GB: Yes he did. Let me back up a little bit about Bill. It’s very hard for
me to come in and condemn Bill because for one thing, I’ve seen what’s
happened from that lecture on and what people have said and his attempts to
explain himself and them not listening because most people, especially if
you’re highly emotional about it are not going to be listening to what’s
coming out of your mouth. Whatever you say is going to be interpreted the
way you want to hear it when it comes into your consciousness. That happens
with everyone. If you’ve ever been in a relationship then you know that!
The point with Bill is, and as this isn’t a radio interview so I can bring
this up, I don’t know how much interest there is in the Academy Awards but
remember that director who was given an award and who had given names to the
Committee of Un American Activities and a lot of people were mad at him for
that, Elia Kazan. They gave him a life time achievement award and half the
people stood up and clapped and the other half sat. Warren Beatty, who tries
to appear as one of the most left leaning people in Hollywood, got up and
clapped and Ed Harris who was a little bit younger just sat there with this
grim look on his face. The point with Beatty was, and he said this in the
press when they asked him this, why he was the way he was with Kazan given
his politics, and he said, “I knew him personally, he gave me my start, he
was very kind to everybody I know and I have a hard time turning on him
because of that. Or something to that effect.
And that’s how I feel about Bill. As far as I can tell, he’s always been
very straight with me, as much as he could be, if he could tell me something
he would, if he couldn’t he’d tell me why. And he would also tell me things
he didn’t want to get out to the public but he thinks will help me in my
search for whatever I’m looking for. If he can help me out, he’ll give me
some titbits of information but occasionally I’m not supposed to spread them
anywhere.
From that aspect I find it hard to pillory Bill and like you said, the fact
that he had something dangled in front of him which any of those people that
were yelling at him, I’m certain if they had gotten that deal, many of them
would have done the same thing.
SM: The feeling I’ve had so far in terms of Moore’s relationship with Doty
and AFOSI is that so far, it’s almost been all one way traffic. So far, Bill
doesn’t seem to have got much back. Does he? (Editor’s note here; sometimes
one asks stupid questions without thinking and this was probably the dumbest
I’ve ever asked).
Did they show him the golden egg so to speak?
GB: I think they gave him the biggest hint they’d given anybody up to that
point, through different documents. At first they gave him that fake one
just to make sure he wasn’t the sort of person to go spouting anything. They
wanted to make sure he was very careful about what he did and once he
assured them of that, they said, “OK”. That Eisenhower briefing document,
the famous MJ12 thing came out in 1986. Before that he had gotten bits and
pieces, he’d received something called the Carter briefing document. He was
led to a hotel in upstate New York after flying all over the country and
given 30 minutes with these documents. They said he could do anything he
wanted to do with them for half an hour and then they would take them away.
All these little documents had hints about what had happened in the past,
what records specifically the Air Force had on UFOs, what they thought about
them, and some people associated with studying them.
Some of these documents might have been genuine, some might have been
partially genuine, some might even have been completely fake but he knew at
the beginning when he was given stuff, it would be his job to check it out.
Nobody else was being given this access at the time and it went to about ’88
or ’89 when it finally trickled off. In that time, a lot, in fact maybe most
of the documents we’ve come to know as the bedrock of FOIA government
released information on UFOs were given to Bill Moore and Jamie Shandera.
Jamie is in the background here but he played a very important role in all
of this. He worked very closely with Bill. In fact the MJ12 documents were
mailed to his house in 84 or 85 I think, which was not too long after Bill
got involved.
So they did follow through on their promises but implied within that promise
was that he had to find out what was true and what was not. “We’re not going
to do it for you. We’ll give you hints.” Now if they were giving him hints
about something that was actually true, he was never able to determine that,
which was basically why he stopped. He said, “Look, I went as far as I could
and I couldn’t find out for sure. And I got as far as anybody at that
point.” He got his side of the deal except that they didn’t give out
anymore than they wanted to or they had to.
SM: Does he regret his involvement with them now?
GB: No, not at all. The only thing he said that he regretted was that speech
in Las Vegas and I think I say somewhere in there that he doesn’t think he
would have been so arrogant about it at the time. And he was. He was a
little self-righteous but I think the reason was because so many people were
cutting him down and saying he was full of it and they weren’t going to
listen to him, and all that. He got really mad at them and decided to answer
them in this way; “OK, if you don’t think it’s real, I’ll tell you what’s
been happening and you can tell me what you think of that.”
SM: Where in all this do the MJ 12 papers sit?
GB: In the Bennewitz story?
SM: In relation to Bill Moore.