half of the one thousand German scientists: These numbers and dates vary in secondary sources. I use JIOA records at the National Archives.
moving a scientist from military custody: I use a summation of multiple scientists’ case files, including those of Benzinger, Strughold, Traub, Schäfer, Dornberger, and Knemeyer.
“Germany then became a new battlefield”: Ruffner, ix.
its plans for covert action: Weiner, 33, 36.
spent time in displaced-persons camps: Ibid., 44.
strategically located: Author tour of Camp King, which is about halfway between the Dustbin interrogation center and the former EUCOM headquarters in Frankfurt (also the former IG Farben building). Interview with Manfred Kopp, August 1, 2012, in Germany.
the facility had two other names: General Order No. 264, Headquarters USFET, September 19, 1946, Designation of Military Installation (FOIA).
significance of the informal name: “History of Camp King,” 77. King had been assigned to the VII Corps of the First U.S. Army Corps, G-2.
prisoners were Soviet-bloc spies: Ruffner, xlviii; “History of Camp King,” 82. The partnership was effective from July 1, 1949, to May 31, 1952.
Operation Artichoke: Marks, 31–36; Koch and Wech, 89, 97, 113. According to documents declassified by the Clinton administration, the sponsoring agency was the Joint Medical Sciences Intelligence Committee, or JMSIC, the JIOA’s “intelligence production” counterpart. The Clinton panel identified the man in charge of Operation Bluebird as “Dr. Yaeger [sic] from the Central Intelligence Agency.”
first commanding officer: Memo CO No. 205, Headquarters USFET, August 25, 1945 (FOIA); interview with Egmont Koch, August 6, 2012, in Germany.
intelligence reports on subjects: Correspondence with John Dolibois, 2012–2013: “I directed a study of the history of the German General Staff. Among those Donovan had me write intelligence monographs [of] were General Walter Warlimont, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring and Minister of Labor Robert Ley.” The Donovan Nuremberg Trial Collection at Cornell contains 150 bound volumes of Nuremberg trial transcripts and documents from the personal archives of General William J. Donovan (1883–1959). Many of the source documents originated at Camp King.
lacked a greater context: Silver, 2.
analyze information from Soviet defectors: Ruffner, xv, xiv–xv. The Soviets repeatedly requested that Wessel and Baun be extradited.
“gradual drift into operations”: “Report of Interview with Brigadier General Edwin L. Sibert on the Gehlen Organization,” March 26, 1970.
make Gehlen head: Ruffner, xxi–xvii. Gehlen’s official title was chief of intelligence collection, Foreign Armies East (Fremde Heere Ost). He had been a prisoner in the United States, at Fort Hunt, Virginia, since 1945.
a village called Pullach: Ruffner, li–lviii; photographs from Central Intelligence Agency. The attachment shows photograph of the building, code-named Nikolaus Compound.
finally realized the true nature: Ruffner, xvii–xviii.
a million dollars a year: Bird, 353. Bird reports that in 1949, “Gehlen signed a contract with the CIA—reportedly for a sum of $5 milllion a year.” Various former Agency sources suggest that sum was likely $1 million a year for five years; Breitman et al. use a figure of $500,000 a year.
The two parties agreed: Ruffner, xlviii.
CIA created the Office of Scientific Intelligence: Weber, IV, 23.
“to apply special methods of interrogation”: Marks, 23; CIA Memorandum for the Record, Subject “Project Artichoke,” n.d., No. 75/42-75/46 (FOIA).
Chapter Seventeen: Hall of Mirrors
most unusual press conferences: RG 65 Walter Schreiber, press onference, November 19, 1948, transcript.
The GRU’s notorious official emblem: Reuters, Factbox: Five facts about Russian military intelligence, April 24, 2009; GRU, abbreviation of Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravlenie (Russian: Chief Intelligence Office).
discussing his testimony: RG 65 Walter Schreiber, Agent Report, File VIII-III49, October 27, 1948.
Hitler refused to allow Paulus: Shirer, Rise and Fall, 836–37.
“Heroic endurance”: Ibid., 837.
