Operation/Project Paperclip Gets Closer To Mainstream - How America Recruited, Protected And Pay Nazis To This Day (Video)

(N.Morgan) Operation Paperclip was instituted during World War II to enlist and recruit German scientists by the Air Force to conduct human radiation tests during the Cold War. Project Paperclip was a postwar and Cold War operation carried out by the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA).1 [Operation Paperclip’s code name was said to have originated because scientific recruits’ papers were paperclipped with regular immigration forms. The JIOA was a special intelligence office reporting to the Director of Intelligence in the War Department, comparable to the intelligence chief of today’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.] Paperclip had two aims:  to exploit German scientists for American research and to deny these intellectual resources to the Soviet Union

At least 1,600 scientists and their dependents were recruited and brought to the United States by Paperclip and its successor projects through the early 1970s. The most famous of these was Wernher von Braun. In recent years, it has been alleged that many of these individuals were brought to the United States in violation of American government policy not to permit the entrance of “ardent Nazis” into the country, that many were security risks, and that at least some were implicated in Holocaust-related activities. The secondary literature on Paperclip includes Linda Hunt, Secret Agenda (1991) and Tom Bowers, The Paperclip Conspiracy (1989). The following is drawn from these sources and material retrieved from the National Archives and DOD files.

Nuremberg and Postwar Recruitment of Scientists

At the time of its inception, Paperclip was a matter of controversy in the War Department, as demonstrated by a November 27,1946 memorandum from General Groves, director of the Manhattan Project, relating to the bringing to the United States of the eminent physicist Otto Hahn. Groves wrote that the Manhattan Project does not desire to utilize the services of foreign scientists in the United States, either directly with the Project or with any affiliated organization. This has consistently been my views. (sic) I should like to make it clear, however, that I see no objection to bringing to the United States such carefully screened physicists as would contribute materially to the welfare of the United States and would remain permanently in the United States as naturalized citizens. I strongly recommend against foreign physicists coming in contact with our atomic energy program in any way. If they are allowed to see or discuss the work of the Project the security of our information would get out of control.

In the video below, Abby Martin takes a look at two recent investigative reports from the Associated Press and New York Times, uncovering the recruitment of Nazi spies for the CIA and the US’ policy of giving social security payments to former Nazi leadership.

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