1945-1973, Germany/Austria/USA: "Operation Paperclip"
By Mark L. Kornbluh, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri.
Under Operation Paperclip the U.S. army and intelligence agencies imported more than 1,600 Germans and Austrians who were considered useful to Cold War scientific and military efforts. U.S. officials not only ignored the fact that many of these men were Nazis, they actively concealed that information.
Official U.S policy was to prosecute war criminals and exclude all former Nazi activists from the U.S. In reality, this policy was ignored. In Secret Agenda, Linda Hunt provides evidence that many of these scientists were involved in Nazi activities, including war crimes. Many went on to successful careers in the U.S.
Dazzled by German scientific achievements, U.S. recruiting teams ignored their inhumane work and treated Nazi scientists as colleagues and friends. The records of these scientists' Nazi activities were altered, hidden, expunged or classified. Much of Operation Paperclip has been cloaked in secrecy.
Project Paperclip was not a rogue operation; it was U.S. Cold War policy. It did not seem to matter to the U.S. government, hundreds of universities or to private corporations, that many German emigre scientists had been Nazis. Nazis went unpunished, federal law was violated and those violations were concealed.
Most ominously, Nazi attitudes toward research on human subjects were imported. "The legacy of Paperclip," Hunt concludes, "is said to be moon rockets and jet planes. What the project's defenders fail to mention is that its legacy also includes horrific psychochemical experiments conducted on U.S. soldiers at Edgewood Arsenal, the U.S. Army center for chemical warfare research." The Army had long conducted dangerous experiments on humans at Edgewood, in Maryland. German scientists were incorporated into the project.
U.S. scientists poured over Nazi research records and, in consultation with Paperclip scientists, "used Nazi science as a basis for Dachau-like experiments on over 7,000 U.S. soldiers." These human guinea pigs were used to test nerve gas, incapacitating agents and psychochemicals. Nuremberg precedents that held science to humane standards of behavior were ignored.
Source: Review of Linda Hunt's book, Secret Agenda: The U.S. Government, Nazi Scientists and Project Paperclip, 1945-1990 (1992).
The Vatican-run "ratlines" guided 30,000 Nazi's to sanctuary in the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South America. Those who reached safety included: Klaus Barbie, a Gestapo officer (the "Butcher of Lyons"); Franz Stangl, Commandant, Treblinka extermination camp; Gustav Wagner, Commandant, Sorbibor extermination camp; Alois Brunner, official in the Jewish deportation program; Adolf Eichmann, chief architect of the "Holocaust"; Dr. Joseph Mengele, the "White Angel" of Auschwitz concentration camp; and Martin Bormann, Deputy Fuhrer. The entire Waffen SS "Galician Division" (8000 men) were smuggled to England and given "free settler" status.
Source: members.xoom.it/criminology/serviziseg/Operation%20Gladio.htm
By Linda Hunt, former CNN investigative reporter.
Operation Paperclip was originally limited to German and Austrian scientists who worked for the U.S. military. In 1947, a new Joint Intelligence Operatives Agency project lifted those constraints. A program code-named 'National Interest,' brought Nazi scientists, including a convicted Nazi war criminal, and East Europeans involved in CIA covert operations, brought to the U.S.
In 1948, many of these individuals were of interest to the Office of Policy Coordination, the early covert action arm of the CIA, were given the authority by Truman to conduct 'dirty tricks.' Project National Interest provided the escape mechanism to a haven in the U.S. that OSS chief William Donovan had wanted President Roosevelt to approve in 1944.
The aliens in National Interest, like those in Paperclip, were sent to Canada and reentered the U.S. as resident aliens.
Source: From Secret Agenda: The U.S. Government, Nazi Scientists & Project Paperclip, 1945-1990, (1992). www.t0.or.at/scl/scl1/msg03333.html
U.S. Soldiers used as Guinea Pigs
A
“volunteer” at the U.S. Army’s Edgewood Arsenal inhales contaminated air
from a face mask. In many cases, soldiers were not fully informed of what would
happen during the experiments. Like prisoners, rank-and-file soldiers make for a
pliable test pool. “Informed consent” is an absurdity under such
circumstances.
Source: This and other photos of the Edgewood experiments can be viewed at www.parascope.com/gallery/galleryitems/edgewood/edgewood.htm