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

by Annie Jacobsen

According to this initiative, as soon as the jobs were completed “the specialists would be returned to Europe.” Participants, it was noted, should be hereafter referred to as “eminent German specialists” as opposed to “German scientists,” because not all the Nazis being requested for program approval had degrees in science. Included in the mix were Nazi bureaucrats, businessmen, accountants, and lawyers. The project also now had an official code name, Operation Overcast. The name Paperclip would not be used for another eight months. Military agencies that were interested in hiring German specialists were to submit their requests to the assistant chief of staff, G-2. “Only the most compelling argument should bring a German specialist to this country,” the initiative stated, and only the “chosen, rare minds whose continuing intellectual productivity we wish to use” would be approved. The British would be made aware of the program, in general terms. At some point after the first large group of scientists had arrived in the United States, a “suitable” press release would be generated by the War Department so as to “avoid possible resentment on the part of the American public.”