The latest FBI records obtained on Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer were compiled during a 1970 special inquiry conducted for then-President Richard Nixon. View the FBI records received in December and the master folder of all material obtained to date on Gen. Wedemeyer.
The Bureau was composing reports to be submitted to Gertrude Brown Fry, White House Staff Assistant for Security, appointed to supervise the collection and storage of records in a Special Files unit. We now know the FBI inquiry was done to clear Wedemeyer for appointment to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a group on which he would be joining Gordon Gray, who served on the board from 1961-1977. EFR previously explored fascinating aspects of Gordon Gray and his far-reaching network.
The FBI records obtained in December on Wedemeyer further establish his role as Army Director of Plans and Operations from 1947-48, extensive service during World War II, and expertise in the Eastern war theater. The latest records also establish Wedemeyer as a longtime associate and friend of President Nixon.
The late general was a career intelligence officer at the highest levels of U.S. operations, including serving on the War Planning Board, which is credited with designing D-Day. He was also characterized by the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena during the 1950s as evaluating UFO reports for the organization. The group would later report the relationship was discontinued for reasons it described as releasing Wedemeyer's name by mistake. “Gen. Wedemeyer said he had never intended for the former management to make his name public,” NICAP reported in a 1957 publication:
It could be considered intriguing that while the FBI documented virtually every aspect of the professional and social life of men like Albert Wedemeyer, it opted not to advise the president of his association with NICAP, at least not in material currently declassified and/or yet obtained. This might be because the general's involvement in the UFO fray was part of his professional responsibilities, not to be filed with such activities as serving as a trustee of a little league baseball foundation, which was indeed listed and included an interview conducted by the Bureau with the group's secretary.
Moreover, the FBI compiled information for the FBI New Orleans Field Office in 1961 after a clerk inquired whether there would be any objection to becoming active in NICAP. The resulting memo from Dir. Hoover expressed disagreement with NICAP activities, specifically, its attack on the Air Force. It also criticized the writing of Maj. Donald Keyhoe, the face of the organization.
“[Keyhoe] has been a freelance writer for national magazines," Hoover wrote, "and a flamboyant style has characterized his articles. In the past, when he has written concerning topics of direct interest to the Bureau, we have found much of his material to be irresponsible.
“A number of former United States military officers have been affiliated with the NICAP and Keyhoe has openly attempted to capitalize upon their names and military titles. The Bureau has been most cautious in handling correspondence from the NICAP to avoid any inference that we hold views, either favorable or unfavorable, to this organization.
“As the above information regarding Donald Keyhoe and the NICAP reflects, the NICAP is not the type of organization with which the Bureau's name should become connected – either through membership of FBI employees in the NICAP or by any other means.” (FBI Records: The Vault - National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), Part 2, pp12-13)
FBI Dir. Hoover clearly viewed association with NICAP as inadvisable. More directly stated, he did not allow it. Yet, reports and records obtained to date on intelligence officers who were NICAP personnel not only fail to reflect this Bureau policy, but often include positive assessments leading to the officers being granted continuing clearance to work in sensitive positions.
The UFO subculture largely prefers to remain oblivious to these circumstances and implications. It's as if it would have us believe men involved in the most classified aspects of national security and personal associates of presidents would simply moonlight as UFO investigators out of recreational interest, and as if it would be overlooked and omitted from future mention.
In the batch of records received in December, we see a number of circumstances we have come to identify as typical in the records obtained on Cold War era assets such as Gordon Gray. Wedemeyer was active in leadership capacities with financial funds and foundations, for instance, including a group in New York that sponsored academic work. That was also the case with Gray.
In Gray's circumstance, he was associated with the Committee for Economic Development at 444 Madison Ave, NY, NY. Wedemeyer was with the American Economic Foundation at 51 East 42nd St. He was also involved with the Townsend Fund out of New York as well as serving as a director of the Financial Industrial Fund of Denver.
The American Economic Foundation was started by Fred Clark in 1940. He widely promoted conservative politics and later moved the foundation from its Cleveland beginnings to New York.
Other notable associates of Wedemeyer, as documented by the FBI, include Dr. Alton Ochsner Sr. and Dr. George S. Johnson. Ochsner was a surgeon at Tulane University who went on to open a network of clinics credited with first establishing the link between cigarettes and cancer. He is tragically known for injecting his grandchildren with an improperly manufactured and tainted batch of polio vaccine, which killed his grandson and infected his granddaughter with polio.
Johnson was a retired psychiatrist in San Francisco. He and Wedemeyer spent time together at Bohemian Grove, described in the Bureau communication as “an exclusive San Francisco men's club.”
The Wedemeyer records contain a number of opportunities for continuing research. This includes reference on page 24 to files of the Naval Investigative Service and USAF Office of Special Investigations, as shown below (For those interested, the term “BUDED” means Bureau deadline, and “BUTEL” is a Bureau teletype, or message):
EFR submitted FOIA requests to Naval Investigative Service and OSI for the referenced files.
The effort to obtain records on Gen. Wedemeyer began with a 2021 request submitted to the FBI. The Bureau subsequently provided records and advised of several file numbers potentially responsive to the request and in the custody of the National Archives and Records Administration. A series of requests and negotiations ensued with NARA in which files were systematically obtained or, in some instances, identified as lost or destroyed. Requests were strategically submitted on specific file numbers and/or parts of those files to best minimize wait time and expense.
The records obtained in December represent the first 48 pages of FBI file 161-HQ-7440, subject Albert Coady Wedemeyer, created between 1970 and 1979 as a special inquiry for the White House and consisting of an estimated 250 pages. It was the final file not yet obtained. Given the material discovered to be in the file and as described above, EFR requested the remainder of the material.
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