Brown’s leadership was brief. As mentioned previously, he had been conducting experiments in electromagnetism and gravity. In 1956, he joined an informal flying saucer discussion group and immediately envisioned a larger organization to collect, analyze, and disperse information about UFO reports, and also to promote his own research. He soon appointed an acting treasurer, acquired a secretary, and obtained office space. When NICAP’s corporate charter was approved on October 24, 1956, Brown appeared ready for business. However, NICAP quickly ran into financial trouble. At a meeting in January 1957, Brown and NICAP member Donald Keyhoe argued openly about Brown’s leadership, and Brown resigned from the organization. Keyhoe became the new director.
From the outset, NICAP was packed with navy men. Brown and Keyhoe both had strong navy connections and both recruited board members. As a result, NICAP started its existence with three admirals on its board of governors: Rear Adm. Delmar Fahrney, known in the navy as the “father of the guided missile;” Vice Adm. Roscoe Hillenkoetter, better known for having been the first director of the CIA; and WWII submarine commander Rear Adm. H. B. Knowles. Other early governing members were Dr. Earl Douglass, Maj. Dewey Fournet, J. B. Hartranft, Col. Robert B. Emerson, Frank Edwards, Prof. Charles A. Maney, Rev. Albert Baller, Dr. Marcus Bach, and Rev. Leon C. Le Van. Soon after, NICAP added such people as Leonard Stringfield, who served as public relations director until 1972, and Delbert Newhouse, of Utah film fame. This board of governors remained remarkably stable for most of the organization’s existence.
Keyhoe, however, was the driving force. Unlike Brown, he was no scientist ; his interests were far more political. Under Keyhoe, NICAP continued to define itself as a collection center of UFO reports, just as Brown had wanted. But the scientific impetus that Brown had given NICAP was now replaced by the force of Keyhoe’s personality, and the organization took on a new mission: to end UFO secrecy once and for all.
An interesting twist to the history of NICAP was that it was not merely the home of many former navy men. Unknown to other members, a number of “ex-CIA” people were also involved in the formation of NICAP. Count Nicolas de Rochefort, a Russian immigrant and scriptwriter for the Voice of America, was NICAP’s first vice-chairman. He was also a member of the CIA’s psychological warfare staff. Bernard J. Carvalho, connected to the Fairway Corporation, one of the CIA’s dummy companies, was another early member; he later chaired NICAP’s membership committee.
Links to the agency continued over the years. Rochefort’s boss at CIA was Col. Joseph Bryan, who joined the NICAP Board in 1960. A bit later, former CIA briefing officer Karl Pflock joined, chairing NICAP’s Washington, D.C., subcommittee in the 1960s. Over the years, Pflock denied that the CIA ever asked him for information on either UFOs or NICAP. During NICAP’s decline in the late 1960s and early 1970s, more individuals associated with the CIA became involved in the organization. Several of these were central in replacing Keyhoe as director, just as he began to focus on the CIA instead of the air force as the source of the UFO cover-up.
Could it be, as Pflock maintained, that the CIA had no real interest in NICAP, that the participation of these people with longtime agency connections was just a coincidence, based solely on their personal interests? Piercing endless walls of denial can be fruitless, with the heap of evidence never leading to proof. Yet the guidelines of the Robertson Panel, still secret in 1956, emphasized the need to monitor civilian UFO organizations. Could the most formidable of these really escape CIA notice? As early as 1957, CIA agents coerced NICAP advisor Ralph Mayher to give them a movie film depicting a UFO, which they later returned with the best frames cut out. NICAP clearly elicited interest from the CIA.1
