WEBVTT - Operation Paperclip 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.920 of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:17.680 I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Friday. Today we 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:21.279 are going to talk about Operation paper Clip, which is 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:24.960 also known as Project paper Clip, and this was the 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:29.320 US effort to bring German scientists to the United States 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:32.320 after World War Two. And to be clear, the US 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:37.440 was definitely not the only Allied nation doing this, as examples, 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:40.680 the UK and France and the Soviet Union all had 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:45.080 their own programs to try to exploit German scientific and 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:50.120 engineering knowledge after the war. But in most cases those 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:54.200 other programs involved specialists and researchers who were either working 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:58.600 in occupied Germany or they were sent back to Germany 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:01.680 after a few years of provised work in another country. 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.360 But for the United States program, a lot of the 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:08.800 people who were part of it ultimately became permanent residents 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:12.560 or citizens of the US, and this included people who 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:16.840 were ardent Nazis or who had committed war crimes. A 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:20.080 lot of the time. The rockets scientists are the ones 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:23.560 who get the most discussion around this program today. So 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:27.360 people like Verner von Brown, who developed ballistic missiles for 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:31.120 the U. S. Army before joining the space program at NASA. 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:34.520 But paper Clippers really came from a wide range of 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:39.840 scientific and engineering specialties, including flight, medicine and chemical warfare 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:44.399 and aeronautics. They worked in military and in civilian roles. 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:49.280 It was like every layer of American industry and the 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:54.480 military industrial complex. When I started on this episode, my 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:57.680 intent was that today we were going to talk about 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:01.600 the context for this program and its precursor, which was 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:05.600 called Operation Overcast, and then the program itself and some 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:08.960 of the most prominent and notorious people who were part 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:12.280 of it. That turned out to be too much for 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:16.920 one episode, which people listening to me list all those 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:21.679 things off may not be that surprised by. So this 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.320 episode is going to whack through the arc of this 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:29.280 program's creation and its existence, and we'll have more about 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:33.000 some of the specific scientists and engineers and other specialties 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:39.120 in another episode sometime soon, possibly the next episode, but 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:42.440 since it's not written yet, I don't want to promise anything. 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:45.520 This is one of those things that became clear at 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:48.120 like three o'clock yesterday afternoon that this could not all 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:51.960 be one episode. So that means that while there will 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:55.679 be some references to some Nazi atrocities during World War 0:02:55.720 --> 0:03:00.640 Two and the general era of thees and forties. There's 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:03.080 just that there's not as much detail about the specifics 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:05.720 in this particular episode. It is something that will be 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:10.320 discussed more in a future episode about the researchers themselves, 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:13.200 so to establish a bit of background on this subject. 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:16.359 In June of nineteen forty two, Adolf Hitler issued the 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:20.320 Decree of the Feur on the Reich Research Council. It read, 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:24.160 in part, quote, the necessity to expand all available forces 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.520 to highest efficiency in the interest of the state requires 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:31.359 not only in peace time, but also, and especially in wartime, 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:36.360 the concentrated effort of scientific research and its channelization toward 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.840 the goal to be aspired. It then went on to say, 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:42.920 leading men of science above all are to make research 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:46.920 fruitful for warfare by working together in their special fields. 