NAZI WHITEWASH IN 1940'S CHARGED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100120033-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 25, 2011
• Sequence Number: 33
• Publication Date: March 11, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

. 1 al . l
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/25: CIA-RDP90-01208R000100120033-4
NEW YORK TIMES
11 March, 1925
NAZI WHITEWASH
IN 1940'S CHARGED
,
New York Times and veritie4 rode the State or Justice Denartments.
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL pendently. a er, sa emoran-
spscial to The Ne York lime, Although a_ number of the officials dum of Nov. 28, 1947, "this agency in-
erican intelli ence officials c - naIIt t JO- tends to ask the Headquarters, Euro--QI C.
i sealed a Nazi recd of hundreds of rated some of Lhe event describers pean Command, to re-evaluate these
former enemy scientists to try to get were corroborated by a former Stag reports with the comment that subjects
them into the United states after Warld_ De rtment intelligence official . cited of these reports were not considered to
War Il contrarv to a Presidential or- ocuments. be potential security threats to the . It -1
A. safe
oan
dihtif th
der an aganst te o econs oe State Department, according to declas-
Lfleo vernment docgmcrns.
The documents, isclosed in a com-
ing magazine article, reveal that
American authorities knew that many ?
of the specialists were "ardent Nazis"
implicated in atrocities and doctored
their dossiers to hide this.
How many Nazis got into the United
States because of dossier changes is not
clear. Not all of the dossiers were de-
classified.
It is also unclear if the State Depart-
ment was able to prevent any of the
Nazis from entering. Dossiers were
changed to get around anticipated'
State Department objections.
Some Accused of War Crimes
The documents also show that among
those hired for American research
were several specialists who were later,
berg and one who was convicted and
sentenced to 20 years in for i 'Beating a Dead Nazi Horse'
prison
medical experiments on prisoners at . Also listed as Paperclip recruits
Dachau. At least one of these got into were three defendants acquitted at Nu-
the United States.. remberg. Washington arranged for a
Also among those whose files were fourth Paperclip scientist, Walter
upgraded, the records show, was Wern-, Schreiber, to be flown from the United
1952 h disclo-
er
i
who developed the V-2 rocket in war-
time Germany and later headed the
American space program. Dr. von
Braun, who died in 1977, was initially
labeled "a potential security threat"
but the assessment was revised on the
request of American military officials.
Between 1945 and 1955 some l for-
mer enemy rocket experts and other
specialists were brought into the cover
try under an American int1 it Bence
pro m rs called Overcast and then
Declassified Documents Quoted Subs uent documents show that
therea er, w en the Office of the Mili-
The article, by Linda Hunt, are- tarv vernor in rmanv rovided
porter and documentary producer, un avora le security reports on pro.,
quotes from hundreds of declassified s five a rc i documents obtained through the Free- me ice lectives Agency coun-
dom of information Act. Some key sal Arm ana officia sin he
documents were made available to The program not to send the dossiers on to
We got into save r
United States and it is, therefore, be-
it looked like they were trying to lieved that their classification as ar-
dump" the Germans into the United dent Nazis should be revised."
States, recalled Herbert J. Cummings,
a former assistant chief of the State
Department's Bureau of Foreign Ac-
tivity Correlation. Now retired in
Washington, he confirmed that he was
the unnamed official cited in the article
as having "hit the ceiling" after find-
ing discrepancies in the records of
Paperclip scientists.
Among those listed in the documents
as working for the Army Air Force in
Heidelberg in 1946 and recommended
for transfer to Wright Field in Ohio was
Dr. Herman Becker-Freysing, former
director of aeromedical research for
the German Air Force. Shortly after-
ward he was convicted at Nuremberg
and sentenced to 20 years in prison for
a role in experiments on Dachau pris-
oners who died after drinking sea
n
States to Argentina
sure of. documents linking him to the
Nazi euthanasia program.
Arthur Rudolph, a German-born top
manager for NASA, moved back to
West Germany and surrendered his
American citizenship last year rather
than contest charges that he had
worked slave laborers to death at a
Nazi rocket factory. His file too was re-
vised, records show.
As told in the documents, by mid-1947
Papers1. rp had reached "a cornitilete
Pro ect aperc p, By n --r of Press- _j talemate, ' according to a memo r -
dent Truman the program was um v the rector o e om nteui-
to active Nazi Party members or sup- t yes ency, pt. os-,
f Nazism N. W ev o the Navy. ptain Wev,
porters o u
I ut documents disclosed in an article now ou t to dead, complained
in ffi-e-RFE issue of the Bull etin of the that t e State Department was t-
~Atom c Scientists show that o of a dead Nazi horse" by demanding
rclip
the Joint intelligence 053ectives a tional security checks of Pape
.
Agency under-Ft i Jomcnieis o75taTf can didates.
had a practice of requesting changes in i
vedossiers on specialists ~fh
wanted to recruit. The bul etm a non-
Profit monthly magazine published by
the Educational Foundation of Nuclear
Science in Chicago.
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/25: CIA-RDP90-01208R000100120033-4