Brig. Gen. Arthur E. Exon 
Gen.  Exon has been the highest ranking military officer to come out and say  directly that Roswell was the crash of a spacecraft and that alien  bodies were recovered.  (Click here for Exon's biography on the Air Force biographical Web site of their generals.)
 
Exon was another inconvenient, high-ranking witness, like Brig. Gen. Thomas Dubose,   that Air Force debunkers wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.  Even  though his statements on Roswell had been published before the Air Force  began its investigation in 1994, Exon was never interviewed and  completely ignored by AF investigators.  By the time some Congressional  staffers interviewed Exon in December 1994, one of them reported he had  become paranoid and extremely guarded in his comments, thinking his  house might now be bugged.
 
In  1947 Exon was a Lt.-Colonel stationed at Wright Field at the time of  the Roswell crash and heard of the incident at that time.  He said he  also flew over the area of the crash some months later.  He observed two  distinct crash sites and gouges and tire tracks on the ground leading  into the "pivotal areas."
From 1964-66 he was the Commanding Officer of Wright-Patterson AFB,  where crash material was taken in 1947.  He said other UFO-related  field operations were staged at W-P during his tenure.  Teams of men  would fly in from Washington on an investigation.  W-P would supply them  with planes and crews for their operations
From  1955 to 1960, he was a colonel stationed at the Pentagon.  He said he  was aware of a UFO controlling committee made up primarily of very  high-ranking military officers and intelligence people.  His nickname  for this group was "The Unholy Thirteen".
Exon's  knowledge of the Roswell events was primarily second-hand.  Except for  his later fly-over the crash area and the later operations out of W-P  when he was C/O, Exon disclaimed direct knowledge.  He said he never saw  the actual Roswell crash material, but was told the result of testing  by other personnel involved.  Likewise for the recovery and shipment of  bodies. However, Exon did emphasize  that he was told these things by men who were directly involved and  whom he knew well and trusted.  He mentioned knowing some of the  photographers who photographed the sites.
How  the Roswell crash would have been handled and how it would have been  covered up seems to be largely speculative, based on his knowledge of  how the government and military chain of command would have functioned  under the circumstances.  And seemingly he knew only indirectly of the  UFO control group while he was at the Pentagon.
Sources of the following material
R&S:  UFO Crash at Roswell, 1991 & The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell, 1994, by Kevin Randle & Donald Schmitt  (Based on phone and personal interviews from July 1989 - July 1990)
RUCU: Roswell UFO Crash Update; Kevin Randle, 1995;  transcript of interview, June 18, 1990
TS/M:  Top Secret Majic, Stanton Friedman, 1996; (based on interviews 1989 - 1991)  New!
C&S:  Witness to Roswell, 2007, by Tom Carey & Donald Schmitt New! 2007
Breakthrough:  Breathrough-- The Next Step; Whitley Strieber, 1995
Confirmation:  Confirmation--The Hard Evidence of Aliens Among Us; Whitley Strieber, 1998
What Roswell Was
(RUCU) (C&S, p. 191, 194)
"...They  knew they had something new in their hands.  The metal and material was  unknown to anyone I talked to.  Whatever they found, I never heard what  the results were.  A couple of guys thought it might be Russian, but the  overall consensus was that the pieces were from space.  Everyone from  the White House on down knew that what we had found was not of this  world within 24 hours of our finding it.  ...Roswell was the recovery of  a craft from space."
(Confirmation, p. 250) 
Among  the things that Exon was very specific about was that everybody "from  Truman on down" had known about the Roswell incident from the day it  happened, and that it was known to be an alien spacecraft "almost as soon as we got on the scene."
(Breakthrough, p. 275-276) 
When  I originally spoke with General Exon [in 1991] after being introduced  to him by my uncle, he was quite straightforward about the fact that he felt that the Roswell debris was extraterrestrial and that the issues it raised had been debated in the White House.  In interviews for public attribution that he agreed to later [in 1994], he was much more guarded.
