PART 3:SECRET AGENDA:OPERATION PAPERCLIP; PEENEMUNDE ON THE RIO GRANDE

Secret Agenda The United States Government, Nazi Scientists and 

Project Paperclip 1945 to 1990 

By Linda Hunt 

3 

Peenemünde on the Rio Grande 

NIGHT had fallen by the time Army Ordnance was ready to launch the missile that stood like a bullet on the launch pad at White Sands Proving Ground (W.S.P.G), New Mexico. The rocket was a modified V-2 made from captured German rocket parts shipped from Mittelwerk. It was the second in a series of rockets fired by General Electric and Army Ordnance in connection with their Hermes II missile project.1 

The launch site was crowded as Army engineers and 118 Paperclip personnel made last-minute changes to assure a successful flight. As the countdown approached, Ernst Steinhoff moved to his post one mile south of the site. Another German, Theodor Vowe, was stationed west of the area. Both were assigned to observe the rocket's trajectory through high powered telescopes and notify command officers in the block house if the rocket veered off course. The command station could then cut off the fuel to the rocket's motors and stop its flight .2 

The sound was deafening when the rocket lifted off the ground and soared into the evening sky. "It's a keeper," yelled Herbert Karsch from the bunkhouse. But the rocket began to go astray, reverse course and head straight south toward El Paso. Steinhoff knew the rocket was headed in the wrong direction but let it fly. It soared over El Paso, over the Mexican border, and finally crash-landed about three miles from a heavily populated Juarez business district. Mexican residents nearby fled in terror as the rocket exploded, leaving a huge crater 50 feet wide and 24 feet deep as it burrowed into the ground. The next day, red-faced officials in Washington had to explain to the Mexican government why the United States had launched a missile attack on their country.3 

The controversy over the Juarez incident overshadowed a more serious problem at White Sands and Fort Bliss Army base in Texas. What happened there is a glaring example of the military's total lack of control over enemy aliens who were judged to be a threat to the internal security of the United States. Even though there were allegations of sabotage and evidence of gross violations of base security, as one intelligence agent bluntly put it, there was absolutely "no attempt to place them in anything resembling custody." Army officers in charge of the group maintained little or no surveillance over the Germans' activities either on or off the base.4 

Security in the area itself was precarious. White Sands had been the site of rocket and missile testing for years. It was considered a perfect firing range for rockets, given the relative isolation of the million-acre base of New Mexico desert range land. During World War II a northern strip of the area was used as a bombing test range. On another portion, called Trinity Site, the first atomic bomb exploded on July 16, 1945.5 

But White Sands was only forty miles from Mexico and Fort Bliss was near the Mexican border. Crossing that border, legally or illegally, was as easy then as it is today, and Mexico Peenemunde on the Rio Grande 43 was a well-known haven for criminal and political refugees. FBI and Army CIC agents viewed northern Mexico as ripe for a potential unhampered operation of foreign agents or sympathizers. As one agent observed, "Former Nazi agents, interned during the late War in Mexico, are now given unlimited freedom within that country. The possibility of northern Mexico being used by Russian agents as an operating base against the guided missile project [is] felt to be obvious."6 

The arrival of Paperclip personnel posed an additional problem. The War Department already had alerted all bases to step up security because "certain Paperclip personnel returned to Germany had technical documents in their possession upon arrival in the Theater." For example, Wright Field specialist Heinz Gartmann left America with turbojet rocket engine blueprints in his hand luggage. Gartmann claimed that a co-worker had packed the documents by mistake. But European investigators, who learned that Gartmann was negotiating with a Russian factory prior to his U.S. departure, reported, "It is believed here that the ... documents were not taken accidentally. "7 

In addition, Army C.I.C counterespionage headquarters warned U.S. officials that Russian agents were making a concerted effort to obtain information about Paperclip. The mother of Helmut Groettrup, a German scientist who voluntarily went to Russia to work, was caught nosing around Landshut housing project in Germany, where families of Paperclip personnel lived. Thea Groettrup arrived at Landshut with Helmuth Thiele, an engineer known to the Army CIC as a Russian agent who recruited scientists for the Soviets. Frau Groettrup was trying to obtain information about the U.S. rocket project and the names of Paperclip scientists who were being returned to Germany from America.8 

