Operation Paperclip

From ‘Overcast’ to ‘Paperclip’

According to the US National Archives (NARA), the JIOA was established in 1945 as a subcommittee of the Joint Intelligence Committee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was given direct responsibility for the foreign scientist programme, first codenamed ‘Overcast’ and later ‘Paperclip’: it compiled dossiers, acted as liaison with British intelligence and handled reports on German science and industry.¹

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesEncyclopaedia Britannica says that President Harry Truman approved directive SWNCC 257/22 on 3 September 1946, and that under official policy anyone who had been more than a nominal member of the Nazi Party was to be excluded; in practice the rule was applied inconsistently.⁴

Von Braun’s team

According to NASA, before the Allies captured the V-2 complex Wernher von Braun arranged the surrender to the Americans of 500 of his top rocket scientists, together with plans and test vehicles. Brought to the United States under Paperclip, the team was installed at Fort Bliss, Texas, and launched rockets at White Sands in New Mexico.³

The US Army website says that the Army’s effort was led by Col. Holger N. Toftoy. Approval was initially limited to 100 people, but Toftoy brought over 118 engineers and scientists. In its first years the team mainly assembled V-2s and demonstrated them to US officials.²

Huntsville, Explorer, NASA

The team moved to Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Alabama – in 1950 according to NASA, in 1949 according to the US Army. In January 1958 the Army put the Explorer 1 satellite into orbit with a Jupiter-C, a modified Redstone rocket.^2,3

In 1960 the team transferred to NASA, to the Marshall Space Flight Center, and von Braun became its director. NASA calls him the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle.^2,3

Mittelwerk and forced labour

NASA writes that the V-2s were manufactured at a forced-labour factory called Mittelwerk, and that scholars are still reassessing von Braun’s role in these activities.³

The JIOA files that NARA released under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act include the dossiers of Georg Rickhey, Walter Schreiber and Arthur Rudolph. According to NARA, von Braun’s dossier was never transferred to the archives.¹

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesIn October 1984 The Christian Science Monitor reported that the Justice Department had alleged that Arthur Rudolph, one of 119 German rocket experts brought to the United States, worked thousands of forced labourers to death while building V-2s; Rudolph gave up his US citizenship and left the country.⁵