EOP-UAP-D002, Memorandum on Interagency Coordination for the Recovery of Foreign Materiel, May 1963

Official Description

This document is an internal National Aeronautics and Space Council (NASC) memorandum from staff member R.W. Hale to Executive Secretary Edward C. Welsh. NASC was a 1958–1973 body within the Executive Office of the President responsible at the time for coordinating U.S. space policy. The memorandum records a May 28, 1963, meeting with Arnold Frutkin, Director of International Programs at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), concerning the development of a coordinated interagency policy for recovering reentering U.S. and Soviet space debris and satellite fragments that might land on foreign soil. This memorandum is associated with a larger body of interagency correspondence included in this collection under the title “USG-UAP-D002.” The memorandum highlights an interagency policy debate over organizational jurisdiction during the early Space Race. It states that the Department of State and Department of War sought to leverage NASA’s standing as a civilian scientific agency to help facilitate discreet recovery of sensitive space hardware while publicly returning non-sensitive components to the country of origin. As described in the memorandum, the proposed arrangement would have served several purposes: enabling access to adversary technologies, protecting U.S. technologies, preserving diplomatic goodwill, and obscuring the intelligence gathering dimension of technology recovery operations. The memorandum also presents Director Frutkin’s reaction to the proposed arrangement as “very negative.”

Key Findings

• →Frutkin was 'very negative on the project' and felt no public announcement was needed, and that a White House Executive Order or statement would scare people needlessly.
• →Frutkin stated that 'the problem is overseas' and that State would like to point to NASA as the U.S. responsible agency without a public announcement.
• →Frutkin believed DOD and the Air Force wanted to use NASA as a 'cover' but intended NASA only to return some pieces.
• →NASA was reportedly drafting legislation but would oppose sending it to Congress due to the harmful debate it would cause.
• →NASA was advised to wait for the USIB's decision, and Frutkin's comments on the DOD paper might be passed to the AEC at staff level.

Extracted Entities