“91,000 German soldiers”: Ibid., 839. When Hitler learned that Field Marshal Paulus had surrendered to the Soviets, he became enraged. “ ‘The man [Paulus] should have shot himself just as the old commanders who threw themselves on their swords when they saw that the cause was lost.… What hurts me most, personally, is that I still promoted him to field marshal. I wanted to give him this final satisfaction. That’s the last field marshal I shall appoint in this war. You mustn’t count your chickens before they’re hatched’ ” (Shirer, Rise and Fall, 840).
he was living comfortably: RG 65 Walter Schreiber, File VI-878.16, October 22, 1948. Paulus, like Schreiber, testified at Nuremberg against his fellow Nazi Bonzen. “The mere presence of Paulus in Nuremberg was far more startling than anything he had to say,” wrote General Telford Taylor.
Special Agent Wallach: RG 65 Walter Schreiber, Agent Report, File VIII-III49, October 27, 1948.
Loucks found Schreiber: RG 330 Walter Schreiber, Memo, File No. D-249361, December 15, 1949; Loucks Papers (USAMHI), “Desk Diary 1948.”
“Loucks stated subject was energetic”: RG 330 Walter Schreiber, Memo, File No. D-249361, December 15, 1949.
to serve as post physician: Ibid. Starting on November 18, 1949, “employed as physician, 7707 ECIC, Oberursel.”
name of the Soviet handler: In the English transcript of the press conference, dated November 19, 1948, Schreiber’s handler’s name is translated/transcribed as “Fisher.”
“I would have liked to stand up: Schmidt, Justice, 189.
incarcerated for roughly one year: RG 319 Otto Ambros, 201 File; the dates Ambros was in prison, according to his official Prison File: “confined since 16 August 1948,” he was “discharged 3-2-1951 [February 3, 1951].” Dates vary, including those cited at the Nuremberg Military Tribunal Museum.
boarding school–like campus: Author tour of Landsberg with Prison Warden Dr. Harald Eichinger.
“Politic[s] is a bitter disease”: RG 319 Otto Ambros, Letter to Mrs. Prof. C. Ambros from O. Ambros, n.d.
“my father is [being] illegally held”: Landeskirchliches Archiv, Nachlass Landesbischof Wurm file (folder 307/2), correspondence file for the IG Farben Case, letter of Dieter Ambros, August 26, 1949.
disciplinary action: RG 549 Otto Ambros, Disciplinary Report, January 18, 1951.
requested permission: RG 549 Otto Ambros, “Special Permit,” July 26, 1949; August 16, 1949.
wrote up his annual health report: RG 549 Otto Ambros, Report of Physical Examination, August 8, 1949.
given “victors’ justice”: Frei, 104–6. Meanwhile, men who had served Hitler began the creep back into German politics and industry. Three notable former Nazis were in Adenauer’s cabinet: Dr. Thomas Dehler, Minister of Justice, Dr. Hans Seebohm, Minister of Transportation, and Dr. Hans Globke, a former member of Hitler’s Interior Ministry and coauthor of Reich race laws.
the “so-called prisoners of war”: Bird, 329–30.
McCloy served: Ibid., 193.
credited in World Bank literature: Archives, World Bank, www.worldbank.org.
that had belonged to Adolf Hitler: Bird, 316. McCloy had two trains at his disposal. The larger of the two belonged to Hitler.
Many Germans wanted: Frei, 114.
the largest office building in Europe: Drummer and Zwilling, 44–45.
McCloy settled in: Ibid., 105.
It was located: Author tour of the IG Farben building, which is now home to the Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität in Frankfurt am Main, and the Wollheim Memorial, Fritz Bauer Institute, Frankfurt.
something had to be done: Frei, 94, 178.
The legal department: Bird, 330. There exists a famous and controversial story about McCloy when he was the assistant secretary of war (Bird, 214–23). Toward the end of the war, Nahum Goldmann, president of the W
orld Jewish Congress, read in the New York Times that between July 7, 1944, and November 20, 1944, ten fleets with sometimes more than three hundred heavy bombers had bombed targets within thirty-five miles of Auschwitz. Goldmann went to see John McCloy at his office in the Pentagon to appeal to the assistant secretary of war, who was able to bring recommendations to European commanders. According to Goldmann, he pleaded with McCloy for Auschwitz to be bombed, saying some would die but a hundred thousand lives might be saved. McCloy said there was little he could do and instead passed off Goldmann to his British counterpart in Washington, Sir John Dill. Goldmann met with Dill, who also rejected the idea, arguing that bombs needed to be saved for important military targets. A second appeal was made to McCloy: to destroy “the execution chambers and crematories at [Auschwitz] Birkenau through direct bombing action.” McCloy turned the matter over to an American lieutenant general named John Hull for quick evaluation; no commanders in Europe were consulted. Hull rejected the appeal, claiming, “The target is beyond the maximum range of medium bombardment, dive bombers and fighter bombers located in the United Kingdom, France or Italy”—a statement, Bird reminds readers, that was contrary to the facts. Goldmann pointed out that the Royal Air Force had already targeted IG Farben’s Buna factory, which was four miles away from the gas chambers.
deliberate, shameless murderers: Bird, 331.
