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.

THIS BOOK IS OUT OF PRINT.