“making arrangements”: RG 330 Georg Rickhey, Office of the Deputy Director of Intelligence, Hq., European Command, n.d.
escorting Rickhey: RG 319 Georg Rickhey, May 19, 1947.
at least twenty thousand laborers: United States of America v. Arthur Kurt Andrae et al.; a copy of the trial data, charges, finding, and sentences can be found online at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
former SS barracks: Author’s private tour of former SS barracks.
“unprecedented move”: Hunt, 77.
Cox’s call: RG 330 Georg Rickhey, Office Memorandum, March 1948.
“He is absorbed”: RG 330 Siegfried Knemeyer, Report on Siegfried Knemeyer, Siegfried, n.d.
hated provincial life: Interview with Dirk Knemeyer, May 21, 2012, in California.
to make significant contributions: RG 319 Siegfried Knemeyer, “Knemeyer contributions to Wright Field.”
“a genius in the creation”: Knemeyer, 63.
last-minute change: History of AAF Participation in Project Paperclip, 1447; photograph collection of Baumbach and Peron, Hans Ulrich Rudel.
“menace of the first order”: Lasby, 113; telephone interview with Clarence Lasby, March 23, 2013. Lasby interviewed and corresponded by mail with 175 Paperclip scientists in the mid-1960s.
“Such a program must”: Dornberger files, Deutsches Museum archive, Munich. The monograph is titled “Centralized vs. Decentralized Development of Guided Missiles by Walter Dornberger.”
were outraged: Minutes of the Council, FAS, New York, February 1–2, 1947; “Hiring of German Scientists,” W.A.S. Bulletin, February 1947; Lasby, 201.
sent threatening letters: History of AAF Participation in Project Paperclip, 0132.
neighbors told army intelligence: RG 330 Herbert Axster, “The Axster Couple,” March 25, 1948.
Axster opened a law firm: Hunt; Bower, 206–7. Later the couple returned to West Germany.
demanding an explanation: Lasby, 207; Delbert Clark, New York Times, “Nazis Sent to U.S. as Technicians,” January 4, 1947.
Chapter 14: Strange Judgment
“Mere punishment of the defendants”: HLSL Item No. 565.
in both languages: Papers of Dr. Leopold Alexander, Duke University Medical Center Archives, “Log Book, Journey to Nuremberg.”
writing the Nuremberg Code: Schmidt, Justice, 169. Schmidt writes, “On 7 December 1946, two days before the start of the trial, Alexander completed the first of two key texts on the ethics of human experimentation, which he addressed to [General] Taylor. The second memorandum was completed in April 1947. Both memoranda contributed to the debate about human experimentation inside the prosecution team, and ultimately shaped parts of the Nuremberg Code.” Schmidt dedicates chapter 7 of his book to a full discussion of the Nuremberg Code.
Ruff told the judges: HLSL Item No. 28, HLSL Item No. 995.
dueling scars: NMT-1 photograph, Beiglböck in profile.
clutched a dagger: interview with Vivien Spitz, January 17, 2012. In secondary accounts, it has been said that Höllenrainer punched or slapped Beiglböck. Vivien Spitz was at the trial and I report her account.
“He was reaching”: Spitz, 161.
shock in the courtroom: Ibid.
“My heart broke”: Telephone interview with Vivien Spitz, January 17, 2012.
how conflicted he felt: Papers of Dr. Leopold Alexander, Duke University Medical Center Archives, “Log Book, Journey to Nuremberg,” n.d.
“tremendous feeling of inner rage”: Schmidt, Justice, 237.
continue his testimony: United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al., July 1, 1947.
“You Gypsies stick together, don’t you?”: Spitz, 172.
private letter to General Telford Taylor: Alexander Papers, Harvard Law School Library, Box 2, Letter to Brigadier General Telford Taylor, December 7, 1946.
Dr. Alexander remembered it: Alexander Papers, Harvard Law School Library, Box 2, Letter to Mrs. Alexander, November 27, 1946.
scores of documents: HLSL Item No. 180; HLSL Item No. 194; HLSL Item No. 279.
Blome’s defense: HLSL Item No. 276.
left looking like hypocrites: Schmidt, Justice, 135.
Seven doctors were acquitted: HLSL Item No. 184; HLSL Item No. 185; HLSL Item No. 186.
“professional advisor” to Colonel Armstrong: RG 330 Hubertus Strughold, JIOA Form No. 3.
“overall supervision of”: Ibid.
“the Jews had crowded the medical schools”: RG 263 Central Intelligence Agency, Hubertus Strughold file, A-1-2062. This file was kept classified until the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act forced its declassification and release in 2006.