The Army also had been warned that the rocket group planned to withhold technical information from American personnel. The warning was contained in a report by Lieutenant Walter Jessel, an interrogator assigned to screen the rocket scientists for trustworthiness before they left Germany in 1945. During the interrogations, Jessel uncovered evidence of a conspiracy among von Braun, Dornberger, and Dornberger's former chief of staff, Herbert Axster, to withhold information from U. S. officers. As a result Jessel concluded that to give security clearances to the group was "an obvious absurdity. "9 

In an interview Axster confirmed that they did indeed plot to withhold information to assure that the group would be sent to the United States. "I realized more and more that they wanted something from us," Axster said. "And of course that has to be paid for. We had to sell ourselves as expensively as possible." Once in America, the group's ultimate purpose was to find a more lucrative sponsor, such as General Electric, and then pull their group out from under the Army's control.10 

Major James Hamill was directly in charge of the Paperclip group at Fort Bliss under Colonel Toftoy. The "tall, fairheaded" twenty-six-year-old major "looked good," according to Axster. Hamill was a graduate of Fordham University with a degree in physics. He had been a member of the regular Army when Colonel Toftoy assigned him to coordinate the entire V-2 mission in Germany. In that position Hamill played a key role in evacuating V-2 rockets from Mittelwerk tunnels to the United States.11 

Some of Hamill's charges had been members of the SS and were considered to be potential security threats by European investigators. Wernher von Braun, for example, had joined the SS at the personal behest of SS chief Heinrich Himmler and had risen to the rank of major. And JIOA officers had even obtained a photograph of another Peenemunde engineer, Anton Beier, decked out in full SS uniform, complete with skull and crossbones on his SS cap. Beier had joined the SS the same year Hitler came into power, in 1933, and was also a member of the Nazi party and two other Nazi organizations. 12 

Kurt Debus, who later would be the first director of the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, was another member of the SS, the SA, and two other Nazi groups. In 1942 he turned a colleague over to the Gestapo for making anti-Hitler statements during an argument over who had started World War II. As a result the man was tried by a Nazi court and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. When questioned about the incident at Fort Bliss, Debus claimed that he had defended the colleague during the trial and that the man's prison sentence had been suspended "mainly due to my testimony." But the actual trial records tell a far different story. The man was convicted as a direct result of Debus's derogatory testimony. Furthermore, his prison sentence was suspended as a result of intervention by his employer, not Debus. Debus also claimed that he was only an "applicant" in the SS. But Berlin Document Center SS files show that he joined in 1939 and was assigned SS membership number 426559. Also, his wartime colleagues reported seeing him in a black SS uniform during the Nazi period. 13 

In addition to that evidence, over a dozen of Hamill's charges had worked in the Mittelwerk V-2 factory using concentration camp inmates as slave labor. Hamill had to know about the slave labor used there, since he visited the place in 1945. It would have been impossible for him not to see, or step over, the dead bodies of six thousand Dora prisoners covering the ground at Nordhausen.14 

Wernher von Braun's younger brother Magnus was one of those who worked in that under ground hell. He was an engineer under Arthur Rudolph in Mittelwerk from 1943 until the Germans fled the area shortly before American troops arrived. Some German engineers at Fort Bliss felt he lacked experience and was included in the project only because he rode on the coattails of his older brother. And Army CIC agents at Fort Bliss believed he was a "dangerous German Nazi" because of his pro-Hitler views. "His type is a worse threat to security than a half a dozen discredited SS Generals," one agent remarked.15 

All of this controversial information was being kept secret from the American public. However, Axster's wartime past eventually caught the attention of the press. Axster worked for Hamill in the Army Ordnance Research and Development Service, Sub-office (Rocket), where most of the Germans were engaged in planning, design, and drafting blueprints for rockets. "But my main task was as liaison with the commanding officer," Axster recalled. He was also in charge of a group that translated German measurements-kilograms, centimeters, and so on-into American measurements. 16 

J.I.O.A Director Wev already had received numerous derogatory reports about Axster and his wife Ilse. The Axsters' wartime neighbors told a U.S. intelligence agent that they had mistreated a French prisoner of war and Poles and Ukrainians from the East who worked on their estates. In one instance Herbert Axster was accused of hitting a Frenchman caught laying rabbit traps. Villagers said the man was probably hungry, since the Axsters starved the workers and they frequently begged for food from the townspeople. Another time, when a Polish worker was seriously injured by a mowing machine, villagers said Axster did not do anything about it until a neighbor demanded that the man be taken to the hospital.17 

