The Revealing Truth of Ufos, Secret Aircraft, Cover-Ups & Conspiracies: Area 51
As I noted in the previous chapter, the alleged CIA document of 1962 on Marilyn Monroe, Howard Rothberg, and Dorothy Kilgallen refers to a “visit by the President at a secret air base for the purpose of inspecting things from outer space.” Within ufology, this has inevitably given rise to the theory— and a reasonable theory, too—that if the document is the real deal, then that same “secret air base” must have been Area 51. Quite possibly, it was.
It’s significant to note that the matter of a secret facility of Area 51-like proportions popped up in another setting, but it was also in 1962. As well as being the year in which Marilyn Monroe died, 1962 also saw the release of a novel that, two years later, was turned into a big-bucks movie. The title: Seven Days in May. It’s an absorbing, thought-provoking story that tells of an attempted military coup to take control of the U.S. government. Its authors were Charles W. Bailey II (who died in 2012 at the age of eighty-two) and Fletcher Knebel, who, in 1960, interestingly wrote a chapter on JFK for a book titled Candidate 1960.
Interestingly, the screenplay for the movie was written by Rod Serling of The Twilight Zone fame. Serling was also a significant figure in the field of antiwar activism—to the extent that several intelligence agencies had files on Serling, including the FBI.
Seven Days in May starred a number of major movie stars of that era, including Kirk Douglas, Ava Gardner, Burt Lancaster, Fredric March, Martin Balsam, and Edmond O’Brien. In the story, Lancaster’s character of General James Mattoon Scott secretly initiates a plan to take over the elected U.S. government (run by President Jordan Lyman and played by March) by force.
General Scott sees President Lyman’s plans to enter into a nuclear treaty with the Soviet Union as weak and ineffectual and as a danger to U.S. national security and to the American people.
It’s only when Douglas’s character of Col. “Jiggs” Casey stumbles onto strands of the plan that things slowly start to unravel. To his horror, Casey comes to realize that what begins as a wild suspicion is an all-too-real fact: the government is about to be toppled in favor of a new, military-driven government. When Casey speaks with the president and his closest aide, Paul Girard (Balsam), their response is filled with nothing but skepticism, at least at first. It’s only when Casey shares all that he has found out, and the president begins to realize what is secretly going on right under his nose, that steps are taken to try to stop the coup and have the conspirators arrested as traitors, so a race begins. It’s a race that will decide the very future of the United States.
Unbeknownst to just about everyone outside of the planned coup— including the president and his entire team—a top-secret facility has been established out in the deserts of El Paso, Texas. It’s the headquarters of the organization that wishes to overthrow the White House—an organization we come to learn is known as ECOMCON, or Emergency Communications Control.
Senator Raymond Clark (O’Brien) is ordered to find the base. At first, Clark is doubtful that such a secret installation could have been constructed without any kind of congressional oversight or funding—that is, until he sees it for himself. Clark learns that its code name is “Site Y.”
As the story progresses, we see a mysterious death, mounting conspiracies, intrigue, and mystery, and we learn more about that Area 51-style secret base known as Site Y. Finally, a confrontation occurs between President Lyman and General Scott, a confrontation that brings the country back from the brink of a military dictatorship.
The document concerning Marilyn Monroe’s knowledge of a “secret air base” was allegedly written in 1962. That was the same year in which the Knebel–Bailey novel Seven Days in May was released and became a best-seller —and that had at its heart a classified installation that is practically impenetrable and that not even the president knows about. Then, in 1964 in the movie spin- off, we are further exposed to the world of an Area 51-like base. In view of all this, one has to wonder if a leak of data had occurred back in the early 1960s—a leak that reached the ears and eyes of a world-famous actress and a couple of enterprising writers and was focused on a clandestine facility that, for all intents and purposes, operated outside of the elected government.
We may never know for sure if such a leak did occur—and a 1960s-era equivalent of Edward Snowden decided to blow the whistle on a real Site Y— but, undoubtedly, while Site Y is fiction, it eerily mirrors what we know of Area 51: both have notable code names. Both installations are buried deep in desert environments. Most people in the government have no idea what is afoot there.
Not even the government can figure out where it gets its funding from. Access to the base is almost impossible unless one has the required clearance levels and need-to-know importance.
It should be noted, too, that Fletcher Knebel—the coauthor of Seven days in May—had a great deal of distrust of the government and of the intelligence community. His novels—which included Trespass, Sabotage, and Vanished— are tinged with varying degrees of conspiracy. It’s also a fact that Knebel had a number of unnamed insiders in the government who helped to ensure the accuracy of some of the concepts and government protocol presented in his novels. In light of all this, one has to wonder if one of those sources shared certain data with Knebel on Area 51. Such a scenario is certainly possible.
Finally, to conclude this chapter, let’s talk about the astonishing and little- known connection between Knebel and President John F. Kennedy who, as we have seen, may have secretly paid a visit to Area 51. Midway through 1962, Knebel mailed to JFK an advance copy of Seven Days in May.
Patrick Kiger, who has deeply researched the Knebel–JFK connection, said in 2014: “JFK quickly read the book and then shared it with his brother, as well as members of their inner circle. While JFK thought it was marred by ‘awful amateurish dialogue’ and that the President was drawn too vaguely, the character of treasonous Gen. Scott made a strong impression upon him.
JFK took it upon himself to ensure that a hit movie was made of the book, as a preemptive strike against his extremist enemies. As JFK aide Pierre Salinger later told journalist and author David Talbot, ‘Kennedy wanted Seven Days in May to be made as a warning to the generals. The President said, ‘The first thing I’m going to tell my successor is, ‘Don’t trust the military men—even on military matters.’” Unfortunately, Kennedy did not live long enough to see Seven Days in May become a hit across the United States.
In light of all the above, one has to wonder what President Kennedy thought of the novel’s Site Y. Did he know that it mirrored the all-too-real Area 51? Did, perhaps, Seven Days in May inspire the president to dig further into what was going down at Area 51? Did he wonder from where, and whom, Knebel got his information? They are probing and important questions that we are unlikely to see answered any time soon, but we’re still not done with matters relative to Area 51 in 1962.
It was in April 1962 that a man named John McMahon made a startling recommendation with regard to Area 51 and the secrecy surrounding it. At the time, McMahon was working in the Executive Office with the CIA’s Development Plans Division. It was in April that McMahon sent a classified memorandum to the chief of the Development Plans Division. Now in the public domain, the document reads as follows: “John Parangosky [a key figure in the CIA who worked on the Corona program] and I have previously discussed the advisability of having a U-2 take photographs of Area 51 and, without advising the photographic interpreters of what the target is, ask them to determine what type of activity is being conducted at the site photographed.
In connection with the upcoming CORONA shots, it might be advisable to cut in a pass crossing the Nevada Test Site to see what we ourselves could learn from satellite reconnaissance of the Area. This coupled with coverage from the Deuce [U-2] and subsequent photographic interpretation would give us a fair idea of what deductions and conclusions could be made by the Soviets should Sputnik 13 have a reconnaissance capability.”