Secret Agenda; The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945 to 1990

New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1991. First Edition [stated]. First printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/very good. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. xi, [1].340 p. Illustrations. Selected Bibliography. Selected Archival Sources. Index. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Linda Hunt is an author and journalist in the United States. She is a former CNN reporter and wrote the book Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945-1990 that first revealed Operation Paperclip and the extent to which the United States federal government and military aided this mission to bring German scientists, engineers, and technicians to the United States after World War II. Hunt broke the story in 1985. Hunt won the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award in 1985. Hunt uncovered her information through what were then recently-declassified government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Secret Agenda reads like a thriller, but the story is true: U.S. intelligence officers brought Nazi scientists to America after World War II to work on rockets, jet planes, and chemical warfare. Investigative reporter Linda Hunt reveals new information about NASA rocket engineers whose Nazi activities are currently under Justice Department scrutiny. Although Project Paperclip documentaries consistently fill cable TV slots today, the subject was still taboo in the 1990s. Despite such pre-internet suppression, luckily, today's reader can still enjoy the benefits of the intricate research herein. The subject of this book is hauntingly familiar: a group of men in the Pentagon decide that they alone know what is the best for the country. Project Paperclip - their effort to bring German scientists, including known Nazis, to the U.S. after WWII - ran roughshod over official American policy; its details and deceits were then covered up for decades - until now. Even before the war in Europe was over, U.S. intelligence agents were scouring Germany in search of the Reich's top scientists - to gain the "spoils of war" and keep them out of the hands of the Soviets. It did not matter that many of these scientists had been members of the Nazi party, or been accused or even convicted at Nuremberg, or that President Truman had issued a presidential directive forbidding the immigration of ardent Nazis. The men who ran Paperclip simply cleansed the scientists' records and installed them in high-level military and industrial positions. "Secret Agenda" for the first time exposes the full story of Project Paperclip, from its earliest deceptions in the 1940s and 1950s to the work of Arthur Rudolph and Wernher von Braun on the Apollo program. Thoroughly researched and fact-checked, "Secret Agenda" is an important and disturbing book about one of the darkest chapters in American history. Linda Hunt is a Washington-based reporter whose Paperclip stories received international attention and won the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award in 1985. Derived from a Kirkus review: Here, 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 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 contributed greatly to the development of rockets, jet planes, and other prodigies of technology, Hunt convincingly demonstrates that several such scientists also participated in experiments on 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. 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 group of defense and intelligence officials deliberately subverted stated US policy.