Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America

by Annie Jacobsen

The thorniest issue had to do with getting the State Department to approve certain individuals who had clearly been Nazi ideologues, including members of the SS and SA. Also at issue were those men who received high awards for their important contributions to the Nazi Party. These were people that by regulation were entirely ineligible for citizenship. The meeting resulted in a clever workaround. Army Intelligence officers reviewing the OMGUS security reports of certain scientists could discreetly attach a paperclip to the files of the more troublesome cases. Those files would not be presented to the State Department right away. Instead, those men would remain under military custody in America, most likely for a longer period of time than some of their fellows. As a result, the Nazi scientist program got a new code name. Operation Overcast had apparently been compromised after the families of the German scientists starting calling their U.S. military housing Camp Overcast. So from now on, the Nazi scientist program would be called Operation Paperclip.