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:51.120 In nineteen forty four he issued another decree, and this 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:54.440 one called for the development of weapons and equipment that 0:03:54.520 --> 0:04:00.560 had quote revolutionary new characteristics. These would put Germany ahead 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:05.520 of its enemies. Nazi propaganda framed these new weapons and 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:11.200 equipment as Vunderwaffe or wonder weapons. Also in nineteen four, 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:16.320 Germany introduced the rocket power measer Schmidt Emmy one sixty three, 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:21.120 which was the world's first rocket powered fighter, the Messer 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.359 Schmidt Emmy two sixty two, which was the world's first 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:29.200 operational jet fighter, the V one flying Bomb, which was 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.720 the world's first cruise missile, and the V two rocket, 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:35.640 which was the world's first ballistic missile. So a lot 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:40.359 of wartime first there, and it has been widely repeated 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:43.360 that if these technologies had been introduced just a few 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:46.680 months earlier in the war, the Access Powers might well 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:50.280 have won, and there's some debate over whether that's really true, 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:54.279 but Allied military officials definitely saw all of this and 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:56.760 any other innovations that Germany might have had in the 0:04:56.800 --> 0:05:00.359 works as a huge threat. There were concerned earned that 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.000 Germany's ultimate goal for the V two rocket was for 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:06.279 it to carry a nuclear payload, and concerns that it 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:10.359 was sharing its secrets and technologies with Japan, So the 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:13.440 Allied Powers made it a priority to try to capture 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:17.240 as much German research and technology as possible, both to 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:21.159 replicate it for themselves and to try to develop countermeasures, 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:26.839 especially after the D Day invasions started on June, teams 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:31.640 really searched for German research facilities and weapons factories that 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:37.160 copied blueprints and technical materials. They questioned scientists and confiscated 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:42.440 weapons and technology. This included disassembling and removing big pieces 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:45.840 of equipment like V two rockets and wind tunnels and aircraft. 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:49.680 This process really accelerated in the last months of the war. 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:54.039 The UK and the US formed the Combined Intelligence Objective 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:58.039 Subcommittee to coordinate a huge sweep for German military secrets 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:01.760 and equipment. This really s scalated after Hitler issued the 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:05.520 Destructive Measures on Rke Territory Decree also known as the 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:10.640 Nero Decree, that happened on March nineteenth nine, and this 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:13.320 decree called for the destruction of anything that could be 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:17.359 used by enemies of Germany. British and American units became 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:21.679 increasingly competitive as they tried to capture resources before Germany 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:25.120 could destroy them and before Soviet forces who had similar 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:28.520 objectives could move into an area. In some cases it 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:31.360 was literally an area that the Soviets were supposed to 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:35.640 be occupying, but British or American forces are both together 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:37.280 would be like, we we're got to get as much 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:40.440 of the stuff ourselves as possible before they get here. 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:45.080 As all of this was happening, military officials also started 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:47.599 to shift their focus a little bit, because no matter 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:51.800 how many blueprints or technical manuals or formulas or actual 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.480 pieces of technology they managed to secure, and no matter 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:59.520 how many specialists they interviewed, that still wouldn't be the 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:03.640 same of having ongoing access to the minds behind all 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:08.920 of this stuff. So the Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee started 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.600 developing lists of people to target and bring in for 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:16.120 more long term work. Initially, there was a blacklist of 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:20.080 targets of military value and a gray list of targets 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:24.080 of quote vital postwar interest, but those people were not 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:27.920 of immediate military value. Often, though, these lists are kind 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:31.520 of lumped together as just the black list. One source 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:34.120 for the names on these lists was a document prepared 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:38.040 by senior Gestapo officer of Werner Ozenberg, who supervised the 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:41.720 planning office of the Reich Research Council. He had compiled 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:44.920 a list of about fifteen thousand names, part of which 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.440 was discovered in an unflushed toilet in March of nine. 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:53.440 When Osenburg himself was captured, he surrendered the entire list 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:56.679 along with documents that detailed the qualifications of the people 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:59.800 on that list and other documents related to the German 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:03.560 war or effort. The U. S. Army established the Field 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:08.840 Information Agency Technical or FIAT to help it exploit German 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:14.080 knowledge and resources, including finding and capturing people from this list, 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:18.240 and the term exploit comes up over and over in 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:22.280 descriptions of this whole phase of the project. Allied militaries 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:25.640 and governments were increasingly interpreting all of this as a 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:31.760 form of German reparations for the war, and German scientists, engineers, technicians, 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:36.400 and researchers were all resources to exploit as part of 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:43.240 those reparations. Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force had established internment 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:47.160 camps for scientists and engineers in Germany and informally German 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:51.280 occupied territory. Some of these camps housed hundreds of people, 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:54.520 and beyond interrogating them about their work and getting to 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:59.079 interpret and explain technical documents, at first, officials weren't quite 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:02.480 sure what to do with them. Simply letting people go 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:06.680 after they'd been interrogated wasn't really an option. The people 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:10.760 who had developed the aircraft, bombs, and chemical and biological 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:14.520 weapons for the Third Reich still presented a threat. And 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:17.000 then on top of that, the Potsdam Agreement, which was 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:20.679 signed in August of n called for the quote complete 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:26.000 disarmament and demilitarization of Germany and the elimination or control 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:29.800 of all German industry that could be used for military production. 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:32.760 And that meant that for a lot of these specialists, 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:35.640 the industries that they had been working in, as well 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:38.800 as other related industries where they might have been able 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:41.480 to find jobs, those just would not exist anymore. So 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:45.920 it wasn't like they could interrogate someone, release them, keep 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:49.280 tabs on them to make sure they were, you know, 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:52.360 not doing anything dangerous while they went to some job 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:54.680 they had gotten because those industries they would have worked 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:58.920 in no longer were to exist. Although the US and 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:02.160 the UK were at eyes and the Combined Intelligence Subjective 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:05.000 Subcommittee had been established as a joint effort between the 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:10.040 two nations, over time they became increasingly competitive. For example, 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:14.160 on April, Colonel Donald L. Putt was led to the 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:17.839 Herman Geering Aeronautical Research Center at Vulcan Road, which had 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:22.000 been camouflaged under trees. This secret facility was in an 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:25.160 area that was supposed to be under British control, so 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:28.280 American forces worked as quickly as possible to secure as 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:32.160 much as they could before the British arrived. This kind 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:37.040 of stuff led to various toe stepping, basically from a 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:40.480 military perspective, and then the United States having to like 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:43.679 work with Britains to say, Okay, we took all these 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:46.160 V two rockets that you were supposed to get access to, 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:49.240 so we will work with you to figure out how 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:51.920 they work and to launch sums you can see how 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:57.080 they work. Some of this was specifically focused on trying 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:00.280 to secure information and weapons that could be used full 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:02.920 in the War in the Pacific, which was still ongoing. 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:06.640 On April twenty second, nineteen forty five, the US Army 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:12.400 Air Forces Intelligence Service launched Operation Lusty, which stood for 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:16.520 Luftwaffa's Secret Technology, and that was to secure technical and 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:19.520 scientific intelligence that could be used in the war against Japan. 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:23.760 The US started copying German munitions that had been used 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:27.800 against Britain during the Blitz. By the time Germany surrendered 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:30.720 on May eighth of nineteen forty five, the US had 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:36.400 captured most of Germany's most respected aircraft engineers. Two days later, 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:40.240 Allied forces intercepted the German submarine U eight five eight, 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:44.360 which surrendered in Delaware on May fourteenth. It was carrying 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:48.600 civilian engineers to Japan, along with advanced weaponry and supplies, 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:53.800 including an entire disassembled aircraft. Among its cargo were twelve 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:57.520 hundred pounds of uranium ox side. This was most likely 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:00.560 meant to be used for aircraft fuel, but it raised 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:04.360 fears of the possibility of nuclear weapons development. So this 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:09.560 made the ongoing exploitation of German researchers more urgent. An 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:12.079 officials started to question whether some of this work might 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:15.600 be done more effectively in the United States. Although it 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:20.840 was generally agreed that exploiting German researchers in Germany was 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:25.520 vital and was generally ethical, the idea of bringing people 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:29.560 into the US was a lot more controversial. On Under 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:33.280 Secretary of War Robert Patterson wrote a letter to Admiral 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:36.720 William D. Lahy which read, in part quote, I strongly 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:40.839 favored doing everything possible to utilize fully in the prosecution 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:44.080 