Revelations about the extent of the American government’s coddling of former Nazis as intelligence agents during the Cold War come as no surprise to historians of Operation Paperclip, a similar program that imported German scientists and engineers after World War II, most famously “rocket scientist” Wernher von Braun. It is now clear that the turpitude of ignoring often blatant associations with war crimes in order to capitalize on an individual’s supposed anti-Communism and/or technical skills was deeply engrained in Washington and lasted through many decades of exploitation and coverup. For the thousands of Germans who benefited from having their pasts cosmeticized, their lives rejuvenated, their personal finances secured, and their citizenship reinvented, the hideous old dream of a new Reich came true, in a sense, in the United States, where they found a congenial milieu of militarism, secrecy, racism, antisemitism, and ideological rigidity. The story is one more black mark on the reputations of American leaders who condoned the process for the catch-all sake of national security, a mentality that still infects this nation’s corridors of power.