McCloy never responded: Ibid.
Peck Panel: David W. Peck was at the time the presiding justice of the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division.
McCloy’s adjunct in Bonn: Schwartz, 165.
“the widest possible clemency”: Diefendorf et al., 445.
“Due to the threat”: History of AAF Participation in Project Paperclip, Office of the Sec of Defense, 7/14/50; Bower, 253.
Dr. Nordstrom maintained a thick file: RG 330 Records of the U.S. High Commission for Germany, Project 63, 1948–1952.
Accelerated Paperclip program: RG 330 Records of the U.S. High Commission for Germany, Files of Research Control Group, Dr. Nordstrom.
“especially dangerous top level scientists”: RG 330 Records of the U.S. High Commission for Germany, Project 63, November 22, 1950: Hunt, 203–6; Bower, 253.
Accelerated Paperclip, or Project 63, meetings: RG 330 Records of the U.S. High Commission for Germany, Project 63, 1948–1952; the actual meeting summary notes are missing from the HICOG files—destroyed or misfiled. Only a cover letter remains, indicating who was there.
Representatives from JIOA: RG 330 Records of the U.S. High Commission for Germany, August 2, 1951. The CIA worked under the code name “7955 Scientific Detachment,” which can be identified as the CIA by its representative, Karl H. Weber.
U.S. Army’s “primary interest”: RG 330 Records of the U.S. High Commission for Germany, Project 63, “Instructions for German and Austrian Nationals residing in the United States Under the Terms of Contract Agreement,” 5–7.
Otto Ambros was placed on the JIOA list: RG 319 Otto Ambros, File 291888, “Release of Inmate from Landberg Prison,” RG 319 Otto Ambros, January 11, 1951.
The Peck Panel suggested: Schwartz, 162–65.
1 million reichsmarks: RG 319 Otto Ambros, SHAEF file card dated 10/44, WD44714/36, “Microfilm Project MP-B-102”; when contacted in 2012, Ambros’s son, Dieter Ambros, declined to comment on the figure.
panel’s recommendations: Bird, 360–61.
John J. McCloy commuted: Congressional Record—Senate, February 1951, page 1581. Drew Middleton, “7 Nazis Executed for War Murders,” New York Times, June 7, 1951.
one-third of the inmates tried at Nuremberg were freed: RG 549 Otto Ambros, Case Record. The “Order with Respect to Sentence of Otto Ambros” was signed by John J. McCloy and dated January 31, 1951.
Otto Ambros traded in his red-striped denim prison uniform: Ibid.
“Why are we freeing so many Nazis?”: This is the way the quote appears in many books and papers. The way the quote appears in her column (February 28, 1951) is “the fact that we have freed so many Nazis of late must be puzzling the German People.”
“Doctors who had participated”: Nachama, 379.
Charles McPherson learned: RG 330 Kurt Blome, Special Projects Team, March 27, 1951.
Blome said he needed some time: RG 330 Kurt Blome, Special Projects Team, June 25, 1951.
took their boys out of school: Interview with Dr. Götz Blome, August 3, 2012, in Germany.
Blome’s secret Accelerated Paperclip: RG 330 Kurt Blome, Document No. 384.63.
“Suspend shpmt Dr. Kurt Blome”: RG 330 Kurt Blome, October 12, 1951.
“In view of adverse publicity”: RG 330 Kurt Blome, October 19, 1951.
“Recommend Blome be shipped”: RG 330 Kurt Blome, October 24, 1951.
particularly upset because Traub: RG 330 Kurt Blome, November 27, 1951.
have a nice house: Ibid.
She was not interested: Interview with Dr. Götz Blome, August 3, 2012, in Germany.
recently received a check: RG 319 Walter Schreiber, January 18, 1951.
a home in San Antonio and a car: Ibid.
Chapter Eighteen: Downfall
The doctors’ trial had affected him: Alexander Papers, Harvard Law School Library, Series II, Box 7, Subseries A, Personal Life, 1883–1985; Papers of Dr. Leopold Alexander, Duke University Medical Center Archives, “Log Book, Journey to Nuremberg.”
continued to suffer: New York Times, “Cured in U.S. of Her Ills, Left as Nazi Guinea Pig,” March 7, 1952.
