Henry Tizard - Post War

Post War

He returned to the Ministry of Defence in 1948 as Chief Scientific Adviser, a post that he held until 1952. The Ministry of Defence's Nick Pope states that

The Ministry of Defence’s UFO Project has its roots in a study commissioned in 1950 by the MOD’s then Chief Scientific Adviser, the great radar scientist Sir Henry Tizard. As a result of his insistence that UFO sightings should not be dismissed without some form of proper scientific study, the Department set up arguably the most marvellously-named committee in the history of the civil service, the Flying Saucer Working Party (FSWP).

Tizard had followed the official debate about ghost rockets with interest and was intrigued by the increasing media coverage of UFO sightings in the United Kingdom, America and other parts of the world. Using his authority as Chief Scientific Adviser at the MOD he decided that the subject should not be dismissed without some proper, official investigation. Accordingly, he agreed that a small Directorate of Scientific Intelligence/Joint Technical Intelligence Committee (DSI/JTIC) working party should be set up to investigate the phenomenon. This was dubbed the Flying Saucer Working Party. The DSI/JTIC minutes recording this historic development read as follows:

“The Chairman said that Sir Henry Tizard felt that reports of flying saucers ought not to be dismissed without some investigation and he had, therefore, agreed that a small DSI/JTIC Working Party should be set up under the chairmanship of Mr Turney to investigate future reports.

After discussion it was agreed that the membership of the Working Party should comprise representatives of DSI1, ADNI(Tech), MI10 and ADI(Tech). It was also agreed that it would probably be necessary at some time to consult the Meteorological Department and ORS Fighter Command but that these two bodies should not at present be asked to nominate representatives”.

After the war Tizard served as chairman of the Defence Research Policy Committee and president of the British Association. One of the most controversial meetings he had to attend in his capacity as chair of the Defence Research Policy Committee would only emerge many years later with the declassification of CIA documents, namely a meeting on 1 June 1951, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Montreal, Canada, between Tizard, Omond Solandt (chairman of Defence Research and Development Canada) and representatives of the CIA, to discuss "brainwashing."

Tizard married, on 24 April 1915, Kathleen Eleanor (d. 1968), daughter of Arthur Prangley Wilson, a mining engineer. There were three sons: (John) Peter Mills Tizard, who became a professor of paediatrics at the University of London; Richard Henry Tizard (b. 1917), an engineer and senior tutor at Churchill College, Cambridge; and David (b. 1922), a general practitioner in London.

He was awarded the Franklin Medal in 1946.

Tizard died in 1959. His papers are kept at the Imperial War Museum, London.