For Discussion: Is Hadley Cantril the architect of UFO secrecy?

I’m really interested in getting to the bottom of UFO secrecy. If you’re inclined to believe the claims of David Grusch (or the “UAP Disclosure Act” has piqued your interest) I think it’s important to understand how and why the United States government might have decided to keep this secret.

Last week, I wrote an article about the book that I think justified the secrecy option (The Most Important Book You’ve Never Head Of) and this week I want to open a conversation about the man who wrote it (The Curious Case of Hadley Cantril).

Here are some things you need to know about our boy Hadley:

Hadley Cantril was the country’s leading expert on the psychology of radio in the 1930’s. When the War of the Worlds Broadcast supposedly sparked a public panic in 1938, Cantril was a professor of psychology at Princeton, located about 3 miles from the fictional Martian invasion site. Hadley Cantril was tapped to conduct the only investigation of the War of the Worlds broadcast, where he (incorrectly) determined that 1.2 million Americans panicked. Cantril also came up with one of the first actual definitions of public panic, which was so broad that it could be applicable to almost anything. In the same year his investigation was published (1940) Cantril was tapped by then Nelson Rockefeller (then a Presidential Advisor) to covertly “set up mechanisms that would gauge public opinion in Latin America.” Americans were concerned about Nazi propaganda down there and Cantril was the man they chose to see if it was working. His success on this project sparked a personal friendship with the President who personally re-tasked Cantril into two further covert polling operations during World War II. One of these involved covert polling and psychological manipulation of the American public (who were reluctant to join World War II, prior to Pearl Harbor). When the major events of UFO history kicked off in 1947 (or 1945, per the most recent claims by Grusch), Hadley Cantril had written the only book ever on the public’s psychological reaction to UFOs. He was, at this point, a White House advisor with a huge track record of success and a clear bias that suggested the public would panic if we told them anything. Did Hadley Cantril’s career stop there? No. He started an explicit front organization for the CIA. That’s not a kooky opinion, that’s per The New York Times. That organization went on to do some of the most sensitive covert polling through the entire Cold War. He remained a loyal member of the IC and the National Security State until his untimely death in 1969. He advised every President from Franklin D. Roosevelt to John F. Kennedy. As many here will note, a crucial time period for what would become America’s UFO policy.

I cover some of the more salient details of this very underrated man’s life here. But there’s also plenty of opportunity to dig deeper. Any fellow researchers might consider:

Looking for this man’s name in Presidential calendars. Looking for his name in any current or future documents, including those that might be released under the future “UAP Transparency Act.” Scouring available records for polling done by his CIA front org “The Institute for International Social Research.”

So was Hadley Cantril the architect of UFO secrecy? Hope we can discuss if the world’s foremost covert polling expert, might have, you know … polled some of us covertly.