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By Thomas J. Carey & Donald R. Schmitt
One of the most infamous engagements in U.S. military history was the My Lai Massacre, which happened in 1968 during the Vietnam War. In the heat of action, American troops killed apparently unarmed, non-combatant, Vietnamese civilians. A court martial was held, and even though a cogent argument of extenuating circumstances was presented in defense of those accused, prison sentences were handed down to soldiers of the U.S. Army.
More recently, a similar charge of apparent military excess against civilians from that same conflict has been lodged against a former U.S. senator and now an ex-presidential hopeful, Bob Kerrey of Nebraska.
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This picture, taken in late 1947 or early 1948, shows Walker AFB (formerly Roswell Army Air Field) personnel parading in strength down Main St. in Roswell, shortly after the "Roswell Incident" when the "guest turned on its host" by threatening local citizens' lives. Demonstrations such as this left no doubt as to who was in charge in Roswell.
PHOTO COURTESY OF WALTER HAUT.
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A Navy Seal during the Vietnam War, Kerrey led a raid on a Vietnamese hamlet, and when the smoke had cleared, civilians lay dead in the center of the village. Although no formal charges have yet been brought against Kerrey (his role is alleged to have been similar to that of Lt. William Calley of My Lai infamy), his presidential aspirations came to a screeching halt when these accusations became public. (Kerrey has denied the allegations.)
The point of these examples is that a military reprisal against civilians, even in times of war and against enemy civilians, is repugnant to our value system and something that will not be tolerated by the American people. Today, we would refer to them as civil-rights violations, or war crimes if committed in time of war, and their perpetrators would be brought to a swift justice and punished severely. In particular, when such acts involve excesses by the military establishment upon the helpless — whether military or civilian — the resulting outrage by the media can reach firestorm proportions.
Such was not always the case, however. Immediately following World War II, the United States enjoyed an understandably euphoric period of joy, pride and optimism. The Axis had been defeated, and our boys were coming home. During this period, which lasted roughly from late 1945 until the start of the Korean War in 1950, our undefeated military and the people in it were placed upon a pedestal and held in high esteem by a grateful America. Our military could do no wrong. Or so the American people thought.
The sudden and unexpected arrival of the modern age of UFOs in the summer of 1947 caught our military establishment completely by surprise. In the military mindset, the first thought was that these craft might be some new creation of Soviet Russia — and, by extension, a potential threat to our national security. Even after it was determined that the UFOs were definitely not of Russian origin, the national-security concerns prevailed, and the entire matter of flying saucers was given a security classification "higher than the H-bomb," as one source described it.
Occurring during the first week of July 1947, the "Roswell Incident" coincided with a wave of flying-saucer sightings that swept the United States that summer. Each new "sighting of the day" commanded front-page attention in most of the country's newspapers, and Roswell was no exception. As an anxious and excited nation — if not the world — awaited more news of the discovery, things were about to change.
Moving quickly to kill the story, the U.S. government resorted to a combination of tactics, including appeals to patriotism; claims of a need to ensure "national security"; bribery; threats of long prison sentences; and outright thuggery, in the form of death threats. As a result, the "Roswell Incident" became a two- to three-day story, quickly passed from the public consciousness, and was forgotten.
As William Moore and Charles Berlitz reported in their book The Roswell Incident (1980), a British Royal Air Force officer, Flight Lieutenant Hughie Green, was at the time driving his car from California to Philadelphia. While traversing the state of New Mexico, Green heard the first radio reports concerning the crashed saucer near Roswell. Continuing on his journey, he heard several updates to the story, including several "we interrupt this program" news flashes. By the time Green arrived in Philadelphia, however, there was no further reporting about the event. The story was dead.
Those in the military who were involved in the retrieval of the wreckage, the bodies and what was left of the crashed UFO itself were the easiest elements for the government to control. Roswell Army Air Field was a Strategic Air Command [SAC] base, so all personnel who worked there, military and civilian, were already familiar with the policy of not talking even to family members about events that transpired at the base — ever. To drive home this point, the enlisted men involved in the cleanup at the various sites were detained in groups and "debriefed" [i.e., sworn to secrecy under the guise of "national security"]. To ensure their silence, lengthy prison terms were promised to anyone who might be considering talking.