of the war against Japan all information that can be 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:48.160 obtained from Germany or any other source. These men are enemies, 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:51.360 and it must be assumed they are capable of sabotaging 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:56.000 our war effort. Bringing them to this country raises delicate questions, 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:59.920 including the strong resentment of the American public, who might 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:04.480 misunderstand the purpose of bringing them here and the treatment 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:08.959 accorded them, But the idea of military necessity ultimately went 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:12.400 out over these and other concerns. After this letter, the 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:15.600 War Department General Staff held a meeting at the Pentagon 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:19.440 to develop a plan to give some German researchers, specifically 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:23.880 ones who were not Nazis or war criminals, temporary contracts 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:27.960 to work in the United States under protective military custody. 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:33.319 We will talk more about that after a sponsor break. 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:42.840 The first project to bring German scientists to the US 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:48.000 to work under a temporary contract was called Project Overcast, 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:53.600 and it was launched on July. Under this program, Germans 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.439 specialists and researchers would be brought to the US, where 0:13:56.480 --> 0:14:01.559 they would temporarily work under military supervision before eventually returning 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:05.000 to Germany. Each person assigned a contract was supposed to 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:08.280 undergo a background check to confirm that they were not 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:12.800 an ardent Nazi. Like the word exploit, That phrase ardent 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:15.000 Nazi is a term that comes up a lot in 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:19.800 documents about Operation paper Clip and its related programs. Officials 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:23.200 recognized that under Adolf Hitler, Germany had been a single 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:27.080 party dictatorship, and that at least some involvement with Nazism 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:31.800 was essentially mandatory for non Jewish Germans. The researchers, who 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:34.600 the U saw is the most skilled and important, were 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:37.480 of course seen the same way by the Nazis, so 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:40.680 in many cases they had been targeted for leadership roles 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:43.440 and rewarded with honors and awards that were bestowed by 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:46.720 the party. Some people who joined the party also did 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:50.840 so out of a sense of self preservation or even opportunism. 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:54.760 So with all this in mind, the general conclusion among 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:58.480 American military authorities was that it was just not feasible 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:01.600 to restrict anyone who had any connection at all to 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:05.520 the Nazi Party. That would leave them with no researchers 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:10.960 to exploit. Instead, the focus was on banning ardent Nazis, 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:14.520 and ardent Nazis were described as people who had joined 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:18.840 the Nazi Party before Hitler declared himself, bureer people who 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:21.040 were leaders in the party or in one of its 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:24.760 affiliated organizations like the s S or the essay people 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:28.640 who had been convicted in a post war denazification court, 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.600 or people who had been accused or convicted of war crimes. 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:37.800 This process involved interviews, examining people's records, and confirming that 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:40.520 they were not on the Central Registry of War Criminals 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:43.920 and Security Suspects that's also known as the crow Cast List. 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:48.640 This list was described as quote an unwieldy monster archive. 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:52.400 It was often vague, it was full of undocumented allegations. 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:55.120 There's a lot of hearsay, But in terms of the 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:58.360 people conducting these background checks, it became a useful check 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:01.800 off to say this person was not a suspected war criminal. 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:07.440 This program, Operation Overcast, grew really quickly. It expanded to 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:12.720 include a huge assortment of government and military programs and 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:17.480 their associated acronyms. There were a lot of Every book 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:19.280 that I read on this had just a list of 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:21.760 acronyms at the beginning and what they all stood for. 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:27.520 The Joint Intelligence Objective Agency that is abbreviated j I 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:31.200 o A and usually said JOAH was created as part 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:34.320 of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during this expansion, and 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:39.080 this agency directed this whole operation and brought about sixteen 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:43.400 hundred German and Austrian scientists, engineers, and researchers to the 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:48.000 US between nine and nineteen seventy. The Office of Strategic 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:51.240 Services and the Joint Intelligence Committee were involved in this 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:57.200 as well. Japan formally surrendered on September two, but even 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:00.000 though that ended the war, the effort to bring German 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:04.280 scientists to the US continued. By January of nineteen forty six, 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:07.399 one hundred sixty German specialists had been brought to the 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:11.600 United States. One hundred fifteen of them were rocket specialists, 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:15.520 including Werner von Braun, and the program got bigger and 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:19.399 broader from their As a relations between the US and 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:23.240 the USSR devolved into the Cold War, the idea of 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:27.280 keeping the other side from getting access to German researchers 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:30.520 and technology became more and more important to both nations. 