"That's all lies," Axster exclaimed when confronted with the charges in 1989. He admitted that a Ukrainian couple had worked on his estate, but he said there were no Poles. Axster claimed that the Ukrainians had been offered a "vacation" in the Ukraine. "They said that they only would go if they were assured they would come back to the same place," he said. "So it seems to me they can't have been treated so badly." He denied mistreating the French POW and said the man did not work for him. Axster said he probably scared the man because Axster was carrying a shotgun while hunting when he saw the Frenchman with a rabbit. "So I shouted at him," Axster said. "That's all."18 

The Axsters' neighbors were terrified of Ilse, whom they described as stalking through town wearing riding breeches and carrying a whip. This view of Ilse, now deceased, was confirmed in 1989 by relatives and acquaintances who remembered her as a "Nazi tyrant." In 1947, villagers said she frequently beat Polish workers with a horsewhip or called the police and asked them to beat the workers. Ilse was a leader of the NS-Frauenschaft, a women's Nazi party auxiliary in charge of teaching Nazi propaganda to youth groups. A fellow NS-Frauenschaft member told U.S. investigators that Ilse was the ideal person to represent "the godless principles in the Nazi education of children." As might be expected, Ilse hated Allied soldiers, and once, when she saw a British soldier parachuting to the ground, she told a Wehrmacht officer standing nearby that she would shoot the man if she only had a gun. 19 

The Axsters' neighbors angrily complained to U.S. officers in Germany that the couple escaped prosecution because of Paperclip. As a result, the story leaked to the press and Rabbi Stephen Wise at the American Jewish Congress began a vocal campaign to oust the couple from America. Wise stated his case in the first of many letters to Secretary of War Robert Patterson, charging that Axster held "responsible positions" with the Wehrmacht and Ilse was a "major offender" under denazification laws that were supposed to be enforced by the U.S. military government in Germany. 20 "These scientists and their families are supposed to have been `screened,' " Wise told Patterson. "The Axsters prove that this `screening' is a farce and the War Department `screeners' are entirely incapable of performing this task. "21 

The rabbi was particularly disturbed that while Paperclip brought hundreds of Nazis to America, the State Department's obstructive immigration policies kept Jewish survivors of Nazi concentration camps out of the country. Wise reminded the secretary of war of this point in his scathing letter: 

Red tape, lack of shipping facilities, and every other possible handicap face these oppressed people while their oppressors are brought to this country with their families and are favorably housed and supported at our expense. As long as we reward former servants of Hitler while leaving his victims in D.P. camps, we cannot pretend that we are making any real effort to achieve the aims we fought for.22 

Two weeks later Patterson sent Wise a terse, two-paragraph reply that investigators were looking into the "alleged Nazi affiliation" of Ilse Axster, and if the charges were proven, "you may be certain that appropriate remedial action will be taken." Wise's letter was forwarded to the "screeners" in the J.I.O.A, who brushed it off as Jewish propaganda.23 

Despite the charges against him, Axster was the one man whom Hamill chose to trust as the liaison between Hamill and the Germans. "I was always the one that was in contact with him," Axster said. "We were friends." Hamill's idea of insuring an efficient informant system in the rocket office was to use Axster as his key informant to surreptitiously gain information about possible security breaches by other Germans in the project. In a gross understatement, Hamill once remarked that Axster's "enthusiastic compliance with the directives of this office has at times brought him disfavor from his associates." Most German engineers strongly criticized von Braun for Axster's inclusion in the project and resented his high salary, since his experience was confined to military aspects of training troops.24 

Not only were Axster and other Paperclip personnel allowed extensive access to classified information, but Hamill never even required the men to fill out federal governmental forms to apply for security clearances. In addition, Army Ordnance officers maintained such lax security over the group that there was no curfew, no checks of the Germans' mail, and little surveillance of their activities off the base. Three Germans had telephones in their quarters, but none were monitored, and no attempt was made to determine if any Paperclip personnel made long-distance telephone calls on local pay phones.25 