We also have heard that bribes of $10,000 or more were used to purchase the silence of those who saw the bodies. The officers involved, especially career officers, were even less of a problem. An officer seeking to advance his or her career in the military does not do so by defying orders or breaching security. One key officer who was heavily involved in the recovery operations even promised President Truman [via Truman's aide] that he would keep the secret forever. He held that secret inviolate until he lay on his deathbed many decades later.
Controlling civilians, however, was a far more difficult matter.
Except in time of war or under conditions when martial law has been declared, the U.S. military has no direct Constitutional authority over American civilians. It could keep quiet its own house (i.e., the men of 509th Atomic Bomb Group stationed in Roswell, and others in the chain of command), but how can the armed forces keep civilians from exercising their First Amendment-guaranteed freedom of speech? There were many civilians involved in the "Roswell Incident" from the beginning: from the initial discovery of pieces of wreckage by civilians near Corona, N.M.; to the discovery of the craft itself, again by civilians, closer to Roswell; to the recovery operations at the Roswell base itself; to, finally, the shipment of the wreckage and bodies to Wright Field [later renamed Wright-Patterson Air Force Base] in Dayton, Ohio.
Aside from the Corona ranchers whose homes were indiscriminately ransacked during the Army's mad search for "souvenirs" from the crash, and the rancher Mack Brazel, whose discovery initiated the entire chain of events and who was dealt with directly by the military [he was detained at the Roswell base against his will for a week; there he was intimidated, threatened, given an invasive physical exam, cajoled and ultimately bribed to change his story and promise never to talk about the incident again], other civilians involved in the 1947 Roswell events were dealt with through civilian authority-figure proxies. The highest-ranking of these was Dennis Chávez, a U.S. senator from New Mexico from 1935-62.
Chávez was "enlisted" by the Army to intimidate Roswell radio station KGFL, whose ownership had secured an exclusive, recorded interview with Mack Brazel during which Brazel told of finding strange wreckage and the bodies of "little people."
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KGFL majority owner Walter Whitmore Sr., became complicit the military cover-up of the Roswell Incident after his broadcast license was threatened by the FCC and U.S. Sen. Dennis Chávez. Whitmore was instrumental in the suppression of public statements by rancher Mack Brazel, and by KGFL announcer Frank Joyce.
PHOTO COURTESY OF MRS. WALTER WHITMORE, JR.
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Walt Whitmore, Sr., the station's majority owner, was threatened by Sen. Chávez with loss of the station's broadcasting license if it went ahead with its plans to air the Brazel interview (KGFL had planned to "scoop" the other Roswell media outlets with the interview). KGFL minority owner Jud Roberts was similarly threatened. For good measure, a high-ranking member of the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] in Washington, D.C., also threatened Whitmore and Roberts with the same message. It worked better than was hoped for: Whitmore caved-in completely, not only turning over the feared Brazel taped interview, but also becoming a willing accomplice in the military's campaign to silence civilians.
One of Whitmore's broadcasters, Frank Joyce, had also received a phone call from "a military person in Washington" and had been "read the riot act" and told to shut up about the crash. Joyce had been the first media person to interview Brazel, and he knew Brazel's original story — especially the part about Brazel finding small bodies. Incensed about being told what to do by someone in the military, Joyce stated, in colorful terms, his intention not to cooperate. The angry voice in Washington shot back, "I'll show what I can do!" and hung up.
A couple days later, Whitmore told Joyce to get into his car; he said they should "go for a ride." Joyce got into Whitmore's car and noticed a strange-looking man in an unusual uniform sitting in the back seat. The man did not speak. Whitmore drove north out of Roswell for about 45 minutes, to a remote wooden shack off Corona Road. He was told by Whitmore to get out of the car and go into the shack. Joyce did as he was told, still not knowing what was going on. Joyce stood alone in the shack for a few minutes, wondering what was about to happen, when in walked Mack Brazel.
"You're not going to say anything about what I told you the
other day, are you?" Brazel asked Joyce.
"Not if you don't want me to," Joyce responded.
"Good," Brazel said. "You know our lives will never be the
same."
With that, Brazel walked out, and Joyce never laid eyes on him again. Joyce then returned to Whitmore's car for the ride back to Roswell, but noticed that the stranger in the back seat was gone.
