Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America

Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America

Author: Visit Amazon's Annie Jacobsen Page | Language: English | ISBN: 031622104X | Format: PDF

Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America Description

From Booklist

*Starred Review* By the end of 1945, the alliance of the Western powers with the Soviet Union had frayed, and the basic outlines of what would become the Cold War had taken shape. At the same time, military, scientific, and political leaders in the U.S. had become acutely aware of the value of German scientists responsible for great advances in rocketry and biological research under the Nazis. So, in August 1945, President Truman authorized the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA), a division of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), to aggressively “recruit” German scientists to come to the U.S. and to work for various government-affiliated programs. Truman had stipulated that members of the Nazi Party were not to be included. As Jacobsen, an investigative journalist, illustrates, the JIOA adroitly sidestepped Truman’s directive through an intense program of fraud and deception. Documents were forged or altered, wartime activities were covered up, and, in some cases, entirely new identities were created, all in the service of our national interest. Some of these men were only marginal Nazis, but some were fervent “true believers” directly responsible for war crimes. This is an engrossing and deeply disturbing exposé that poses ultimate questions of means versus ends. --Jay Freeman

Review

"Important, superbly written.... Jacobsen's book allows us to explore these questions with the ultimate tool: hard evidence. She confronts us with the full extent of Paperclip's deal with the devil, and it's difficult to look away."—Matt Damsker, USA Today (4 stars)

"With Annie Jacobsen's OPERATION PAPERCLIP for the first time the enormity of the effort has been laid bare. The result is a book that is at once chilling and riveting, and one that raises substantial and difficult questions about national honor and security...This book is a remarkable achievement of investigative reporting and historical writing."—Boston Globe

"As comprehensive as it is critical, this latest expose from Jacobsen is perhaps her most important work to date.... Jacobsen persuasively shows that it in fact happened and aptly frames the dilemma.... Rife with hypocrisy, lies, and deceit, Jacobsen's story explores a conveniently overlooked bit of history." -- Publishers Weekly (starred)

"The most in depth account yet of the lives of Paperclip recruits and their American counterparts.... Jacobsen deftly untangles the myriad German and American agencies and personnel involved...more gripping and skillfully rendered are the stories of American and British officials who scoured defeated Germany for Nazi scientists and their research."—New York Times Book Review

"Chilling, compelling, and comprehensive accounting.... Jacobsen's impressive book plumbs the dark depths of this postwar recruiting and shows the historical truths behind the space race and postwar US dominance. Highly recommended for readers in World War II history, espionage, government cover-ups, or the Cold War." -- Library Journal (starred)

"Darkly picaresque.... Jacobsen persuasively argues that the mindset of the former Nazi scientists who ended up working for the American government may have exacerbated Cold War paranoia."—New Yorker

"An engrossing and deeply disturbing exposé that poses ultimate questions of means versus ends." -- Booklist (starred)

"Annie Jacobsen's Operation Paperclip is a superb investigation, showing how the U.S. government recruited the Nazis' best scientists to work for Uncle Sam on a stunning scale. Sobering and brilliantly researched." -- Alex Kershaw, author of The Liberator

"Throughout, the author delivers harrowing passages of immorality, duplicity and deception, as well as some decency and lots of high drama. How Dr. Strangelove came to America and thrived, told in graphic detail." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Jacobsen uses newly released documents, court transcripts, and family-held archives to give the fullest accounting yet of this endeavor." -- The New York Post

"Doggedly researched." -- Parade

See all Editorial Reviews

• Product Details
• Table of Contents
• Reviews

• Hardcover: 592 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; First Edition edition (February 11, 2014)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031622104X
• ISBN-13: 978-0316221047
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.3 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

After Nazi Germany's surrender to the Allies, sixty of the world's most evil human beings gathered as prisoners at Kransberg Castle twenty miles north of Frankfurt. This building was the former headquarters of Hermann Göring's Luftwaffe. It was here that American military intelligence officers began the process of deciding their fates. Send them to trial at risk of the gallows. Or spirit them away to war department laboratories in America. (Or do both, and then commute their sentences as if justice did not matter.)

Jacobsen's book tell this story. It's a big one, and she has conducted a massive amount of research and made it readable with a lively narrative style. Some of those scientists did go to face trial at Nuremberg. But others were brought into the U.S. and put quietly back to work.

The newly formed Joint Intelligence Objective Agency, or JOIA, had decided that these scientists were too valuable to the U.S. to allow to fall into Soviet hands. The initiative started by JOIA, Operation Paperclip, was a covert American operation that was one of the most guarded U.S. government secrets of the 20th century. Some of the scientists who were part of it were well known -- Albert Einstein for one. But others had much darker pasts:

* Otto Ambros was a Third Reich chemist who served as director of the German corporation that produced the gas used in the death camps. He was tried at Nuremberg, found guilty of mass murder, and sentenced to eight years. While he was serving time in prison, Operation Paperclip officials arranged for his sentence to be commuted. In 1951, Ambros was hired to work at a clandestine facility north of Frankfurt called Camp King.

Operation Paperclip is about the connection between Nazi scientists and American government secrets. Under this program, more than a thousand of Nazi scientists were brought to America immediately after the end of World War Two. Those scientists helped develop rockets, the NASA program, chemical and biological weapons, aviation and space medicine and many other weapons of mass destruction.They came to America at the behest of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Some officials believed that by endorsing the Paperclip program they were accepting the lesser of two evils-that if America didn't recruit theses men, the Soviet Communists would.
The book comes in five parts and each part is about another chronoligical era . Most men that were brought to America were accused of war crimes. Most of them were found guilty of war crimes by the various post-war trials at Nuremberg. Yet the USA wanted them on American soil to work for the American people despite their horrible past.
Opposition to Operation Paperclip gained momentum with America's scientific elite and many scientists were outraged when the details of the secret project came out. Albert Einstein was the most esteemed figure to publicly denouce this operation and wrote directly to President Truman on behalf of his FAS colleagues:"We hold these individuals to be potentially dangerous...Their former eminence as Nazi Party members and supporters raises the issue of their fitness to become American citizens and hold key positions in American industrial, scientific and educational institutions".
Another famous scientists, Hans Bethe, who fled the Nazis, asked: "Do we want science at any price?"
Among the various and many scientists and their respective projects they were working on, Ms. Jacobsen mentions Dr.

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