In texas, and its a long and tangled tale. You can read about it in the book. But its really astonishing that schreiber, the former Surgeon General of the third reich, was living in texas. But as i said, the cold war was heating up, and this was the threat. The threat was that the soviets, who, bill the way, had their own program of german scientist, they got a lot of rocket scientists, but unlike our program, we sort of put the german scientists on pedestals. Pedestals and treated them with great regard and made them the top dogs of our program. The soviets loathed the germans. There was deep animosity from the war, and so their german rocket scientists were kept at a second tier and they were actually squeezed of the information, and sent back to germany by the russians, at which point the cia stepped in, grabbed up all those german scientists to learn what they could about the soviet missile program, but what they learned was nothing, because the soviets didnt share with the gem german scientists that top tier of information. We moved forward with our biological Weapons Program. This is the eight ball. Blome consulted on this and this where is we test ordinary bubonic plague weapons and our star rein gas weapons. And westerner von braun became the head and the hero of the Nasa Space Program there he is with jfk. Arthur rudolph, father of the saturn rocket, i write at length about this story in operation paperclip. Its really just remarkable how he went from a guy without a college education, running the slave labor tunnel at nord hausen to being the father of the saturn rocket in the United States. One of the very few paperclips who was actually investigated, and in the 80s the department of justice got some information its funny the department of justice would have to get information declassified but they did, and they were able to see his complicity in war crimes in the tunnels and they gave hem an option as an old man. Either stand trial in the United States this is the the mid80s or return to germany. He chose to return to germany. And lastly, and i think most peculiar to me, is kurt debis, just those dueling scars alone make him look sinister, but many regard him as an American Hero and told me so. I found out a very different story researching his thick dossier, declassified now. One of the mythed of the german scientists was they were just trying to do science and they were sort of skirting around trying to stay out of the eye of the nazi party, who was this big bad wolf. But you find out in reading closely at the now declassified documents about debus, he turned his superior, another scientist, over to the guess tap bow during the war for making antihitler remarks and that remarkable push and pull. You can see one arm of the pentagon saying we cant bring this guy to the United States. He was an ardent nazi. He turned a colleague over to the gestapo. This was a malicious act they used that word then you see the pentagon saying, we need him. And he came. There he is as the first director of the jfk space center, and every year still the National Space club gives another the kurt de bu s award, and when i interviewed the head of the space club, said, what do you say when someone asks you. What about kurt debus . The wore the s st. Uniform to work. He turned over a colleague to the gestapo. An ardent nazi. What dot you say so that . The answer was no one has ever asked me that question before. So, id like to end with the idea that einstein had it right in my opinion. He left germany, prior to hitlers armaments build buildud always maintained the reason he left as ascientist was because he was not going to work for a raw and rabid nazi militia. There he is get his citizenship and he is one of the few people with power that petitioned truman not to have operation paperclip happen, but to no avail. My last thought is this, which is written over the gate at an a concentration camp and its a german prove verb that says everybody again what they deserve. And when i was writing this book i would often ask myself, does everybody really get what they deserve . And i hope that you if you has to reed operation paperclip, come to your own conclusion. Thank you very much. [applause] , are. So i have couple for questions. In your research, beyond the lsd stuff, did you come across anything about the techniques used to split peoples personality . Did you find anything about that coming out of research that what started in the death camps . Well, i dont know about splitting personalities but ill do in the that camp king, that photograph i showed you, that is where the mk program began. It had two names, one was Operation Blue byrd and one was art choke, and they began the scenario i spoke about during the presentation and also rite about in the book. What was the theory the nerve gas was never used . And to bring these people out, were any vatican passports used . The first part of the question about why chemical weapons werent used. I would say the prevailing theory is that because when hitler was a soldier in world war i he missed the ends of the war because he was gassed, and mustard gas, and so allegedly he had a deep aversion to chemical weapons. But the nazis produced tens of thousands of tons of nerve agent. So there were so many individuals under his command that really wanted to use those nerve agents. It really is nothing short of a miracle it wasnt used. Your second question was . Asking if vatican passports were used to get them to argentina and then back to the states . Well, unfortunately for operation paperclip there was no need to do that because the nazi scientists who came to america were given good old american visas and later became u. S. Citizens. Yes in the back. I have a both slightly nauseous and cant wait to get my hands on your book. I have actually living in nordhausen when it was bombed because of the v2 operation, and we left my my father was also one that worked for werner von braun, and after the war in 1950, my mother was also a cic agent before it became the cia. To identify nazis before as they were trying to leave the country, and but my question was, we left munich in 1950, and we my father, my actually my stepfather had gone back and forth to geneva because he was juan of the scientists that either americans or russians were vying for, and there are questions i have. We left germany in 195051. Didnt take either or the offers. He decided to go to damascus, syria, instead, with ten other german rocket scientists who world with von braun and i never understood. I was only ten years old at the time. I never first of all we left with nongerman passports, arabic passports. And everytime the