Operation Paperclip
was carried out by the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) and had two
aims: Firstly, to exploit German Scientists for American research by rounding up
Nazi scientists and taking them to America. and, secondly, to deny these
intellectual resources to the Soviet Union (7). (The name 'Operation Paperclip'
derived from the fact that those individuals selected to go to the United States
were distinguished by paperclips on their files joining their scientific papers
with regular immigration forms(8). The Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) then conducted
background investigations on the identified scientists, and in February 1947 the
Director of the JIOA, Navy Captain Bosquet Wev, submitted the first set of
dossiers to the State and Justice Departments for review. These dossiers, though, proved to be damning, with Samuel
Klaus, the State Department's representative on the JOIA Board claiming that all
the scientists in the first batch were 'ardent Nazis'. The visa requests were
consequently denied. (Wev already knew those proposed had Nazi backgrounds for in a memo dated 27th April 1948 to the Pentagon's Director of Intelligence,
he wrote "Security investigations conducted by the military have disclosed the
fact that the majority of German scientists were members of either the Nazi
Party or one or more of its affiliates." (9)
Wev was furious and he fired off a memo to the State Department
in March 1948 warning that "the best interests of the United States have been
subjugated to the efforts expended in 'beating a dead Nazi horse'" (10). The following month, 27th April 1948, Wev again wrote to
his superiors concerned about the delays in approving the German scientists. He
stated "In light of the situation existing in Europe today, it is conceivable
that continued delay and opposition to the immigration of these scientists could
result in their eventually falling into the hands of the Russians who would
then gain the valuable information and ability possessed by these men. Such an
eventuality could have a most serious and adverse effect on the national
Security of the United States." (11)
By this time the Nazi Intelligence leader, Reinhard Gehlen had
met with the future CIA Director (26th February 1953 - 29th November 1961),
Allen Dulles, and they had hit it off. Gehlen was a master spy for the
Nazis and had infiltrated Russia with his vast intelligence network. (In 1942
the future CIA Director Dulles had moved to Bern, Switzerland, as Head of Office
of Strategic Services to negotiate with some Nazi leaders who were already
convinced they were going to lose WWII and wanted a deal with the US about a
possible future war with the USSR.) Dulles was not above pursuing his own agenda
with the Nazis, for he had worked with many of them before the war; as a
prominent New York lawyer (1926-1942 and again from 1946 to 1950). When Gehlen
surrendered to the US, he was taken to Fort Hunt, Virginia, where he and the US
Army reached an agreement: His intelligence unit would work for and be funded by
the US until a new German Government came into power. In the meantime,
should he find a conflict between the interests of Germany and the US, he could
consider German interests first (12).
For almost
ten years the 'Gehlen Org' as it became to be known, operated safely within the
CIA and was virtually the CIA's only source of intelligence on Eastern Europe. Then in 1955 it evolved into the BND (the German equivalent of the CIA) and
continued to co-operate with its US counterparts. The scientists immigration problem was then side-stepped with
the dossiers being 'cleansed' of incriminating evidence and, as promised, Allen
Dulles delivered Gehlen Org, the Nazi Intelligence Unit, to the CIA, which later
opened many umbrella projects based on earlier Nazi research. Operation Paperclip also had a part to play in events at Maury
Island. Washington State, itself, was the location of several aerospace defence
contractors, which were benefiting from the then secret Paperclip Operation. It was also the location of sightings in
1947 of a number of aircraft that looked suspiciously like some that had been
seen on Nazi drawing boards and in the skies above Europe towards the end of the
war.
The officers who attended the Maury Island incident, Davidson
and Brown belonged to G-2: It was G-2's responsibility to ensure Operation
Paperclip was kept as a covert activity and provide the necessary security to
achieve this. Another function of G-2 was the surveillance of anyone whose
activities put Paperclip security at risk. That they were on their way to
Wright-Patterson AFB with the objects Crisman had given them, was entirely
logical - Wright Patterson (then Wright-Field) was the major research and
development centre where many of the Nazi scientists had been taken to continue
their work. One of the most prominent of the Paperclip physicians was
Hubertus Strughold, later known as the 'father of space medicine' and after whom
the Aeromedical Library at the USAF School of Aerospace medicine was named in
1977. His April 1947 intelligence report stated "[H]is successful career under
Hitler would seem to indicate that he must be in full accord with Hitler."
However he was admitted under Operation Paperclip on the grounds that he was
"not an ardent Nazi." (13)
Other Nazis included Klaus Barbie, the so-called 'Butcher of
Lyon', Otto von Bolschwing, infamous for his holocaust activities and the SS
Colonel, Otto Skorzeny (14). However the cleansing of the files did not always
stand up to the scrutiny of time. In 1984, Arthur Rudolph, who, in 1969 had been
awarded NASA's Distinguished Service Award, left the country rather than face
charges as a Nazi war criminal. Another former alleged Nazi was Wernher Von Braun. Born on
23rd March 1912, von Braun became one of the world's first and foremost rocket
engineers and a leading authority on space travel.
Born the son of Prussian
aristocrats Baron Magnus and Baroness Emmy von Braun, the young Wernher read Hermann Oberth's By Rocket into Planetary Space (De Rakete zu den Planetenaumen),
and his new interest led him to later enrol at the Berlin Institute of
Technology in 1930 (above, Oberth with Von Braun). In 1932 he received his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and he
was then offered a grant to conduct and develop scientific investigations on
liquid-fuelled rocket engines (15). Von Braun's rocket experiments were tested
at the Kummersdorf Proving Grounds, sixty miles south of Berlin, between 1932
and 1937.
Explore forgotton clues scattered throughout history that are suggestive
of an alternative history.
Join the world-wide search for evidence
of a lost civilisation that predates
known history.
Has Earth already been contacted by other civilisations either in the distant past or in recent centuries?
A discussion of the emergence of advanced technologies and the bizarre invasion of Antarctica after WWII.
A discussion of sightings of UFOs in the sky above Earth and within the solar system, including Moon anomalies.
Evidence the Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials and how the public had been subject to disinformation.
A list of credits and sources for the themes and issues explored
in Violations.
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