“I regard it as my duty”: RG 330 Walter Schreiber, December 3, 1951.
Dr. Walter Schreiber heard the telephone ring: RG 330 Walter Schreiber, “Department of the Air Force Headquarters United States Air Force Washington,” December 14, 1951.
expertise was extremely rare: RG 330 Walter Schreiber, Memo No. 24-170.
long-winded stories: RG 319 Walter Schreiber, Basic Personnel Record for Paperclip Specialist, 30.
identified himself as Mr. Brown: RG 330 Walter Schreiber, “Department of the Air Force Headquarters United States Air Force Washington,” December 14, 1951.
did not tell anyone: RG 330 Walter Schreiber, Memo No. 24-170.
“He was of the opinion”: Ibid.
FBI got involved: RG 65 Walter Schreiber, File No. A8091581.
“I have been advised”: RG 330 Walter Schreiber, January 3, 1952.
General Benson “stated”: RG 330 Walter Schreiber, affidavit, January 23, 1952, p. 2.
sent secret messages: Weindling, 15.
FBI agents arranged to interview: RG 330 Walter Schreiber, “Statement taken from Miss Janina Iwanska in connection with an investigation of Dr. Walter Emil Wilhelm Paul Schreiber, at the Boston Office,” February 27, 1952.
“I don’t know if he gave the orders”: Ibid.
Dr. Schreiber began plotting: RG 330 Walter Schreiber, letter dated March 27, 1952.
Schreiber’s wife of forty years: RG 330 Walter Schreiber, NSDAP Party document 160-75, Nazi Party No. 917,830.
“I am fighting for justice”: Washington Post, “Charges Denounced as ‘Lies’ by Schreiber,” February 13, 1952.
“I never worked in a concentration camp” RG 330 Walter Schreiber, affidavit, January 23, 1952.
“a man should be given”: RG 330 Walter Schreiber, transcript of interview between Colonel Heckemeyer, director of JIOA, and Miss Moran, Time, February 26, 1952.
“Here are the facts regarding the Nazi doctor”: Drew Pearson, “Air Force Hires Nazi Doctor Linked to Ghastly Experiments,” Associated Press, February 14, 1952.
Letter to President Truman: RG 330 Walter Schreiber, telegram to the president dated April 24, 1952, 9:34 p.m.
“We are not going to make”: RG 330 Walter Schreiber, transcript of interview between Colonel Heckemeyer, director of JIOA, and Miss Moran, Time, February 26, 1952.
made by General Aristobulo Fidel Reyes: RG 330 Walter Schreiber, Department of the Air Force staff message No. 52571.
air force paid for police
protection: RG 330 Walter Schreiber, memorandum, Travis Air Force Base, California, April 4, 1952.
say the family documents: Records of Schreiber’s mother-in-law, Marie Conrad, and of Walter E. W. Paul Schreiber, at www.my heritage.com.
Chapter Nineteen: Truth Serum
“the use of drugs and chemicals”: CIA Memorandum for the Record, Subject Project Artichoke, January 31, 1975. This was part of the review prompted by John Marks’s FOIA request and is part of the John Marks Collection at the National Security Archives. “Between 1950 and 1952, responsibility for mind-control went from the [CIA’s] Office of Security to the Scientific Intelligence Unit back to Security again,” writes Marks, who successfully petitioned the government in 1975 to release to him the MKUltra documents under the Freedom of Information Act.
Blome’s file: RG 330 Kurt Blome, Contract, DoD DA-91-501, December 3, 1951.
“Bluebird was rechristened”: Marks, 31.
“modifying behavior through covert means”: Ibid., 61.
“We felt that it was our responsibility”: Interview with Richard Helms, History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, adapted from an interview with Mr. Helms taped by David Frost in Washington, May 22–23, 1978.
“to avoid duplication of effort”: Marks, 61.
“50 million doses”: “Joint Hearing Before the Select Committee on Intelligence,” 91.
SO Division: Marks, 61, 70–72; Regis, 116–19.
secret memo to Richard Helms: Helms was Wisner’s deputy at this time. CIA’s Program of Research in Behavioral Modification,” August 3, 1977; “Joint Hearing Before the Select Committee on Intelligence,” 72–76.
“ ‘Interrogation Techniques’ ”: CIA Memorandum for Deputy Director (Plans), Subject Special Interrogation, February 12, 1951.