Official comments and Intelligence
The publication of Lusar's book in 1957 not surprisingly provoked both military and intelligence interest. From the New Britain Herald for TThursday, March 14 1957 comes a media-friendly response to the publicity the book had been given.
No Flying Saucer Built by Hitler
WASHINGTON (AP) James H Doolittle says it "just ain't so" that Nazi Germany developed a flying saucer and a bomber that could attack the United States and return without refuelling.
The veteran airman, chairman of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, gave a House Appropriations subcommittee his estimate of reports published in Germany of great aviation accomplishments under Hitler. These were contained in a book by Rudolf Lusar, former German War Ministry special weapons chief.
Doolittle's testimony was published today, along with that of Hugh L Dryden, director of the advisory committee. Dryden said "there is no truth" in a statement that German engineers designed a flying saucer which attained a height of 40,000 feet and speed of 1,250 miles an hour.
"This is an advertisement for a book which includes material discovered by our groups who went into Germany after the war", he said.
Dryden said also the man supposed to have designed the bomber that could cross the Atlantic without refuelling had written a book of his own with no mention of any such invention.
Doolittle, asked about both the saucer and the bomber, said, "It just ain't so." [72]
A report dated 29 March 1957, declassified in 1978, from Robert E O'Connor of the Air Technical Intelligence Center to the Director of Intelligence is considerably more specific. It has become very common in the past few years to publish 'intelligence' documents on the pretext that they all have equal value, but this report records the outcome of genuine research by those competent to conduct it. I've quote the relevant sections - perhaps it isn't too surprising that those who want us to believe in the Saucer Builders haven't given it much publicity!
Subject: (Unclassified) Review of Book by Rudolf Lusar
1. Reference is made to conversations between Colonel W O Farrier and Dr S T Possony on the above subject (Unclassified)
2. This office basically concurs with your review of the book 'The German Weapons and Secret Weapons of World War II and their subsequent development' (Unclassified)
3. There is no evidence in AFOIN-4 files of German development of 'Flying Discs', nor is there any indication of Soviet development of such a vehicle. A check of available biographical files reveals no information on Miethe. The A V Roe engineering staff were contacted and they have no knowledge of Miethe in their organisation." [73]
There seems to be no reason to believe that these comments were at any stage designed to be misleading, or were based on inadequate or inaccurate research. What the Air Technical Intelligence Center found seems to have been the truth: that there were no high-performance flying discs, and that nobody had a clue about 'Miethe', whatever his first name may have been, becoming involved in disc or rocket development anywhere, at any time.