“Everyone from the White House on down knew that what we had found was not of this world within 24 hours of our finding it.”
 [Note: Strieber's "uncle" was Col. Edward Strieber, who had spent much of his career at Wright-Patterson AFB.  Strieber then wrote (Breakthrough),  "My uncle informed me that he had knowledge of the Majestic project.   He spoke of the delivery of alien materials, artifacts, and biological  remains to Wright Field from the Roswell Army Air Base in the summer of  1947.  He felt sure that the existence of these materials and what to do  about them had been debated at the highest levels of the government.   ...In 1991, after I had written Majestic,  my uncle put me into contact with a general -- an old and trusted  friend of his -- who knew even more.  The general, Arthur Exon, is the  cousin of Senator Exon..."]
Anomalous Roswell Debris
(R&S) 
"We  heard the material was coming to Wright Field.  [Testing was done in  the various labs.]  Everything from chemical analysis, stress tests,  compression tests, flexing.  It was brought into our material evaluation  labs.  I don't know how it arrived, but the boys who tested it said it  was very unusual."
(R&S) (C&S, p. 194)
"[Some  of it] could be easily ripped or changed... There were other parts of  it that were very thin but awfully strong and couldn't be dented with  heavy hammers...  It was flexible to a degree... Some of it was flimsy  and was tougher than hell, and the other was almost like foil but  strong.  It had them pretty puzzled.
(RUCU)
"...couldn't  be easily ripped or changed ...you could change it.  You could wad it  up, you could change the shape, but it was still there and ... there  were other parts of it that were very thin but awfully strong and  couldn't be dented with heavy hammers and stuff like that... which at  the time were causing some people some concern... again, say it was a  shape of some kind, you could grab this end and bend it, but it would  come right back.  It was flexible to a degree."
"I  think the full range of testing was possible.  Everything from chemical  analysis, and resist chemicals, stress tests, compression tests,  flexing... 
(RUCU) (C&S, p. 194)
I  don't know, at that time, if it was titanium or some other metal... or  if it was something they knew about and the processing was something  different."
Bodies
(Sandow) (C&S, p. 194)
[Exon  spontaneously bringing up Roswell crash after being asked about rumors  of little bodies at Wright-Patterson]  "Yes, I have.  In fact, I know  people that were involved in photographing some of the residue from the  New Mexico affair near Roswell."
[Whether bodies were flown to Wright Field] "That's my information...people I have known  were involved with that."
(R&S)  (C&S, p. 194)
"There  was another location where ... apparently the main body of the  spacecraft was ... where they did say there were bodies ...
(R&S)
They  were all found, apparently, outside the craft itself but were in fairly  good condition.  In other words, they weren't broken up a lot"
"That's  my information [that the bodies went to Wright Field].  But one of them  went to the mortuary outfit ... I think at that time it was in Denver.   But the strongest information was that they were brought to  Wright-Pat."
The Crash Sites
(R&S) 
"[It  was] probably part of the same accident, but [there were] two distinct  sites.  One assuming that the thing, as I understand it, as I remember  flying the area later, that the damage to the vehicle seemed to be  coming from the southeast to the northwest, but it could have been going  in the opposite direction, but it doesn't seem likely.  So the farther  northwest pieces found on the ranch, those pieces were mostly metal.
"...I remember auto tracks leading to the pivotal sites and obvious gouges in the terrain."
(C&S, p. 194)
"[It  was] probably part of the same accident, but [there were] two distinct  sites.  ...[At] the northernmost [site], pieces found on the ranch,  those pieces were mostly metal."
"Yes,  I have.  In fact, I know people that were involved in photographing  some of the residue from the New Mexico affair near Roswell.  There was  another location where....apparently the main body of the spacecraft  was...where they did say there were bodies."
(R&S)  (C&S) 
"...I remember auto tracks leading to the pivotal sites and obvious gouges in the terrain."
