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R. V. Jones
As R. V. Jones features prominently in this history of officialdom’s involvement with the UFO issue, we should give a brief summary of his career. He was a protégé of Churchill’s key scientific advisor Frederick Lindemann (later Lord Cherwell) and Sir Henry Tizard. He played a key role in anticipating and countering German technical advances in fields such as radar, radio-beam navigation, V-1 and V-2 weapons and the embryonic German nuclear programme. He was appointed as Assistant Director of Intelligence(Science) in 1941 and promoted to Director of Intelligence in 1946. He left government service that same year, taking the chair of Natural Philosophy (the old term for physics) at the University of Aberdeen, his candidacy having been supported by Winston Churchill and Lord Cherwell. He returned to government service in 1952 at Churchill’s request, as Director of Scientific Intelligence at the MOD, but returned to his academic career at Aberdeen at the end of 1953.
During his government service Jones forged very close links with the Americans, especially the CIA, who in 1993 honoured him with a perpetual intelligence medal in his name. When he died in 1997 the CIA issued a press release containing eulogies from Director George Tenet and former Director James Woolsey (This press release can be viewed online at www.cia.gov).
Jones’ involvement in the UFO issue is not widely known, but is documented in a number of sources, including the following:
1. Chapter 52 of his book Most Secret War.
2. Annex V of the Condon report.
3. CIA Chief Historian Gerald Haines’ article CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90: A Die-hard Issue.
4. Private papers held at the Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.
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