“ethical principles”: RG 330 Hubertus Strughold, “Sworn Statement of K. E. Schäfer,” September 23, 1947.
Chapter 15: Chemical Menace
he wrote in a State Deparment memo: Hunt, 107–9.
security reports: RG 59 General Records of the Department of State, Doc. No. 862.542; Bower, 176, 237–39.
wore his Nazi uniform to work: RG 330 Kurt Debus, File No. D-34033.
revelation in his OMGUS security report: RG 330 Kurt Debus, File No. 384.201.
transcript form: Ibid. The full transcript, in German and English, is in Debus’s file.
on November 30, 1942, “Craemer”: RG 330 Kurt Debus, “Certified True Copy, F. C. Groves,” n.d.
sponsored by Heinrich Himmler: Hunt, 44.
Klaus refusing to sign: Bower, 180–81.
expert in tabun nerve agent synthesis: RG 330 Friederich Hoffmann, Basic Personnel Record.
dedicated his life: Johnson, 2, 5–14; Loucks Papers (USAMHI), U.S. Army Military History Institute, Department of Defense Press Office, Biography of Charles E. Loucks.
Mickey Mouse face: Brophy et al., 264. As technical director at Edgewood, Major Loucks was in charge of updating all soldiers’ gas masks.
incendiary bombs: Johnson, 202; Loucks Papers (USAMHI), photographs.
four hundred battalions: Mauroni, 13.
experts like Charles Loucks: Johnson, 59.
Hoffmann arrived: RG 330 Friedrich Hoffmann, Security Report by Employing Agency.
PhD in philosophy: Telephone interviews with Gabriella Hoffmann, September 27, 2012, and October 17, 2012; Hoffmann personal papers.
risked life and limb: Hoffmann personal papers; Telephone interview with John Dippel, October 19, 2012.
quartered inside a barracks: Hoffmann personal papers.
“synthesizing new insecticides”: RG 330 Friedrich Hoffmann, JIOA Form 3.
code-named AI.13: Tucker, 104. Tabun was given the code name GA; sarin, GB; and soman, GD.
under pressure to catch up: Krause and Mallory, 114–18; Loucks considered the greatest stumbling block to production to be the missing silver-lined cooking kettles that had been precision-designed to withstand the highly corrosive nature of tabun gas, items that had been at the very center of the Otto Ambros escape debacle in July 1945.
Edgewood lagged behind: U.S. Army monograph, “Soviet Research and Development Capabilities for New Toxic Agents,” Project No. A-1735, July 28, 1958, 6–7.
“work of a high order”: RG 330 Friedrich Hoffmann, JIOA Form 3.
redouble efforts: Loucks Papers (USAMHI), “Germans Have Nerve Gas: 9GB0” (handwritten document). In addition to serving as commanding general of the Army Chemical Center at Edgewood Arsenal, Loucks was the deputy chief chemical officer for research and development there.
United States of America v. Carl Krauch et al.: His name was spelled with both a K and a C.
According to Pearson: Bower, 193.
advocated for the use: Tucker, 35.
briefed Eisenhower: Bower, 189, 194–95.
“The public relations”: Bower, 195.
get rid of Samuel Klaus: Hunt, 132, 133.
“obnoxiously difficult”: Bower, 189.
buried in scandals: Bower, 189, 194–95.
was born: Center for Studies in Intelligence, “A Loo
k Back, The National Security Act of 1947,” available online at www.cia.gov.
observing the tabun tests: Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State, Memorandum from the Director of the Central Intelligence Dulles to Secretary of Defense Wilson, “Subject: Research on Psychochemicals,” December 3, 1955.
Greene was a short man: Interview with Gabriella Hoffmann, October 17, 2012; Hoffmann personal papers (photographs). In the 1960s, the Greenes and the Hoffmanns were neighbors.
His seminal vision: L. Wilson Greene, “Psychochemical Warfare: A New Concept of War,” Army Chemical Center, August 1949; Memorandum from Director of Central Intelligence Dulles to Secretary of Defense Wilson, December 3, 1955, Document 244, “Research of Psychochemicals,” U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian.
“hallucinogenic or psychotomimetic drugs”: U.S. Army Inspector General, Report, DAIG 21-75, p. 12.
“There can be no doubt”: L. Wilson Greene, “Psychochemical Warfare: A New Concept of War,” Army Chemical Center, August 1949; U.S. Army Inspector General, Report, DAIG 21-75, pp. 12–14.