This brazen laxity was allowed to flourish despite stiff security regulations issued by the secretary of war designed to curtail the Germans' activities and ensure that the country's internal security was protected. The regulations ordered Hamill and other officers in charge of Paperclip personnel to: (1) assure that each specialist would be exposed to "only such classified information as is necessary to the completion of his assignment"; (2) maintain limited surveillance over their activities, inspect their mail, make "sufficiently frequent" checks of their whereabouts, and file monthly reports on the results of that surveillance; and (3) report any attempt at "political proselytizing." Furthermore, neither the specialists nor their dependents were legal residents, thus security regulations emphasized that officers in charge should assure that no specialists leave the continental United States. And finally, each specialist was supposed to observe a "Code of Conduct" that required him to obtain permission to correspond with individuals overseas and forbade his transmitting classified information, including photographs of equipment.26 

But just as soon as the regulations were circulated, Exploitation Branch chief Hagood sent Hamill a notice that Hamill interpreted as voiding the War Department's requirements. Hagood told him that, starting four months after the Germans signed contracts, there should be no further Army surveillance over their activities, even if they left the base on business or pleasure trips. In addition, Hagood said that more than 50 percent support of an individual constituted "dependent" status for contract purposes. The large number of so-called dependents-including mistresses and maids-brought to Fort Bliss as a result of Hagood's memo were subject to no off-the-post surveillance, even though it was assumed that they had access to at least some classified information because of their close contact with Paperclip personnel.27 

Hamill's supervision was so arrogantly lax that it did not take long for trouble to surface. A Fort Bliss businessman reported engineer Hans Lindenmayr to the FBI for using his company's address as an illegal mail drop. As a result FBI agents intercepted a letter from Lindenmayr's wife in Germany, who was furious that Lindenmayr had brought his mistress to the United States posing as his wife, and she threatened to file a complaint with U.S. immigration officials unless the problem was solved.28 

Army C.I.C Captain Paul R. Lutjens, head of branch intelligence at Fort Bliss, was assigned to investigate the case. In a meeting with Lutjens and Hamill, Lindenmayr admitted that the claims in the letter were true. He asserted that he had been arrested by SS troops in 1938 and charged with espionage. To avoid a one-year prison sentence and exile, Lindenmayr claimed, he married the prosecuting attorney's daughter and "lived with her several months before deserting her for the girl he is now living with. . . ." Despite evidence that Lindenmayr had helped the woman enter the U.S. illegally, Hamill recommended that he be retained in the project. Army Ordnance simply revised his contract and penalized him for his actions by cutting his salary by $2,000. They decided that Lindenmayr would file for a divorce, and when it cleared, his girlfriend would go to Germany, then turn around and come back as his wife and legal dependent.29 

In addition to Lindenmayr, three other Germans had illegal mail drops in El Paso where they received money from foreign or unknown sources and coded messages from South America. One German received $1,000 in cash from Chile. Another specialist not only maintained an illegal postal box but deposited $953 in his bank account in one month, even though his monthly salary was only $290. Neither Army C.I.C nor FBI agents knew where that money came from, and by all appearances, no one cared to know how more than a third of the Paperclip group suddenly were able to buy expensive cars.30 

Other incidents proved that security was a sham. Unsupervised German scientists with no visas illegally crossed the border into Mexico for a little cheap wine, women, and song. Other specialists made frequent trips from White Sands to the El Paso home of a German-born woman who was under FBI investigation and described by her neighbors as being so pro-Hitler during the war that local residents told her to "shut up or get out" of America.31 

Compounding those problems, base security officers began to suspect that the rockets were being sabotaged, a suspicion that increased sharply after the Juarez incident. In one month, three out of four rockets fired at W.S.P.G overshot the 90-mile wide base and landed off course near heavily populated areas in New Mexico and Juarez. One landed four and a half miles south of Alamogordo, another crashed only two miles from Las Cruces, and the third ended up in Juarez. In addition to unanswered questions about what caused the erratic flights, five cameras attached to one of the rockets were missing after the launch and parts from another missile that was launched never were found.32 

