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•<br />
From:<br />
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE<br />
Room 8241, Main Building, Whitehall, London, SW1A 2HB<br />
Telephone<br />
(Direct dial)<br />
(Switchboard)<br />
(Fax)<br />
1!1!1<br />
:stas:: as,<br />
Dr D W Clarke<br />
Your Reference<br />
Our Reference<br />
DIDAS(Sec)64/3/ l<br />
Dote<br />
2 FebJUary 2001<br />
Dear Dr Clarke,<br />
Thank you for your letter of 15 January enclosing your cheque for £183.75 for the reviewing,<br />
sanitising and photocopying work done on your behalf <strong>The</strong> cheque was sent to Defence Records<br />
with the request that a receipt be issued to you.<br />
A review of material from the period 1968 to 1981 identified some eighty files. As a part of the<br />
work of the Secretariat is to handle correspondence from members of the public, policy discussion<br />
on how best to answer a particular letter has tended to be spread across the range of subject files<br />
rather than appearing exclusively in designated "Policy" files. Starting by iso1ating only those<br />
files with policy in the title we trawled through the Records area of the Department before<br />
conducting a search of files still with the Secretariat. <strong>The</strong> conclusion of that search was that it ~<br />
appeared that a number of files are likely to have been destroyed in 1990; a few 'UFO' files<br />
including policy volumes were among that number. I am sorry to have to give you this<br />
disappointing news.<br />
We have, however, identified three files that contain some policy material. One of those was the<br />
AF/419 'UFOs' BBC2 Man Alive Programme' mentioned in your recent letter. I am now calling<br />
for those files to be returned to this building. <strong>The</strong> room in which they are kept has been closed to<br />
staff for some ten days for repair work but I am hoping that Records staffwill have access next<br />
week so that they can send them to me. I am not sure how many documents those files might<br />
contain so I will not attempt to estimate how quickly we might review and photocopy relevant<br />
material. I shall however write again once the files have reached us.<br />
ln your letter of 15 January you also refer to more recent policy material. As I indicate above,<br />
policy discussion is spread over the series of 'UFO' subject files as well as being located-on<br />
specific policy files but if you were able to indicate a particular year, topic or incident, we shall<br />
conduct a search.<br />
Yours sincerely,
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