Covering It Up
(Sandow)
[There was] "...a national coverup project." 
(R&S)
Exon  also knew something of the cover-up, especially the one originated at  Roswell.  Because he knew Blanchard [Roswell C/O], he said, "Blanchard's  leave was a screen.  It was his duty to go to the site and make a  determination."
Concerning  the cover-up, Exon pointed out that there were no secret balloon or  weather devices that could account for the debris.  The lab men and  officers at Wright Field, because it was their job, would have known if  the debris fit into those categories.  The balloon explanation was  ready-made.  "Blanchard could have cared less about a weather balloon,"  said Exon.
"I  know that at the time the sightings happened, it was to General Ramey  ... and he, along with the people at Roswell, decided to change the  story while they got their act together and got the information into the  Pentagon and into the president."
According  to Exon, the instant they understood the nature of the find, Ramey  would have alerted the chief of staff, Dwight Eisenhower.  Once they had  the information in Washington, control of the operation would have come  from the Pentagon.  The men at Roswell would have been tasked with the  clean-up because they were there, on site, but the responsibility for  the clean-up would have moved up the chain of command and into the  Pentagon and the White House..
According  to Exon, the outgrowth of this was a top secret committee to study the  phenomenon and the debris found at Roswell.  An oversight committee was  formed; its responsibility would be to protect the data, to control  access to it, and to design studies to exploit it; a small group with  control, a secondary group made up of aides, assistants, and staff from  the first group, and then a third level where actual testing was done.
...Exon  was sure that the material, at least some of it, would still be housed  at Wright-Patterson.  There would be reports, probably filed in the  Foreign Technology Building, that would describe everything learned in  the last forty-plus years.  There would be photographs, from the debris  filed and the crash site, of the bodies and of the autopsies, filed  away.  Everything needed to prove that Roswell represented the crash of  an extraterrestrial spacecraft would be found, if those reports were  ever to be released.
(C&S, p. 195)
[Concerning  newspaper reports of Roswell base commander Col. William Blanchard  being away on leave when the story broke in the 1947 newspapers]
"Blanchard's  leave was a screen.  It was his duty to go to the site and make a  determination.  Blanchard couldn't have cared less about a weather  balloon."
"I  know that at the time the sightings happened, it was [up] to Gen.  Ramey...and he, along with the people at Roswell, decided to change the  story while they got their act together and got the information into the  Pentagon and into the president."
UFO Control Group -- "The Unholy Thirteen", "MJ-12"
(R&S)
[Note that some of the following names of those allegedly involved are obviously speculative]
...the  most surprising revelation was the acknowledgement of an official group  that controlled access to the wreckage, bodies, and information about  the crash.  He referred to them as the Unholy Thirteen, only because he  didn't know the actual name of the group.  (And, after studying what he  said, it seems that the name, Majestic Twelve, does not fit.  Majestic  Twelve, or MJ-12, was allegedly the group created to study the Roswell  material, according to a briefing document released in the late 1980s.   There is no evidence that the document is authentic.)
According  to Exon, once the nature of the crash at Roswell was understood, the  information would have been passed up the chain of command.  Ramey  probably called the Army Chief of Staff, Dwight Eisenhower.
The  General identified others on the committee, men who held high positions  in the government.  Carl Spaatz, the head of the Army Air force in  July, 1947, who became the first Chief of Staff of the Air force in  September, 1947, was mentioned as a committee member.
Exon  named several others, including James Forrestal in his role as  Secretary of War (later Defense), Stuart Symington, at that time the  Under Secretary of War for Air, and President Truman.  Given the nature  of the crash and the preliminary conclusions being drawn, the president  had to be included.
..."I  just know there was a top intelligence echelon represented and the  President's office was represented and the Secretary of Defense's office  was represented and these people stayed on it in key positions even  though they might have moved out."