Lutjens investigated the incidents, but when he began to talk with officers in charge of the rocket project he encountered turf fights between the Army and Navy, buck passing regarding the cause of problems, and criticism of the way the entire rocket program was run. None of the officers blamed the Germans for the problems. Hamill pointed his finger at the contractor for the Hermes II rocket, General Electric; Lieutenant Colonel Harold Turner, the Army's commanding officer at WSPG, said erratic flights were caused by "human error" and expressed little confidence in the officers under his own supervision. "I dare say, they are about the poorest qualified personnel of any government installation in the country," he told Lutjens. However, Lieutenant Commander R. B. McLaughlin, the Naval commander at White Sands, made no secret of the fact that he had no confidence in either Turner or his men. McLaughlin thought Turner's plan to construct seventy-five observation stations would not yield the desired result-namely, to enable the men controlling the rockets to know where they were headed in time to prevent a rocket from going out of control. "They can tell where the rocket is every second of its flight," McLaughlin scoffed, "but not until three months later."33 

When Lutjens finished his investigation he was skeptical, since he felt that the officers could not be entirely certain that no sabotage had occurred. Most evidence pointed to incompetent Army personnel and bad V-2 parts. The parts were old, damaged, rusted, and totally worthless by the time they arrived from Germany. It was apparent that the boats carrying the rocket parts had leaked during the trip, because the parts were soaked with saltwater when they arrived in America.34 The Juarez incident was caused by a rocket tilting program, preset to 7 degrees north, that never operated. The wind was from the south, and the rocket headed into the wind and began traveling in the wrong direction. Steinhoff did not tell the command station to stop the rocket because he figured it would land safely north of El Paso.35 

Meanwhile, the lax security over Paperclip personnel became so obvious that even visitors to Fort Bliss complained. One War Department intelligence officer, Colonel Frank Reed, was shocked that Hamill and other ordnance officers had made no serious checks of the Germans' loyalty. Reed's concern about security was heightened because he had just returned from visiting Saint Louis, France, where a comparable group of German rocket engineers worked for the French government. While there, the French commandant told Reed he suspected the Germans under French control were receiving orders from Germany and working toward a reemergence of the Third Reich.36 

All of a sudden, word came down that Wernher von Braun had been caught sending a map overseas to General Dornberger and concealing information from U.S. officials. It was an incident disturbingly similar to the plot that Walter Jessel had warned intelligence officers of in 1945. American officers in Europe were trying to locate V-2 rocket diagrams they believed were still hidden in Germany. When asked about the documents, von Braun told the Army he knew nothing about their location. Dornberger later told von Braun's brother that Army officers didn't trust von Braun and that officers had even told him that von Braun had lied to them. Von Braun then sent a map to his family in Europe showing the location of a burial place where sketches stuffed in a cigarette box were hidden. He told them to deliver the map to Dornberger's wife, since the general still was being held in a British POW camp. The way this scheme was supposed to work, the documents then would be located and given to German scientists, who would turn them over to von Braun when they arrived in the United States under Paperclip.37 

U.S. officers reported that von Braun "apparently intended to use the location of certain hidden documents as a bargaining lever with U.S. officials."38 

This plot was abruptly halted when Army officers confiscated the map from Dornberger's wife. Then the officers finagled Dornberger's release from the British and flew to Germany to look for the missing documents in a forest. Under Dornberger's direction, the officers wandered around the woods for days, digging up tree stumps that yielded nothing. The sketches eventually were found lying in the woods, practically worthless from rain and rot.39 

Despite mounting security problems at Fort Bliss, investigator Lutjens's hands were tied. Even though the Intelligence Division in Washington was aware of the security breaches and had received copies of Lutjens's reports, the War Department had ruled the Paperclip group exempt from Army C.I.C control. All Lutjens was allowed to do was investigate suspicious incidents and turn over the information to his superiors. Army Ordnance had blocked C.I.C efforts to do anything about illegal activities that were uncovered.40 

The FBI fared no better. When FBI agents reported a suspicious incident involving Magnus von Braun, the Army proceeded to squelch the investigation. FBI agents had learned that Magnus von Braun sold a bar of platinum to a local El Paso jeweler. It is still not known where he obtained the platinum bar, but when FBI agents reported the incident to justice Department officials in Washington they were told to drop the case. The Army ordered that "action not be taken for security reasons and possible adverse publicity which might affect the long range objectives of the project on which the group of Germans was employed. "41 