These sixty-one compounds: Ibid.
recognized at Edgewood: Hoffmann personal papers; telphone interview with Gabriella Hoffmann, March 22, 2013; telephone interview with Dr. James Ketchum, November 7, 2012; Hunt, chapter 10.
travel the world: Hoffmann personal papers; interview with Gabriella Hoffmann, September 27, 2012.
the Black Maria: Covert, 39–40.
the Eight Ball: Author tour of Fort Detrick, July 20, 2012; Covert, 40, 83, 95.
back on the Paperclip List: RG 319 Kurt Blome, October 2, 1947, Ref No. 3047; Batchelor’s colleague, Dr. Norbert Fell, had just returned from Japan where he had been working in secret with General Shiro Ishii, the dominant figure in the Japanese biological weapons program, located inside a secret facility on the Manchurian Peninsula and code-named “Water Purification Unit 731.” The U.S. Chemical Warfare Corps struck a deal with General Ishii whereby in exchange for immunity, he agreed to “write a treatise on the whole subject” of his work during the war. Ishii’s sixty-page report, in English, promised full disclosure “on B.W. activities directed against man [including] full details and diagrams.” The report was worthless. Norman Fell returned to Detrick in June 1947. Harold Batchelor prepared for his visit to Germany. Fell later committed suicide.
marked “Secret-Confidential”: RG 319 Kurt Blome, October 2, 1947.
everything discussed would be classified: RG 319 Kurt Blome, “Report of Interview of German Scientist, German Research on Biological Warfare,” 86.
“all the research for BW”: Ibid., 86.
Reich’s outpost on the island of Riems: Ibid., 89.
“the plague got more attention that any others”: Ibid., 98.
“Schreiber, as the head of the department”: Ibid., 99.
“everybody who knew Schreiber”: Ibid., 99.
everything they knew: RG 330 Erich Traub, JIOA Form No. 2, Basic Personnel Record.
chose to return to Germany: RG 330 Erich Traub, Military Government of Germany, Fragebogen (questionnaire).
lure Traub away: RG 330 Erich Traub, JIOA No. 461. In May 1948, Traub was appointed director of the institute by the Russians. Around that same time, with the aid of British intelligence, Traub began plotting his escape. On August 20, 1948, the following note was written and attached to his dossier: “He escaped the Russian zone carrying with him cultures of the Hoof and Mouth disease and has them stored in Marburg at the Behring Werke. Wants to secure employment in England, Canada, or the United States preferably.” On July 1, 1949, he signed a Paperclip contract.
shared with him by Dr. Blome: RG 319 Kurt Blome, “Report of Interview of German Scientist, German Research on Biological Warfare,” 93.
Chapter Sixteen: Headless Monster
made brigadier general: Loucks Papers (USAMHI). Loucks was made brigadier general on December 11, 1944. He was later regraded to colonel and then appointed commanding general of the Army Chemical Center in January 1951.
working relationship with Richard Kuhn: Loucks Papers (USAMHI), speech to the Daughters of the American Revolution, Lynchburg Chapter, n.d.
developed soman nerve agent: Tucker, 63, 89, 91–92.
Nazi complicity: Loucks Papers (USAMHI), Letter to Mr. L. Patrick Moore, April 12, 1949.
“I was under the impression”: Loucks Papers (USAMHI), speech to the Daughters of the American Revolution, Lynchburg Chapter (n.d).
gathering of the Swiss Society: Loucks Papers (USAMHI), “Lysergic Acid Compound” speech, n.d. Loucks wrote three different drafts of the speech. Some are typed, some handwritten, and some typed with handwritten notes.
“Went back to the house”: Loucks Papers (USAMHI), “Desk Diary 1948.”
“foreigner, dark, nationality unknown”: Ibid.
“lunch of pork chops”: Ibid.
“Lysergic Acid Diethylamide”: Loucks Papers (USAMHI), “Lysergic Acid Compound.”
“enormous use as a psychiatric aid”: Robert Stone, “Albert Hofmann, b. 1906: Day Tripper,” New York Times, December 24, 2008.
first article on LSD: Stafford, 30.
chemists from Operation Paperclip: That these programs were originally linked to Operation Paperclip through General Charles E. Loucks was not documented before this book.
“I can help,” the caller said: Loucks Papers (USAMHI), “Desk Diary 1948.”
“We put samples [of sarin] in front of them”: Loucks Papers (USAMHI); Johnson, 53–54.
false teeth: RG 330 Walter Schieber, JIOA Form No. 2, Basic Personnel Record, n.d.
Hitler’s inner circle: Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde, Dr. Walter Schieber file, No. 39002.
on the personal staff of Heinrich Himmler: Ibid.
an engineer and a chemist: RG 165 Walter Schieber, “Schuster File,” Report from Dustbin, 31 pages.
