The Real Reason Gen. Smith Met Truman on 1 August 1950

In Top Secret / Majic, Stan Friedman writes that, when he saw the August 1, 1950 date for the supposed appointment of Walter B. Smith as a permanent member of MJ-12, it was "difficult to imagine what was special about it." He did some research, and discovered that it was the first time that Smith had met with Truman in eight months, that it was off the record, in an area where they were unlikely to be seen, and with no press present.

To Stan, this was confirmation of the 1 August 1950 date given in the EBD when Smith was supposedly appointed the permanent replacement for James Forrestal on the alleged MJ-12 group. After all - what else could it have been for?

Er...

A quick look at the newspapers of August 1950 tells us that the meeting was undoubtedly held to confirm that Smith would accept the post of CIA Director.

On 18 August, 1950, the White House released this information to the public. For example, here is a portion of the front page article from the 19 August 1950 New York Times (below)announcing that Smith had agreed to accept the post. The next week contained further articles and editorials in the Times about Smith's appointment, including a cover article in the New York Times Magazine on 27 August 1950, and coverage of his confirmation hearing in the Senate, which went off without a hitch later that month.



Indeed, as the Times article on the 19th makes clear, Smith's appointment had been rumoured since at least late May. However, Smith had been very ill in the Spring and early summer, which explains why he wasn't appointed earlier, and why he had not met with Truman in the preceding months. The article also noted that Rear Admiral R. H. Hillenkoetter, the DCI Smith replaced, had been asking "for months" to be relieved of the post and returned to sea duty. Truman clearly waited for Smith to recover from his health problems (as he had by 1 August 1950), and then made the move.

Stan makes much of the fact that the meeting on the 1st of August was secret - well, of course it was! All Presidents seek to control the release of information from the White House, particularly on a matter as sensitive as the nomination of a new DCI at a time when the CIA was under intense Congressional scrutiny for perceived intelligence failures in the months leading up to North Korea's surprise attack on South Korea. Indeed, Hillenkoetter had been called before the Senate Appropriations Committee within a few hours of the attack, and had been getting hammered, to the point of being a lame duck, ever since.

Anyone forging the MJ-12 documents could have easily accessed this information from their local library, just as I did. Smith had already been identified publicly by Stan and others as a logical choice to be on any committee dealing with a crashed flying saucer (see Top Secret / Majic, pp. 24 - 25). All a hoaxer had to do was to check the papers to find the proper time frame. Then, if that hoaxer had access to government records (like, say, an AFOSI agent would), it would have been easy to pin down the 1 August 1950 date, and insert it in the Eisenhower Briefing Document.

Despite what Stan has suggested, there was never any big mystery here. It is clear that this brief meeting had nothing to do with crashed flying saucers, and everything to do with the extremely important matter of Smith's nomination as DCI.

Paul Kimball