Meanwhile, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had a pile of FBI reports sitting on his desk. One was by a General Electric manager whose employees at W.S.P.G had fired rockets during various tests. The manager, A. K. Bushman, told an FBI agent that he thought the Army's lax security at White Sands bordered on "criminal neglect." Then Bushman ripped into Paperclip with a scathing critique of the Army's lax surveillance over the specialists. He was particularly upset that the Germans were allowed access to classified information about new discoveries, including a rocket fuel developed by GE's missile project in Malta, New York. Bushman told the FBI that the way the Army ran the project threatened the internal security of the United States, since around 350 of the Germans' former colleagues were working for the Russians and Bushman thought it reasonable to assume that friendships between members of those two groups continued.42 

Hoover immediately sent a stinging two-page memo to Director of Intelligence Chamberlin. In minute detail, Hoover criticized the Army's loose security, summarized Bushman's report, and told Chamberlin that "if his information indicating a lack of restriction on the part of the movements of German scientists in the U.S. is, in fact, true, technical data made available to them concerning U. S. improvements of rockets and guided missiles ... could very easily find its way back to Russian scientists."43 

Once Chamberlin received Hoover's hand-delivered critique there was an instant flurry of activity in the Intelligence Division of the War Department. Chamberlin ordered the Exploitation Branch to investigate whether security had been breached at Fort Bliss.44 

By then Lieutenant Colonel Montie Cone had replaced Hagood as chief of G-2's Exploitation Branch. Cone was a veteran Army intelligence officer who had been commanding officer at Fort Hunt in 1945 when Nazi spy chief Reinhard Gehlen was interrogated there. Cone would represent Chamberlin on the J.I.O.A Governing Committee and help supervise Paperclip for over a decade. Cone and Major Lyman White of the Special Investigations unit set out for Texas with a list of twenty-six items to investigate, everything from Wise's complaint against the Axsters to Jessel's conspiracy report. What they found was a group of Germans that Hamill allowed to run loose. White discovered that ordnance deliberately avoided surveillance over Paperclip personnel both on and off the base. The Germans were allowed to make unsupervised trips out of town and had to report to Army installations only when they arrived at their destinations.45 

Their mail had only been spot-censored. Lists of their overseas correspondents showed none with addresses in Russia or its satellite nations, but no one had checked the names against G-2 files. A name check was crucial, since evidence showed that the Soviets used phony addresses to hide the location of Germans who worked in the USSR. For example, the CIA had sent President Truman information that the Soviets used an address in the U.S. zone of Germany as a cover for letters mailed by German scientists working in the USSR.46 

During White's conversations with Hamill it became obvious that Hamill knew absolutely nothing about the Germans' off-base activities. Neither did Toftoy, who said that while he had no reason to believe that any of the scientists were engaged in illicit activities, his estimate was "based solely on their conduct at the installation." He did not have the slightest idea of what their activities were off the post. Furthermore, while Army C.I.C agents, the FBI, and G-2 considered some Germans at the base to be "under suspicion of being potential security risks," neither Hamill nor Toftoy was able to list accurately those individuals who should be watched or denied access to sensitive material. This was illustrated perfectly in the case of Axster, whom Hamill had chosen as his informant to insure ordnance's security .47 

These were extremely important admissions. Hamill had filed Sponsoring Agency Security Reports with the J.I.O.A on each German, attesting that there was no evidence that the individual had breached security at Fort Bliss. The reports were supposed to include the results of surveillance and interrogations of Germans on the base. In fact, there was little or no surveillance, and Hamill had no idea what the Germans' activities were out of the rocket office. The reports were important because J.I.O.A officers submitted them and several other forms to the State and Justice Departments as evidence that the Germans were qualified for legal U.S. immigration. In addition, the J.I.O.A used those reports repeatedly to discredit Paperclip detractors and excuse evidence of ardent Nazism on the grounds that the Germans had done nothing to indicate that they were security threats since their arrival in America.48 Cone and White finished their investigation and returned to Washington. Most of their suggestions to improve security were identical to the War Department's original regulations. In their final report they advised Major Hamill to curtail trips, censor mail, maintain lists of correspondents, forbid use of postal boxes, and monitor the Germans' telephone calls. They also suggested that restrictions on Lutjens's C.I.C unit should be lifted to allow the C.I.C more authority over Paperclip personnel and stop illegal activities uncovered by C.I.C investigations.49 

