information Manager
U. S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Washington, DC 20546

FROM: Larry W. Bryant
3518 Martha Custis Drive
Alexandria, VA 22302

DATE: February 13, 2009

Near the end of his 2008 memoir ("Proof of Extraterrestrial Intelligence: The Cape Canaveral Apollo Program Chronicles" -- published by lulu.com ), Floridian JE Oglesby recounts how, during the evening of Sunday, September 15, 1968, he and two other men encountered a landed alien spacecraft at the shoreline of Lake Pickett (near the town of Bithlo), several miles west of the NASA Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Part of that encounter included the three witnesses' noticing a rendezvous between the E. T. craft and an official-looking, dark-colored sedan presumed to contain U. S. government personnel.

Accordingly, under terms of the U. S. Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request that you furnish me a copy of all NASA-generated and NASA-received records pertaining to the September 15, 1968, incident and to any and all previous and subsequent such official government liaison with extraterrestrial entities -- said records to include correspondence, minutes of meetings, memoranda of understanding, temporary-duty orders, intelligence estimates, briefing papers (Vu-graphs/charts/photographic prints, etc.), technical data re the aliens' communication devices/protocol, memoranda for record, electronic recordings of all alien-Earthling communications, memoranda of telephone conversations, radar-tracking data re the E.T. craft's monitoring of the Apollo program's activity, staff studies, after-action reports, and transcripts of all alien-emissary interviews.

Pursuant to the U. S. OPEN Records Act of 2007, I expect you to acknowledge my FOIA requester status as a "representative of the news media" -- a status entitling me to full waiver of your agency's records-processing fees incident to your fulfilling this request. For examples of my various publication credits in this regard, I refer you to my internet web log at UFOView.

By snail-mail, I'm sending to you a signed printout of this e-formatted letter.

LARRY W. BRYANT
Columnist for UFO Magazine

Copies furnished to:
Editor, UFO Magazine
Jonathan L. Katz, Esq.
Chair, Select Committee on Intelligence, U. S. Senate

When, on Feb. 7, 2003, I submitted my FOIA request to the U. S. Central Intelligence Agency for access to "the entire CIA case file on 'Wendy Lee's' submission of her draft memoirs for prepublication approval," the thought never crossed my mind that the FOIA coordinator would take as long as six years to process my request. (No wonder the Agency received the National Security Archive's 2006 Rosemary Award for FOIA laxity/non-responsiveness! -- see: http://tinyurl.com/bzyjul .)

 In a letter to me of Jan. 28, 2009, current CIA FOIAmeister Delores M. Nelson invokes six of the Act's "(b)" exemptions to deny me access to most of the sought-for case file. What she did deign to provide was a copy of two legal documents filed within the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia under case No. 1:03-cv-00206-TPJ: (1) the Feb. 3, 2003, First Amendment complaint of Wendy Lee v. Central Intelligence Agency (from the hand of Mark S. Zaid, Esq.); and (2) the July 7, 2004, memorandum and order granting summary judgment to the Agency (under the hand of Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson). Basically, the pseudonymous Wendy Lee lost her case because the Agency, in the court's view, has carte-blanche authority to "classify" anything it chooses. What's more: Lee, by having signed a preemployment secrecy agreement, had forfeited her First Amendment right to publish anything relating to her CIA (undercover) affiliation without prior Agency review/approval. Thus, her claim of official prior-restraint censorship failed to persuade Judge Jackson that the Agency had acted arbitrarily and capriciously in denying her permission to publish.

 I summarize this case here to point out an apparent breakthrough in the Agency's almost impenetrable stone wall of recalcitrance as regards its obligation to process citizens' FOIA requests in a competent and good-faith manner. Can we attribute this turnaround to the fully activated, FOIA-strengthening U. S. OPEN Records Act of 2007? Let's hope so. And let's hope that there'll be fewer FOIA lawsuits, too -- so that some of the saved federal funds can be applied to beefing up the various agencies' FOIA staffs. -- Larry W. Bryant (independent writer specializing in national-security affairs -- http://ufoview.posterous.com )

 == ". . . [CIA-deleted] in their telephone conversation, suggested that we had not heard the last from Mr. Bryant." -- from an Aug. 14, 1973, CIA memorandum pertaining to the Agency's clandestine courting of the UFOlogical favors of UFO researcher Richard H. Hall ( http://www.hallrichard.com/newufopage.htm ). See the May 17, 1990, FOIA lawsuit of Larry W. Bryant v. CIA (Civil Action No. 90-1163; USDC for the D. C.), which unsuccessfully sought access to the redacted portions of the 1973 memo. ==