LETTER TO DR. PUTHOFF

CIA-STARGATE

PDF Scan: PDF

Open AI Summary

In this memo from February 1984, the author addresses the issue of documentation in the Stargate program. They explain that initially, it was decided to proceed with training without extensive documentation due to funding constraints and the need to keep the project alive. The author warned that this could lead to difficulties in the future when documentation would be necessary. They also predicted that successful training would attract more funding but would require sacrificing other research and development work. The author believes that blaming one person for the lack of documentation is unfair and that all parties involved have done their best to keep the project afloat. They argue that criticizing the work done so far is unrealistic and that limited resources make comprehensive documentation challenging. Overall, the author suggests that dwelling on past mistakes and increasing antagonisms will not lead to productive outcomes.

Text

Body:  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