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:34.520 The United States started to see an eventual armed conflict 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:39.520 with the Soviet Union as inevitable advances in Soviet nuclear 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:42.679 research led to fears that the Soviets had been getting 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:46.000 aid from German scientists on this, although it later turned 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:49.359 out that they were really getting stolen American nuclear secrets. 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:53.600 On January third of nineteen forty six, the merc report 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:58.120 detailing biological warfare research in Japan became public and that 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:02.159 led for calls for more research into biological agents and 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:06.840 their countermeasures in the United States, and that was yet 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:12.119 another specialty of these German researchers. In March of ninety six, 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:16.480 Project Overcast expanded. It shifted from a limited number of 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:20.919 people with temporary contracts working under military supervision to between 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:23.680 eight hundred and a thousand specialists who would be offered 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:27.920 long term residency in the US and even citizenship. Since 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:31.080 this was no longer intended as a temporary assignment, the 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:34.399 researchers families would be permitted to enter the US permanently 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:39.679 as well. This was the whole process where Germany was 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:43.800 being denocified, like people with Nazi ties were being pulled 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:47.000 out of leadership positions, and all of these different industries 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:49.560 and all of these different contexts, some of the same 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:51.679 people were being brought to the United States and offered 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:55.320 US citizenship. So by this point, some of the scientists 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:58.040 families who were being housed at a camp in Germany 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:01.760 had started calling that camp Camp Overcast, and that prompted 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:05.880 this project's name chained to Operation paper Clip or Project 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:09.160 paper Clip, depending on the source that you're looking at. 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:12.920 That name came from the paper clips that were used 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:17.280 to discreetly flag the files of candidates whose backgrounds were 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:20.560 potentially too damning for them to be allowed into the 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:24.920 United States. In August, Secretary of State Dean Atchison sent 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:28.760 a top secret memo to President Harry Truman requesting his 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:33.040 approval of the interim exploitation of German and Austrian specialists 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:37.480 under Project paper Clip. The document Truman approved included the 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:41.560 text of State War Navy Coordinating Committee Document to five 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:45.280 seven Slash twenty two, which outlined a revised version for 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.440 the expanded paper Clip program that had been launched in March. 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:52.840 This read, in part quote, persons proposed to be brought 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:55.679 to the US here under shall be screened by the 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:59.240 Commanding General U. S. F Et on the basis of 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:04.320 available rec kords. No person found by the Commanding General U. S. 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:06.640 F Et to have been a member of the Nazi 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:10.920 Party and more than a nominal participant in its activities, 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:15.040 or an active supporter of Nazism or militarism, shall be 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:19.760 brought to the US here under. However, neither position nor 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:24.040 honors awarded a specialist under the Nazi regime solely on 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:28.480 account of his scientific or technical ability, will in themselves 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:32.199 be considered sufficient to disqualify a specialist for evacuation to 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:35.000 the US. Here under where there is doubt as to 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:38.240 the qualification of a specialist under the preceding sentence, the 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:41.600 Commanding General U s F E. T. May transport the 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:45.800 specialist to the US, where further interrogation and screening shall 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:50.640 be conducted immediately in order to determine such qualification. Before 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:54.720 October of nineteen, the State Department had been pre approving 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:58.600 Project paper Clip candidates before they left Europe, but after 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:01.240 that point the process shift did so that the Immigration 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:05.680 and Naturalization Service Commissioner handled them in the US. This 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:09.840 dropped the State Department preclearance requirement, which was required by 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:14.439 law in occupied Germany. The Office of Military Government US 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:18.320 kept security dossier's on all of the candidates, but also 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:22.520 withheld the most damaging information on many high profile candidates. 