NSC 5412 Special Group
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 9
| Date | 28 December 1954 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Secrecy & cover-up (topic), Government programs (topic) |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 52 |
| Year | 1954 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1954 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 12 |
The 5412 Group, or Special Group, was a small committee of senior U.S. officials set up under National Security Council directives of the 1950s to review and approve CIA covert operations. It is well documented in State Department histories and Senate reports; claims that it oversaw crashed-saucer programs have no documentary support.[1][2]
The directives
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President Eisenhower approved NSC 5412 on 15 March 1954, requiring the CIA to consult the Operations Coordinating Board on covert operations. NSC 5412/1 of 12 March 1955 created a Planning Coordination Group, chaired by Nelson Rockefeller, to approve them, but it was soon abolished. NSC 5412/2, issued on 28 December 1955, created a group of designated representatives of the Secretaries of State and Defense, at assistant secretary level or above, and of the President, with the Director of Central Intelligence as an ex officio member; in 1957 the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was added. The directive remained in force for about fifteen years. (The testimony dates the group to 1954; the directive that created it is dated December 1955.)[1][3]
Renamings
The body, known as the Special Group from 1957, was renamed the 303 Committee in June 1964 after the book The Invisible Government made its name public, and the 40 Committee in February 1970 under President Nixon. In 1976 it became the Operations Advisory Group, and in 1977 the NSC Special Coordination Committee.[1]
Operations
Among the operations it reviewed was the anti-Castro Cuban Project, run from November 1961 to October 1962 by an expanded Special Group (Augmented) headed by Robert F. Kennedy after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.[1]
The Church Committee
The Senate's Church Committee investigated the system in 1975–1976 and found that only a fraction of CIA covert projects were ever reviewed by the group, with many smaller operations approved within the agency.[2][4]
UFO claims
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Some UFO researchers have suggested that the 5412 group, or something like it, could have overseen crashed-saucer programs, and the Majestic 12 papers claim a similar structure. There is no documentary evidence of that.[1][5]
People and topics
- Central Intelligence Agency — The U.S. foreign intelligence agency, which has followed UFO reports since the 1940s.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- MJ-12 — Disputed documents describing a secret committee managing crashed saucers.
On the Timeline
- 4602d AISS crashed-object claim (1954) (14 October 1954) — A Marine aviator says he was told an Air Force intelligence squadron ran a crashed-object program.
- Project Silver Bug and the Avrocar (1955) — The Air Force acknowledges a contract with Avro Canada, later known as the flying-saucer project Silverbug.
See every 1954 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- 5412 Group — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Church Committee final report, book I: covert action (PDF), AARC · aarclibrary.org · archived copy
- "National Security Council directive NSC 5412/2: covert operations", Teaching American History · teachingamericanhistory.org · archived copy
- "Covert action: NSC 5412", GlobalSecurity.org · globalsecurity.org · archived copy
- Majestic 12 — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Chronology of the 40 Committee — CIA reading room · cia.gov · archived copy
- Note on U.S. covert action programs — State Department history · history.state.gov · archived copy
- Oversight of U.S. covert operations — Wikipedia · wikipedia.com · archived copy
- 40 Committee (successor to the 5412 Special Group) — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Note on U.S. covert action programs — Office of the Historian · history.state.gov · archived copy
- en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- archives.gov · archives.gov · archived copy
Further reading
- Laurance Rockefeller — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- UFO documents — CIA Reading Room · cia.gov · archived copy
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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