Since Rabbi Wise's complaints about the Axsters had resulted in derogatory news stories, White was most concerned about controlling negative publicity, which he feared would shut Paperclip down. "While critical comment must be evaluated in the light of the natural Jewish bias against anything Nazi, it is, however a matter to be watched, and, if possible, counteracted lest it lead to official restrictive action against the project as a whole," White noted in his report. He felt that the press should be restrained before someone discovered the dubious backgrounds of other Germans at Fort Bliss. To solve the problem, an Army public relations officer was assigned to control the press and assure that it published "human interest" stories to take the focus away from controversial topics.50 In their report Cone and White suggested that officers in Europe "make a more thorough background investigation of all Paperclip personnel under Army jurisdiction." Cone noted, however, that Wernher von Braun was to be "fully justified" for legal immigration irrespective of his Nazi past." 

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4 A Hell Called Dora(s41) 

CHAPTER 3: PEENEMüNDE ON THE RIO GRANDE 

1. Army Ordnance Department, Fort Bliss Rocket Project, "Report on Hermes Missile Project," RG 156, WNRC. 

2. Captain Paul R. Lutjens, "Memorandum for the AC of S G-2, Intelligence Summary," 6 June 1947, G-2 Paperclip "Top Secret" files, RG 319, WNRC. 

3. Ibid.; and Captain Paul R. Lutjens, "Memorandum for the AC of S G-2, Intelligence Summary," 20 June 1947, G-2 Paperclip "Top Secret" files, RG 319, WNRC. Notes 279 

4. Major Lyman G. White, "Paperclip Project, Ft. Bliss, Texas and Adjacent Areas," MID 918.3, 26 November 1947, G-2 Paperclip files, RG 319, WNRC. 

5. White Sands Missile Range (Riverside, Calif.: Armed Services Press, 1987). 

6. White, "Paperclip Project." 

7. "Certain Paperclip personnel" quote is in Colonel R. F. Ennis to Commanding General, 17 April 1947, JIOA 1331, ID 400.112 Research, RG 330, NARS. On Gartmann, descriptions of documents, and "not taken accidentally" quote see "Secret" memo, Captain John P. Roth, EUCOM, to Chief, Technical Intelligence Section, AC of S, 8 April 1947; Lieutenant Colonel M. C. Taylor to Director of Intelligence, 14 April 1947; and Colonel R. F. Ennis to AAF Commanding General, 5 May 1947-a11 in G-2 Paperclip "Top Secret" files, RG 319, WNRC. 

8. Information on Goethrup and Thiele is in the INSCOM dossier on "Operation MESA." 

9. Lieutenant Walter Jessel, "Evidence of a Conspiracy Among Leading German `Overcast' Personnel," 12 June 1945, OMGUS/FIAT, RG 260, WNRC. 

10. Ibid.; Axster interview. 

11. Axster interview. Hamill bio: in James McGovern, Crossbow and Overcast (New York: William Morrow, 1964). 

12. Von Braun's SS membership: in Berlin Document Center reports and JIOA memo 691, 3 March 1947, in the Wernher von Braun INSCOM dossier. See also Wernher von Braun's FBI dossier. Von Braun's JIOA dossier is "missing" from the RG 330 files at the NARS. Anton Beier's SS records are noted in the Berlin Document Center report in Beier's JIOA dossier, RG 330, NARS. 

13. For Debus's actions against a colleague see the Office of the Public Prosecutor case against Richard Craemer, Gestapo Headquarters, Berlin, in the Debus JIOA dossier, RG 330, NARS. Debus's SS membership records and witnesses who saw him in an SS uniform: in the Debus JIOA dossier and IRR dossier XE034033, RG 319, NARS. 

14. Hamill's visit to Nordhausen is from McGovern, Crossbow and Overcast. 

15. Army CIC cards with comments and a 27 May 1953 agent report are in Magnus von Braun INSCOM dossier C3001437. Von Braun Mittelwerk dates are from the Magnus von Braun interrogation, Andrae trial records. 

