The United States Gov­ern­ment, Nazi Sci­en­tists, and Project Paper­clip, 1945 to 1990
by Linda Hunt
1991, St. Martin’s Press
ISBN 0312055102
Illus­trated, 351 pages.

Linda Hunt, a for­mer CNN inves­tiga­tive reporter, tells a shock­ing tale: how a branch of the US gov­ern­ment delib­er­ately thwarted attempts to bring to jus­tice Nazi sci­en­tists who were guilty of war crimes, and who, in at least one case, actu­ally par­tic­i­pated in fresh atroc­i­ties in the US. While it is com­mon knowl­edge that the US used Nazi sci­en­tists dur­ing the cold war, Hunt reveals for the first time that the project to recruit and uti­lize Nazi sci­en­tific talent—code-named “Paperclip”—continued until 1973. In addi­tion, while for­mer Nazi sci­en­tists (like Werner von Braun) con­tributed greatly to the devel­op­ment of rock­ets, jet planes, and other prodi­gies of tech­nol­ogy, Hunt con­vinc­ingly demon­strates that sev­eral such sci­en­tists also par­tic­i­pated in “Dachau-like exper­i­ments on over seven thou­sand U.S. sol­diers” on the effects of LSD and other chem­i­cals at Edge­wood, Mary­land, between 1947 and 1966. More­over, Hunt explains that the US avidly recruited many Nazi sci­en­tists, despite their war crimes—including uti­liza­tion of slave labor and exe­cu­tion of prisoners—and despite the con­tin­u­ing devo­tion of many to Nazi ide­ol­ogy. Hunt also relates the sor­did details of the intel­li­gence community’s attempts to pre­vent bring­ing these sci­en­tists to jus­tice. And, in at least one case, she shows that the pro­gram was inim­i­cal to US interests—the man who con­ceived and ran Paper­clip was ulti­mately con­victed of sell­ing Amer­i­can defense secrets to the Soviet Union. An engross­ing exam­i­na­tion of how a small clique of defense and intel­li­gence offi­cials delib­er­ately sub­verted stated US pol­icy. (Eight pages of b&w pho­tographs.)—Copy­right ©1991, Kirkus Asso­ciates, LP. All rights reserved.

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