Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists to America

Description

In the chaos following WWII, many of Germany's remaining resources were divvied up among allied forces. Some of the greatest spoils were the Third Reich's scientific minds--the minds that made their programs in aerospace and rocketry the best in the world. The United States secretly decided that the value of these former Nazis' forbidden knowledge outweighed their crimes, and the government formed a covert organization called Operation Paperclip to allow them to work without the knowledge of the American public. Drawing on exclusive interviews with dozens of Paperclip family members, with access to German archival documents (including, notably, papers available only to direct descendants of the former Third Reich's ranking members), files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and lost dossiers she recently discovered at the National Archives, Annie Jacobsen will follow more than a dozen German scientists through their postwar lives and into one of the most complex, nefarious, and jealously guarded government secrets of the 20th century.

Annie Jacobsen was a contributing editor at the Los Angeles Times Magazine and is the author of the New York Times bestseller AREA 51. A graduate of Princeton University, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons.

One of The Boston Globe's Best Books of 2014 One of iBooks' Top Ten Nonfiction Books of the Year Important, superbly written.... Jacobsen's book allows us to explore these questions with the ultimate tool: hard evidence. She confronts us with the full extent of Paperclip's deal with the devil, and it's difficult to look away.--Matt Damsker, USA Today (4 stars) [A] gripping, always disquieting story of a nation forced to trade principle for power.... Jacobsen gives us many vivid moments.... OPERATION PAPERCLIPtakes its place in the annals of Cold War literature, one more proof that moral purity and great power can seldom coexist.--Chris Tucker, The Dallas Morning News A compelling work with interesting historical and personal revelations.--Jay Watkins, CIA's Intelligence in Public Literature An engrossing and deeply disturbing expose that poses ultimate questions of means versus ends. -- Booklist (starred) Annie Jacobsen's Operation Paperclip is a superb investigation, showing how the U.S. government recruited the Nazis' best scientists to work for Uncle Sam on a stunning scale. Sobering and brilliantly researched. -- Alex Kershaw, author of The Liberator As comprehensive as it is critical, this latest expose from Jacobsen is perhaps her most important work to date.... Jacobsen persuasively shows that it in fact happened and aptly frames the dilemma.... Rife with hypocrisy, lies, and deceit, Jacobsen's story explores a conveniently overlooked bit of history. -- Publishers Weekly (starred) Chilling, compelling, and comprehensive accounting.... Jacobsen's impressive book plumbs the dark depths of this postwar recruiting and shows the historical truths behind the space race and postwar US dominance. Highly recommended for readers in World War II history, espionage, government cover-ups, or the Cold War. -- Library Journal (starred) Darkly picaresque.... Jacobsen persuasively argues that the mindset of the former Nazi scientists who ended up working for the American government may have exacerbated Cold War paranoia.--New Yorker Doggedly researched. -- Parade Jacobsen uses newly released documents, court transcripts, and family-held archives to give the fullest accounting yet of this endeavor. -- The New York Post The most in depth account yet of the lives of Paperclip recruits and their American counterparts.... Jacobsen deftly untangles the myriad German and American agencies and personnel involved...more gripping and skillfully rendered are the stories of American and British officials who scoured defeated Germany for Nazi scientists and their research.--New York Times Book Review Throughout, the author delivers harrowing passages of immorality, duplicity and deception, as well as some decency and lots of high drama. How Dr. Strangelove came to America and thrived, told in graphic detail. -- Kirkus Reviews With Annie Jacobsen's OPERATION PAPERCLIP for the first time the enormity of the effort has been laid bare. The result is a book that is at once chilling and riveting, and one that raises substantial and difficult questions about national honor and security...This book is a remarkable achievement of investigative reporting and historical writing.--Boston Globe