The government apparently was unconvinced by Joyce's pledge not to say anything. Shortly after his return to Roswell, he was physically removed to an unnamed Texas "hospital" and, in his words, "put on ice" for a year or so, under circumstances that are still not clear to him. A Roswell native, Joyce never returned to his hometown after his discharge from the Texas facility.
Sheriff George Wilcox of Chaves County, N.M., of which Roswell is the county seat, was another authority proxy utilized by the Army to help contain the story.
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Sheriff George Wilcox was used by the military to suppress civilian witnesses with threats of "terminal action" if they did not keep quiet. This photo is from the front page of the July 9, 1947, Roswell Daily Record.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ROSWELL
DAILY RECORD ARCHIVES AND THE INTERNATIONAL UFO MUSEUM, ROSWELL, N.M.
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A picture of him on the telephone and looking like a "deer caught in the headlights" was featured prominently on the front page of the July 9, 1947, edition of the Roswell Daily Record. But Wilcox was doing more than just answering telephone calls. He refused to give out any details to inquiries regarding what was going on, because he was "helping out the fellows from the base." He also completely "rolled over" in the face of the military "full-court press" by allowing himself to be used as the "enforcer" to intimidate local Roswellians into keeping their mouths shut about what they had witnessed. It was his task to deliver the threat of the "ultimate sanction" to those who saw or knew about the bodies recovered from the crash.
Glenn Dennis, the Roswell mortician, knew about the bodies found at the crash site from a nurse friend who was involved in the autopsy of one of them at the base. Dennis' life had been threatened at the base hospital, by an officer who demanded Dennis forget what he had witnessed there. Like broadcaster Frank Joyce, Dennis became incensed at his treatment by the officer and openly defied the order to remain silent. The next day, his father received a visit from Sheriff Wilcox and a deputy, who told the elder Dennis that his son "was in trouble at the base." Dennis had no doubt that the Army officer's threat of the previous day was part of the message delivered to his father by Wilcox.
Brothers Ruben and Pete Anaya in 1947 were Montoyistas — supporters of then-Lt. Governor (and future New Mexico congressman and senator) Joseph Montoya. Montoya was in Roswell on either July 7 or July 8, on a regularly scheduled trip, when he was asked to report to a certain hangar on the Roswell base. The caller said they had tried to reach the governor but could not locate him. Montoya, the next-highest-ranking elected official in the state, was then called; the fact he was in Roswell at the time was merely a fortunate coincidence. According to the Anaya brothers, they received a telephone call from a shaken Montoya; he asked them to join him at the hangar as soon as possible and pick him up.
The brothers, who both worked on the base, drove over to hangar area but were kept at a distance from the building by armed guards. Montoya appeared through a small door in the front of the hangar and staggered over to the car and the waiting Anayas. Montoya shouted at them, "Let's get the hell out of here!"
The Anayas drove to their home. Montoya sat in the back seat; they said he looked ghostly pale, shook for the entire ride, and repeated over and over again, "They weren't human! They weren't human!"
The next day, the two Anaya brothers and their families were paid a visit at their homes by Sheriff Wilcox. According to Pete Anaya and his wife, Mary, who were interviewed again in September 2002 about this incident, Wilcox vowed to impose the ultimate sanction upon them if they talked about what they had seen:
"If you say anything, you will be killed. And your
entire family will be killed, as well."
It is not known to how many others Sheriff Wilcox delivered "the message" on behalf of the Army. What is known, however, is that he never ran for Sheriff again. According to family and friends, the Roswell events "destroyed him." Now we know why. When asked about all this just a few years ago, a former deputy of Wilcox's responded, "I don't want to get shot."
Sheriff Wilcox soon discovered, however, that his complicity did not equate to immunity. After the story of the Roswell crash had been contained and public interest in the matter had subsided, the Army paid a visit to Wilcox and his wife, Inez. This was no social call, no occasion for praise, no courtesy call to reward him for a nasty job well done. The message delivered to the startled couple was that unless they kept quiet about everything, particularly Wilcox's role in the coverup, not only would they be killed, but their children would also be killed. Sheriff Wilcox died in 1961. Asked by her granddaughter years later whether she believed the threats or not, Inez Wilcox looked at her with a straight face and clear eyes.
"What do you think?" she said darkly.
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