“Designs for concentration camp”: Allen, 176.
Schieber designed a “nourishment” program: Schmidt, Karl Brandt, 262.
“confidential clerk of IG Farben”: RG 319 Walter Schieber, Ref-No: S-3338.
“I’m free now”: Loucks Papers (USAMHI), “Desk Diary 1948”; Johnson, 53–54.
signed a Top Secret Project Paperclip contract: RG 330 Walter Schieber, JIOA Form No. 2, Basic Personnel Record.
“Subject is Dr. Walter Schieber”: RG 330 Walter Schieber, HQ EUCOM, Frankfurt, Germany, to JIOA, January 9, 1948.
“shipping subject via air under escort”: Ibid.
“Ship Dr. Walter Schieber to Wright Field”: RG 330 Walter Schieber, War Department, Staff Message Center, Outgoing Classified Message, January 2, 1948.
“Trusting he would be placed”: RG 319 Walter Schieber, Ref No: S-2929, April 2, 1948.
told his Paperclip handler: RG 319 Walter Schieber, March 16, 1948.
“Schieber believes that”: RG 319 Walter Schieber. Ref No: S-2929, April 2, 1948.
“Walther Schieber started his business career”: RG 330 Walter Schieber, File No. 8060622.
“constantly profited from being a party man”: Ibid.
“Cancel Air Force request”: RG 330 Walter Schieber, April 1, 1948.
“exception to present policy”: RG 330 Walter Schieber, April 7, 1948.
set up a meeting: Loucks personal papers; Tucker first found this story in the Loucks papers archived at the U.S. Army Military History Institute. The quotes Tucker uses differ slightly from those I found in Loucks’s desk diary (which also differ slightly from references in Loucks’s oral history interview), meaning that there could be a third source in Loucks’s voluminous papers where he discusses his work with the German chemists.
“Classified matters” were discussed: Loucks Papers (USAMHI), “Desk Diary 1948.”
Loucks recorded his thoughts: Ibid.
“was more interesting”: Ibid.; Johnson, 58.
“Schieber is interesting”: Ibid.
One photograph in the album: Loucks Papers (USAMHI); photographs.
“one of those incidents that didn’t mean anything”: Ibid.
“Could you develop the process”: Loucks Papers (USAMHI), “Desk Diary 1948.”
recalled the next conversation: Johnson, 55.
“We will pay all their expenses”: Loucks Papers (USAMHI), “Desk Diary 1948.”
memorandum to the chief of the Army Chemical Corps: Ibid.
“Hope the chief will support us”: Ibid.
industrial amounts of sarin gas: Johnson, 55–57.
“One of the team”: Loucks, “German Nerve Gas (GB),” 3 Sheets, “Written from memory but believed to be correct,” signed Charles E. Loucks, April 10, 1972, Arlington, Virginia.
“That’s when we built the plant”: Johnson, 56.
code-named Gibbett-Delivery: Tucker, 123, 128. In May 1948, the Chemical Corps decided that sarin would be the standard U.S. nerve agent it would mass-produce. The plant was constructed under the code name Gibbett.
unknown item: Loucks Papers (USAMHI), Letter, “Sehr geehrten Herr Loucks!” August 31, 1949.
Christmas cards: Loucks Papers (USAMHI), cards dated 1949, 1952, 1955.
“I don’t like this,” Loucks wrote: Loucks Papers, “Desk Diary 1950.”
Schieber had spent the night: Loucks Papers, “Desk Diary 1949.”
“long session with H.Q. Int.”: Loucks Papers, “Desk Diary 1950.”
office at CIA handling the Paperclip: CIA Executive Assistant Director was Kenneth K. Addicott.
“a photostatted copy”: “CIA Memo to JIOA, Subject: Werner Osenberg Files on German Scientists,” December 4, 1947 (FOIA).
“production of intelligence”: Karl H. Weber, “The Directorate of Science and Technology, Historical Series, Top Secret, The Office of Scientific Intelligence, 1949–1968, Volume II, Annexes IV, V, VI and VII,” OSI-1, June 1972 (FOIA/Declassified 2008), Annex IV, p. 1.
“Priority was accorded”: Weber, 24. Weber was chairman from 1954 to 1972. The Scientific Intelligence Committee created joint intelligence subcommittees in each group: the Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee was JAEIC, the Joint Biological Warfare Committee was JBWIC, the Joint Chemical Warfare Committee was JCWIC, the Joint Medical Sciences Intelligence Committee was JMSIC, and so forth. JIOA recruited German scientists and brought them to America, and the others produced and coordinated information that their work generated.
Operation Paperclip Page 57