EOP-UAP-D002: "DOD and AF Want to Use NASA for a Cover": The Space Council's Frutkin Memo of May 1963

Source file: EOP-UAP-D002-Memo_on_Interagency_Coordination_for_the_Recovery_of_Foreign_Materiel-May_1963.pdf Originating agency: Executive Office of the President, National Aeronautics and Space Council (NASC) Document type: Internal staff memorandum, "Memorandum for Dr. Welsh", subject "Conference with Frutkin -- Fragments" Date: 29 May 1963 (reporting a meeting on 28 May 1963) Classification: No classification marking visible on the released page; NARA declassification label, authority NND 968063; released in 2026 Page count: 1 VIRIN: 260508-O-D0360-1169 PURSUE Release: 7

Summary

This single typed page is a staff report inside the National Aeronautics and Space Council, the body in the Executive Office of the President that coordinated U.S. space policy. R. W. Hale writes to his chief, Executive Secretary Edward C. Welsh, about a meeting the previous day with Arnold Frutkin, NASA's Director of International Programs. Frutkin's assistant Marvin Robinson was also present. The meeting ran "for more than an hour" in Frutkin's office.

The subject is the policy Welsh had been trying to settle since October 1962: which agency would receive, analyse and dispose of space-vehicle fragments, and what the public would be told. That effort is documented in the paired 72-page file USG-UAP-D002. Hale had to "review the background and course of the meetings held last year because he was away at the time", and found that Frutkin "now is very negative on the project." The rest of the memo is a numbered list of seven points that "Frutkin seems to feel". It is a staffer's summary of NASA's position, not a NASA statement.

Research Article

Where the memo sits in the fragments file

The timing explains the tone. In November 1962 the agencies had "agreed" a public statement naming NASA as the responsible agency and a confidential set of guidelines (USG-UAP-D002, pages 35-38). The CIA, which had not been at that meeting, then referred the papers to the U.S. Intelligence Board (USIB). On 1 March 1963 the Department of Defense produced its own revision, under which fragments known or suspected to be foreign would go to DoD first "on a priority basis" and stay there for analysis. NASA's written objections to that revision, signed by Frutkin, are in the same file (page 25).

Hale's memo of 29 May 1963 falls in the middle of this deadlock. Two days later, on 31 May, Welsh wrote to CIA Director John A. McCone, as USIB chairman, that the Defense paper "has not been coordinated within the intelligence community" and asked for a reply (USG-UAP-D002, page 26). The Frutkin conversation shows how little support the project had left at NASA when Welsh sent that letter. The NASA representative at the November 1962 meeting had been Marvin Robinson (USG-UAP-D002, page 45), the assistant who sat in on this one.

Frutkin's seven points

Hale records that Frutkin "seems to feel that":

1. "No public announcement is now needed". This rejects the public statement at the centre of the 1962 drafts.
2. "An Executive Order or statement from the White House would scare people needlessly". In late 1962 Johnson of the NSC staff had pushed for a Presidentially approved NSAM, and the 6 November meeting notes envisaged White House clearance of the statement.
3. "The problem is overseas and State would like to be able to point to NASA as the U. S. responsible agency (without a scary public announcement)". Frutkin places the practical problem abroad, not on U.S. soil.
4. "DOD and AF want to use NASA for a 'cover' but have no intention of letting NASA do anything but return some pieces". This is the most pointed line. In Frutkin's reading, the civilian agency would be the public face, the military would control the hardware, and NASA's role would shrink to handing back selected items. The memo does not say what "cover" was meant to hide.
5. "CIA and NASA get along fine and can do so in the future on this matter". No new machinery is needed for the intelligence side.
6. NASA "should wait to see what the USIB settles on", and would like the Council to pass Frutkin's comments on "the DOD paper" to the AEC "at staff levels for information". This is almost certainly the 1 March 1963 Defense revision.
7. "Although NASA was drafting legislation, they (legal?) would oppose sending anything up to Congress in the foreseeable future because of the harmful debate it would touch off". Hale's question mark shows he was unsure which NASA office held this view.

Point 7 ties in with a later letter in the paired file. In October 1963 Welsh reported that NASA Administrator Webb had told the House Science and Astronautics Committee that legislation on fragments was not needed "at this time" (USG-UAP-D002, page 23).

What the memo does not say

The memo does not mention UFOs, UAP or "unidentified" objects, and it does not name the Soviet Union or any particular satellite or recovery. It is in a UAP release because it belongs to the file on how the government would take custody of objects falling from space, "fragments, or suspected fragments", of uncertain origin.

The official description goes further than the page in two places. It says the "Department of War" sought to use NASA, but the memo says "DOD and AF". It also refers to Soviet debris and sets out purposes for the arrangement: access to adversary technology, protection of U.S. technology, diplomatic goodwill and masking intelligence gathering. These are a reasonable reading of the wider USG-UAP-D002 file, but this memo states only Frutkin's seven points and does not spell out those aims. "Very negative" is Hale's phrase for Frutkin's attitude; there is no direct quotation from Frutkin. The memo carries a handwritten "Fragments" file note and a large "X" in the margin, and is signed by hand above Hale's typed name.

Significance

The memo is short, but it gives the bluntest statement of the gap between the public and private sides of the fragments policy. In USG-UAP-D002 that gap shows up only in changes of wording between drafts. Here a senior NASA official says outright that the military saw the civilian agency as "cover" and meant to keep the substance for itself. It also shows that by mid-1963 the agency named in every draft as the receiving authority no longer wanted the public announcement, the White House directive or the legislation the Space Council had been working toward. That helps explain why the correspondence never produced a signed policy.

Key People

Locations

Key Concepts

Notable Quotes

"It was necessary to review the background and course of the meetings held last year because he was away at the time and now is very negative on the project." -- page 1

"An Executive Order or statement from the White House would scare people needlessly;" -- page 1

"The problem is overseas and State would like to be able to point to NASA as the U. S. responsible agency (without a scary public announcement);" -- page 1

"DOD and AF want to use NASA for a 'cover' but have no intention of letting NASA do anything but return some pieces;" -- page 1

"CIA and NASA get along fine and can do so in the future on this matter;" -- page 1

"Although NASA was drafting legislation, they (legal?) would oppose sending anything up to Congress in the foreseeable future because of the harmful debate it would touch off." -- page 1