16. Axster interview. 

17. OMGUS Public Safety Branch, Investigation Section, "The Axster Couple," 25 March 1948; and OMGUS Public Safety Branch, Investigation 280 Notes Section, "Sworn Statements," esp. those of Konrad Mommsen (18 December 1946 and 5 February 1948) and Gerhard Weise (undated but certified by Captain James Steward)-all in Herbert Axster's JIOA dossier, RG 330, NARS. 

18. Axster interview. 

19. OMGUS Public Safety Branch reports on Ilse Axster are in the Herbert Axster JIOA dossier, RG 330, NARS. 

20. Stephen S. Wise to Secretary of War Robert Patterson, 14 April 1947, G-2 Paperclip files, RG 319, WNRC. 

21. Ibid. 

22. Ibid. 

23. Secretary of War Robert Patterson to Stephen S. Wise, 8 May 1947, G-2 Paperclip files, RG 319, WNRC. 

24. White, "Paperclip Project"; Herbert Axster JIOA dossier, RG 330, NARS; and Axster interview. 

25. White, "Paperclip Project." 

26. War Department, "Security Regulations for Project Paperclip," 28 August 1946, and "Code of Conduct," 12 April 1947, both in JIOA administrative files, RG 330, NARS. 

27. White, "Paperclip Project." 

28. Captain Paul R. Lutjens, "Memorandum for the AC of S, G-2, Intelligence Summary," 12 June 1947; and A. Lindenmayr letter, "Subject: Members of the German Scientists in the United States," April 1947, trans. Army CIC Agent George Ries-both in G-2 Paperclip "Top Secret" files, RG 319, WNRC. 

29. Ibid.; Captain Paul R. Lutjens, "Memorandum to the AC of S, G-2," 24 July 1947, and "Memorandum for the Officer in Charge," 6 November 1947, in G-2 Paperclip "Top Secret" files, RG 319, WNRC. 

30. Lutjens, "Memorandum," 6 November 1947. 

31. Captain Paul R. Lutjens, "Memorandum for the AC of S, G-2, Intelligence Summary," 14 April and 6 June 1947, G-2 Paperclip "Top Secret" files, RG 319, WNRC. 

32. Lutjens, "Memorandum," 20 June 1947. 

33. Lutjens, "Memorandum," June 6 and 20, 1947. 34. Ibid. 

35. Army Ordnance Department, "Hermes Missile Project." 

36. Colonel Frank Reed to Colonel Clark, 24 January 1947, G-2 Paperclip files, RG 319, WNRC. 

37. On von Braun's instructions to deliver a map to Dornberger's wife see cable S-5249, EUCOM General Clarence Heubner to AGWAR for General Chamberlin, 29 May 1947, in JIOA administrative files, RG 330, NARS. On the plot to bring documents to von Braun in the United States see Notes 281 "Security Information," GID 73-0321, 1 July 1953, in the Wernher von Braun INSCOM dossier. On the Army's reaction to von Braun's denial of knowledge about documents: "Security Information," GID 73-0321, and Dornberger's letter in the Walter Dornberger G-2 dossier, RG 319, WNRC. 

38. On the use of documents as a "bargaining lever" see Transmittal Slip, 66th CIC Group Headquarters, July 1953, in the Wernher von Braun INSCOM dossier. 39. The search for documents in Germany is described in Dornberger's letter in the Walter Dornberger G-2 dossier, RG 319, WNRC. 

40. White, "Paperclip Project." 

41. Extract of data is from FBI files as forwarded to the JIOA by A. Devitt Vanech, special assistant to the attorney general, on 21 February 1947, in FBI Extracts, Magnus von Braun's JIOA dossier, RG 330, NARS. 

42. J. Edgar Hoover to Director of Intelligence, WDGS, 13 September 1947, G-2 Paperclip files, RG 319, WNRC. 

43. Ibid. 

44. Lieutenant Colonel Montie F. Cone, "Report," n.d., G-2 Paperclip files, RG 319, WNRC. 

45. White, "Paperclip Project." 

46. CIA, "German Scientists at Sukhumi, USSR," report to President Harry S. Truman, 31 October 1949, HST. 

47. White, "Paperclip Project." 

48. See examples of Sponsoring Agency Security Reports in individual dossiers. 

49. Cone, "Report." 

50. White, "Paperclip Project." 51. Cone, "Report."