LETTER TO DR. PUTHOFF

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00788R001200050004-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 19, 1998
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: February 21, 1984
• Content Type: LETTER

Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001200050004-1
21.February 1984
Dear Dr. Puthoff
I've now read and thought about your memo on documentation,
the whole picture. According to my memory as to how it came
about that. we landed in this present impasse leads me to make
the following statements, for whatever they are worth.
At the time when we had culminated the prototype training
patterns with the first three volunteers, I myself held forth
on the fact that we then should not any further advertize to
other clients that training was tentatively available until
we had seen to at least basic forms of documentation. As it
came about however, the project as a whole was then in one of
its many funding cul de. sacs, and since another client was hot
to begin training and'had money, a joint decision was taken to
go forward in that direction. This decision was mostly taken
by the COTR at the time, but conditions suggested to all that
there was not much choice otherwise. This then; at the time,
was not all that erroneous a. decision.
I, however,.in my position as consultant, advised that
documentation was, under those conditions, likely to catch up
as a "problem" and we would never thereafter be able to
conduct documentation procedures in an orderly manner; and further
when that time did arrive, that the entire team would have to
be mutual supportive of each other, and ensure the time and
space to put in the documentations that otherwise had been
set aside at the time, for the reasons above states.
The lack of documentation, therefore, was not exactly an
oversight, as is currently being suggested; but rather the
result of decisions taken at the time to keep the entire work
alive. I further advised that the danger in commencing training
with the other group was in that the training would be seen to
be workable, and that when this was understood that this
special group would come forward with inerea3cd.funds arA
Ineysimot w4po p ttc4- 0awl el fR ft antJ a i,a*rk
which would imply that . ww would have. to forfeit R&D and
other a.liged work in order to provide the deliverables which
would be expected under the working mandate.
We arrived at this point a short time ago. The trouble is
that no one wishes to decline funds xktim in order to commit
themselves to other areas - ultimately necessary.
all this now exist the anta On for
antagonisms that have come to result.
t.
If therefore, you wish to ho..d yourself solely to blame
for all this, that is your business; but it would be my opinion
that you need not and that indeed to do so is just addin one
more incorrectness. into an already large heap of them.
Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001200050004-1
 Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00788 R001200050004-1
In fact, considering the peripatatic course
f
h
o
t
e overall
concept of the Droject as a whole, the many different difficutie
it has consistently encountered, It would be my be.,ief that
under each of. the. changing situations, almost all parties
concerned did more than their share to keep the project afloat
at all. The current situation is one that has come about from
critics who seem to hold.that all the work should have been
perfectly done all along. This in fact was never possible;
and, to try to make haste, safe face where no face-saving is
really needed, all with limited and very small resources for
documentation when indeed a rather large effort is required
is, in my opinion, to continue to be dismal and umproductive.
But, in whatever light various people interpret it all,
the fact is that for several reasons each of which were valid
in their time in the past, what went down at each of those
times is what went down. I don't truly think we can change
that history by truing, amid increasing antagonisms, to
conduct uneconomic gestures.in the present.
Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001200050004-1