Heiser-The-Facade - Sparkling Eyes

"We'd been recruiting Nazi scientists prior to Paperclip, but the official programstepped up the operation. The program was officially disclosed to the public on October1, 1945. What wasn't mentioned was the fact that most of the scientists brought over herewere members of the Nazi party. Our military originally intended to de-brief these men,particularly since we had come into possession of thousands of documents fromPeenemunde, and then send them back to Germany. We soon realized the extent andvalue of their knowledge, and what a waste it would be to just send them back. When wediscovered their arsenal included flying disks, the War Department determined that weneeded to control this technology. The only problem was that it was expressly illegal tooffer Nazis immigration pernission, and President Truman was not of the mind to changethat.""So how did the project get off the ground?" asked Kevin, intrigued."Truman eventually did approve Paperclip, but explicitly forbade includinganyone who had been a member of the Nazi party or an active supporter of the ThirdReich. The War Department's Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency soon figured out thatmost of the guys we really wanted couldn't pass this test. A deal was eventually brokeredbetween a Nazi intelligence expert, Reinhard Gehlen, who had deeply infiltrated theKGB, and then CIA director, Allen Dulles. Dulles thought that he could gain two thingsby dealing with Gehlen: Paperclip scientists, and an allyalbeit a known Nazi—for spyingagainst the Russians. The result was that the dossiers of the scientists we wanted—weresanitized—cleared of references to party membership, Gestapo ties, and any evidence ofhuman experimentation. Even Werner von Braun had been initially labeled as a threat toour national security. Who'd have ever thought that the guy who served as one of WaltDisney's experts on the `World of Tomorrow' used to work for Hitler? Some of you mayhave seen him on TV.""I'm devastated!" Malcolm cracked. "One of the Mouseketeers was a Nazi!" Brianand a few others couldn't help laughing."You have such an ... unusual way of putting things, Dr. Bradley," the major saidstoically, glaring at him from his seat. "May I continue?""Be my guest," Malcolm said with a hint of self-amusement."At the apex of his career in this country, von Braun was named NASA'sassociate administrator. Essentially, the U.S. government gave Nazis new lives and, insome cases, new identities.""How could Truman change his mind like that?" wondered Melissa."He didn't. He never knew how his orders had been circumvented. Paperclip is aclassic—and now, because of the Freedom of Information Act, a very demonstrable—example of a secret government within a government. I'm actually quite proud of theprogram and what it achieved.""Maybe they weren't so bad," offered Kevin soberly. "I mean, I'm an admirer ofvon Braun, and it seems to me that a lot of these guys were probably working underduress.""That's true for some, and for von Braun, it is certainly arguable," the majorcommented. "Others, though, were certainly guilty of war crimes. Take Arthur Rudolph,for example. Rudolph was operations director of the Mittelwerk factory at the Dora-Nordhausen concentration camps, where 20,000 workers died from beatings, hangings,and starvation. One military file prior to Dulles' sanitation program suggested he beincarcerated should he ever set foot on U.S. soil. If you look at his Paperclip file, it reads116