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:26.800 Documents that were declassified in the nineteen seventies and afterward 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:31.280 revealed that reports on individual candidates were revised to basically 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:35.200 whitewash their backgrounds. Yes, some of these revisions were really 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:38.840 dramatic that sort of went from, you know, draft one, 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:41.439 the first thing in somebody's fil being like, this person 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:45.840 is a dangerous Nazi, and then later on being like, 0:21:45.920 --> 0:21:48.840 as this person had no more than a nominal involvement 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:53.000 in the Nazi Party. So even though this whole project 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:56.160 had started with a lot of assurances that it absolutely 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:59.920 would not involve ardent Nazis, in the end, Paper Clippers 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:04.000 included people who had worked directly without off Hitler, Heinrich 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:07.720 Himler and Herman Gurring. Some had been officers in the 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:10.639 Nazi Party or in the s S or the Essay. 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:14.960 Some stood trial at Nuremberg or faced other war crimes trials. 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:19.120 In some cases, people's backgrounds were so egregious that they 0:22:19.119 --> 0:22:21.760 were giving contracts to work for the U. S Military, 0:22:21.840 --> 0:22:24.640 but they did that work while still living in Germany. 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:28.080 But in other cases, people with pretty similar backgrounds still 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:31.560 made their way to the US. Of course, this whole 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:35.520 program was classified, but just as this shift was happening 0:22:35.560 --> 0:22:39.960 from temporary contracts to American citizenship, the American public was 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:43.240 becoming more aware of what was going on. This started 0:22:43.280 --> 0:22:47.119 thanks to news reports that originated from Russian language newspapers 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:51.160 being printed in Germany. Soon publications like The New York 0:22:51.200 --> 0:22:55.280 Times and Newsweek were reporting on German researchers, some of 0:22:55.320 --> 0:22:59.080 them Nazis, being brought to the US and offered citizenship. 0:22:59.840 --> 0:23:02.399 The War Department tried to respond to all this with 0:23:02.480 --> 0:23:07.040 its own favorable propaganda about the program. It's the whole 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:10.240 idea of like nowhere, only bringing the good Germans here, 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:16.360 like interviews with handpicked scientists who were doing relatively neutral 0:23:16.400 --> 0:23:20.520 and wholesome seeming work. Of course, this all had to 0:23:20.520 --> 0:23:24.959 totally sidestep the fact that many paper clippers had been Nazis, 0:23:25.119 --> 0:23:28.120 and even if they had not been ardent, their work 0:23:28.240 --> 0:23:31.000 during the war had still contributed to, or at the 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:35.040 absolute very least, been complicit in the German war effort. 0:23:35.640 --> 0:23:37.880 This work had been involved in the deaths of Allied 0:23:37.920 --> 0:23:43.040 personnel and the widespread atrocities of the Holocaust. There had 0:23:43.080 --> 0:23:45.800 been critics of this program within the government in the 0:23:45.800 --> 0:23:50.040 military from the beginning. For example, Samuel Klaus was an 0:23:50.040 --> 0:23:52.439 attorney with the State Department and had been chosen to 0:23:52.480 --> 0:23:56.840 represent the State Department with Joah. He had argued strongly 0:23:56.920 --> 0:24:00.000 against the program since he first became involved, pointing out 0:24:00.000 --> 0:24:02.720 out that the United States was giving Nazis the chance 0:24:02.760 --> 0:24:06.840 for American citizenship while denying that chance to refugees and 0:24:06.880 --> 0:24:10.080 displaced persons who had been persecuted and harmed by the 0:24:10.200 --> 0:24:14.360 Nazi regime. Thanks in part to Claus's role, the relationship 0:24:14.400 --> 0:24:18.440 between the State Department and the military became incredibly adversarial 0:24:18.560 --> 0:24:21.680 during this program, and he wound up being targeted during 0:24:21.680 --> 0:24:25.199 the Red Scare. Yeah. He uh. He made a lot 0:24:25.240 --> 0:24:27.680 of incredibly strident criticisms of all of this. He was 0:24:27.720 --> 0:24:32.399 eventually moved off the project. Aside from his well argued 0:24:32.440 --> 0:24:34.760 criticisms of all of this, he apparently was also kind 0:24:34.760 --> 0:24:37.119 of a tricky person to work with and rubbed a 0:24:37.160 --> 0:24:39.080 lot of people the wrong way in this and many 0:24:39.080 --> 0:24:43.600 other contexts, So he seems like kind of a tangle um. 0:24:43.640 --> 0:24:47.159 After these reports, though, there was a lot of vocal 0:24:47.200 --> 0:24:50.639 criticism of this program from the public as well. On 0:24:50.720 --> 0:24:55.600 December six, the Counsel Against Intolerance in America sent a 0:24:55.640 --> 0:24:59.959 telegram to President Truman which read quote as Americans citizen 0:25:00.160 --> 0:25:03.960 permit us to express our profound concern over reports that 0:25:04.119 --> 0:25:07.480 Nazi scientists have not only been brought to this country 0:25:07.480 --> 0:25:10.679 by the United States Army for research projects, but that 0:25:10.760 --> 0:25:13.639 their families are to follow them, and that they may 0:25:13.680 --> 0:25:17.600 be permitted to remain here permanently. We hold these individuals 0:25:17.600 --> 0:25:21.640 to be potentially dangerous carriers of racial and religious hatred. 0:25:22.119 --> 0:25:26.040 Their former eminence as Nazi Party members and supporters raises 0:25:26.080 --> 0:25:29.520 the issue of their fitness to become American citizens or 0:25:29.600 --> 0:25:34.720 hold key positions in American industrial, scientific, and educational institutions. 0:25:35.280 --> 0:25:39.320 If it is deemed imperative to utilize these individuals in 0:25:39.400 --> 0:25:42.639 this country, we earnestly petition you to make sure they 0:25:42.680 --> 0:25:46.080 will not be granted permanent residents or citizenship, and the 0:25:46.200 --> 0:25:50.000 United States with the opportunity which that would afford of 0:25:50.200 --> 0:25:55.000 inculcating these anti democratic doctrines which seek to undermine and 0:25:55.160 --> 0:25:59.880