Watch Committee
The Watch Committee is the informal name given to a three-person oversight group that, according to the Wilson-Davis Memo, controlled access to and managed a crash retrieval and reverse engineering program housed within an aerospace contractor. The committee consisted of a security director (former NSA), a program director, and a corporate attorney.
Formation and Purpose
According to Vice Admiral Thomas Wilson's account in the Wilson-Davis memo, when he inquired about the name "watch committee," the three overseers explained they had formed it "out of necessity to protect themselves after a near-disaster almost blew their cover."
Wilson pieced together that a past audit investigation had nearly exposed the program, leading to a tug-of-war over program transparency with Pentagon officials, with money and hiding being central issues. A threat was levied to blow the lid off the program. The investigator conducting the audit was eventually briefed and given a tour of the program. Following this incident, a formal agreement was struck with SAPOC to prevent future discovery of the program, and the watch committee was established to enforce special access criteria.
Authority and Access Control
The watch committee established rigorous criteria to control all access to the program: no United States government personnel could access the program unless they met strict, undisclosed criteria. The committee refused to tell Wilson exactly what these criteria were.
When Wilson demanded access based on his position as Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency with statutory oversight and regulatory authority over all DoD special access programs (both acknowledged and unacknowledged), the watch committee denied that his regulatory authority applied to their program. They showed him pages of a Bigot List to demonstrate the types of individuals cleared for the program—all were civilians (scientists, engineers, technicians, managers), with no politicians, White House officials, presidents, or congressional members.
Program Details
The watch committee oversaw a reverse engineering program focused on recovered technological hardware. According to the memo, the program manager told Wilson they had "a craft, an intact craft they believed could fly" that was "not of this Earth, not made by man, not by human hands."
The program had been attempting to understand and exploit the technology for years with slow progress and little success, partly due to inability to collaborate with outside scientific experts. The program was described as not fitting into standard categories: it was not a weapons, intelligence, special operations, or logistics program. Only 400 to 800 workers total had been involved since the program's inception.
The program was coordinated by an aerospace technology contractor described as "the best one of them," active in defense and intelligence work—likely Lockheed Martin based on subsequent whistleblower accounts and statements by Senator Harry Reid.
Denial of Wilson's Access
Despite Wilson's seniority and clearance level, the watch committee—backed by SAPOC—sustained the denial of access. When Wilson complained to the SAPOC senior review group at the Pentagon, the group's chairman, John Deutsch, threatened Wilson that if he did not drop the matter, "he would not see the Director of DIA promotion, he would get an early retirement, and lose one to two stars."