One  thing that Exon made clear was that no elected officials, outside the  President, were ever included as a member of the top echelon.  Elected  officials were excluded from knowing anything about it.
...Additional  names were not supplied for the remaining members, but he knew which  offices were represented.  These included the head of the CIA in the  fall of 1947, Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter.  Exon said there were  representatives of the military intelligence community.  Nathan F.  Twining, as the head of the Air Materiel Command, would be another  obvious choice.
There  were other men who may have had a major role.  Brigadier General Roger  Ramey eventually left the Eighth Air Force, moving to Washington and  duties in the Pentagon.  In 1952, Major General Roger Ramey, Deputy  Chief (of Staff) for Operations, was involved in UFO research.  [See  section on
Ramey and UFOs,  including Ramey being called the AF "saucer man" in 1952.]  Ramey's  inclusion would have been natural.  He was involved almost from the  beginning, had managed to bury the story with the balloon explanation,  and the bodies did transit Fort Worth Army Air Field.  [See section on  the unusual B29 flight with large crate.  See also Ramey's telegram message of shipping the "aviators in the disc" to the 8th AAF flight surgeon.]
 
Major  General John Samford, the Chief of Air Intelligence, might not have  been an original member of the team, but by 1952 may have held one of  the second echelon seats.
(RUCU) 
"...  Stuart Symington, who was Secretary of Defense [actually Sec. of the  Air Force], Carl Spaatz [A.F. Chief of Staff until 1948] ...all these  guys at the top of government.  They were the ones who knew the most  about Roswell, New Mexico.  They were involved in what to do about the  residue from that -- those two findings" [two distinct crash sites].
"In  the '55 time period [when Exon was at the Pentagon], there was also the  story that whatever happened, whatever was found at Roswell was still  closely held and probably would be held until these fellows I mentioned  had died so they wouldn't be embarrassed or they wouldn't have to  explain why they covered it up. ...until the original thirteen died off  and I don't think anyone is going to release anything [until] the last  one's gone."
(Breakthrough, p. 249)
In 1991, after I had written Majestic,  my uncle put me into contact with a general -- an old and trusted  friend of his -- who knew even more.  This general, Arthur Exon, is the  cousin of Senator Exon, who himself has been interested over the years  in UFO-related subjects.  The general appeared to me to have more  knowledge of the debates my uncle had referred to, and seemed to think  that President Truman, Secretary Forestall, and others had been  involved.
(TS/M)  [Added Nov. 1, 2002]
(pp. 128-130)  ...In  the summer of 1991, Randle and Schmitt were claiming that Exon knew  there was a control group (which they called the "Unholy 13") for  Roswell, knew who the members of that group were, and had direct  firsthand involvement with the crashed saucer.  They claimed that Exon  told them the members of the control group included Stewart Symington,  then Secretary of the Air Force; Carl Spaatz, first chief of staff of  the Air Force; General Eisenhower, then Army chief of staff; General  Ramey, head of the 8th Air Force; and others.  None of the people they  mentioned were on the MJ-12 briefing list.
[After  a MUFON conference in July 1991] ...I wrote a generally negative review  of the [Randle/Schmitt] book for the MUFON Journal... published in the  September 1991 issue...  When I finished the review, I decided to give  General Exon a call.   ..He had not seen Randle and Schmitt's book, and  so I read him portions of his supposed testimony from the volume.  He  politely but firmly indicated that Randle and Schmitt had attributed  considerably more to him than he had said.  He had no firsthand  involvement with Roswell, although he had heard lots of scuttlebutt from  people he trusted.  He had been at Wright Field in July 1947, when the  Roswell wreckage had been brought there.  He had heard stories while he  was base commander (not even as commander did he have a need-to-know for  all activities there) and also during a stint at the Pentagon.
(p. 41) ...I  interviewed General Arthur E. Exon, commander of Wright-Patterson Air  Force Base in the mid-1960s.  He had heard a lot of scuttlebutt about  crashed saucers and aliens while stationed at Wright Field in 1947, as  commander of the base in 1964 and 1965, and later while on assignment at  the Pentagon.  I met with him and we had several telephone  conversations.  He could find no reason to quarrel with the three  primary MJ-12 documents or the list of original members.  [as opposed to  an "Unholy 13" UFO control group attributed to him by Randle &  Schmitt]
Other recoveries or UFO investigations by Special Teams from Washington Centered out of Wright-Patterson
(RUCU) 
"...We  would make an airplane available [at Wright-Patterson AFB] ... T-39s,  twin jets, and lots of times we sent a 240, Convair 240 with a crew, and  they would go and these guys would do their business and they'd sit  [at] an air base someplace and cool it until the guys came back. They'd  come back, drop them off, and go about their business.  [The teams]  would be eight and sometimes it would be fifteen. ...They would come  from Washington, D.C."
"And  they'd ask for an airplane tomorrow morning and that would give the  guys a chance to get there by commercial airline, to meet them.  The  airplane would take off at such and such a time.  Sometimes they'd be  gone for three days and sometimes they'd be gone for a week.  I know  they went out to Montana and Wyoming and the northwest states a number  of times in a year and a half that I recall.  There probably were other  places.  They went to Arizona once or twice."
"...  Our contact was a man, a telephone number.  He'd call and he'd set the  airplanes up.  I just knew there was an investigative team.  There  probably was a name but I ...don't recall that there was."
Exon Intimidated?
(Breakthrough (p. 275)
[Interview,  Dec. 2, 1994, with a high-level, unidentified Congressional staffer  looking into the UFO question and Roswell.  Exon had held discussions  with a few cleared Congressional staff members during the Congressional  Roswell investigation by the General Accounting Office in 1994-95.]
[Staffer]  "General Exon is afraid.  He was afraid he was being monitored at that  point.  He was probably afraid his whole house was bugged."
[Strieber]   When I originally spoke with General Exon [in 1991] after being  introduced to him by my uncle, he was quite straightforward about the  fact that he felt that the Roswell debris was extraterrestrial and that  the issues it raised had been debated in the White House.  In interviews  for public attribution that he agreed to later, he was much more  guarded.
(C&S, p. 195)
Because  of how publicly outspoken Exon, a high-ranking officer, was about the  incident, we anticipated the reaction in Washington.  During the GAO   investigation of Roswell in 1994-95, Exon was interviewed by a number of  high-level congressional staff members.  One of the discussions took  place at his home on December 2, 1994.  Exon was extremely guarded in  these talks, and one of the staff members entered into his report, "Gen.  Exon is afraid.  He was afraid he was being monitored at that point.   He was probably afraid his whole house was bugged."
Exon Disclaimers of Direct Knowledge
(Sandow)
"Most  of the people you're talking to are a little bit like me. Close enough  to know that there was something happening. They had no direct  responsibility for any of it."
(RUCU -- Letter to Kevin Randle, Nov. 24, 1991) 
"I'm  sorry that a portion of my interview has given you trouble.  I will  acknowledge that the quick quote does have me saying that my flights  later, much later verified the direction of possible flight of the  object.  I remember auto tracks leading to pivotal sites and obvious  gouges in terrain.
"Further,  you both likely recall on many occasions during my visits with you in  person and on the phone when you wanted me to meet others that I did not  know anything first hand.   Although I believe you did quote me accurately, I do believe that in  your writings you gave more credence and impression of personal &  direct knowledge than my recordings would indicate on their own!   I felt that throughout the portions where my name was used the quotes  were O.K. but authoritative emphasis was yours.  I want to say that so  far your use of my name and discussions have not given me any problem.   So let's leave it at that.  I did enjoy your and Donald's efforts in  digging into who knows what!
"I'm returning the copy of your book.  I'll be glad to pay for it but would appreciate it being autographed."