conductors came for passports i had to look out the window. My mother said, dont talk. So, my question has always been, theres so much that i dont know because as a child, you just live with it. And the american ambassadors are actually helped us leave damascus. My father came to america with us. We came together when there was a coup in 1953 in syria, and he wound inworking for lockheed, the head of the missile test program in the santa cruz mountains. One of the other scientists, rudie, worked in sacramento, worked for aero jet for 40 years and was instrumental in developing the cycle its so fascinating. Maybe you can stay afterwards and speak with me. And did you have a question . Well, i want to know, how did the other german scientist, how many did so many of them who did leave why did they use arabic passports and why because they were nazis talk to me afterward, the middle eastern connection is interesting and paste not part of operation paperclip but we can chat after. Thank you very much. Yes . What happened in new york around genetically modified organisms, lyme disease, that whole thing. General lukes, who became very friendly with the chemists, was in charge of setting up farm island, and eric child, who worked under dr. Blome, was in charge of the weaponizing and for the reich, and child is connected with plumb island. He came to the United States, worked for the navy, worked for the department of al cull agriculture and theres a lot of suggestion that he also set up plum island and worked there but i could find no official documents that made that connection sound. But it certainly is reasonable speculation. Good question. During the 1960s, 66, 67. There were people in this country who were trying to confront the Justice Department to say, we had a lot of naz say war criminals here and why dont you find them and put them on trial or deport them to a jurisdiction where they should be put on trial and dealt with. And the Justice Department always said, we dont have any nazi war criminals in this country. And beside, you people who are asking the question are leftists communists, and were not boyfriend in what you have to say. But they did have an office in 1960 to address the issues of whether people were nazi war criminals. They just couldnt find any. Im wondering, did you come across any Research Like senate. Yes its a great point. A number of individuals in the state department the state department was an important part of operation paperclip on this end because the state department was the organization that had to give those visas, and there was a couple individuals, one in particular named samuel claus, who was outraged by the program but was very quickly accused of bag communist, and he was moved out of the state department. The reason why to answer the second part of your question. That is a great question. The first part is no, there was not even a sliver of accountability on the part of the scientist. They always denied they were part of it. Although he originally started with the military officers about what went on, very quickly it became what they did and not me. And i was always a position. And as far as remorse is concerned, there was only one not the position out of all of the sciences but i looked at, only one scientist showed any remarks. And that was doctor fischer. That is when we heard a gruesome bit of testimony by some survivors buried he turned to one of the Intelligence Officers who is really one of the heroes of the book and said just hanging out. But that was it. Verse, another notorious person from world war ii who was involved was [inaudible] and even now there are issues at stake about using the information in going through the experiments. Does your book touch on that at all . I did not come across any other information about him. He was in germany for a long time. He went to south america. But the question remains about the information being used, it was extremely important. I will tell you that there is a twopart u. S. Air force manual that is very difficult to get your hands on that actually uses data from the concentration camps. You see the credit in the footnotes go to the doctors that i showed you the photograph of it were hauled off to nurnberg. One was from the air force manual from his prison cell. With the responsibility of the not these coming to the americas, they made it happen, is there anything that you found about awareness approval or anything else . Truman approved the program. Im sorry if i left that out and here we are on president s day and and operation paperclip was a classified military program. But it had a benign public face. So the joint chiefs knew that if he started having upwards of 1600 german scientists running around and was going to catch on to the fact that the was going on in so they propagated this meant. I dont believe from my research that neither truman nor eisenhower really had access to actual dossier. They will would not as president had even asked. Certainly it would have been kept from them. So they approved the program as it was told to them, from my understanding. Way in the back . Had i not stumbled upon the blurb in the book passage, i never wouldve known about any of that. So my question to you is the broader context that we call the mainstream media. What has been your experience in trying to figure this out . The book was just published extinct ago and is doing remarkably well considering the story is seen on your soul. I give a lot of credit to my fellow readers, and i think that we are all uneducated bunch of people here in america for the most part. We really just want to read and find out about things. Its why i write books others namely a door and secret. But ultimately they have readers, which is really remarkable. Is there any significance to the name the operation was even . Thats a great question. We have the classified program, and we had the same thing going on in germany were these Intelligence Officers are interviewing the scientists and really trying to find out about them. And it needed to be kept secret. It being the dark hearted part of this and a system was devised whereby very discreetly ate eber clip would be placed upon the top of the file in a certain position to indicate that this is an important file that someone needs to look at. That someone being an individual who was up for the program. Maybe you senate and i missed it. But does this program have a particular purpose or is it part of selecting random german scientist and what were the major objectives and was there one person that put it together, you organized it . Well, do not seize almost won the war area there was a point when their weaponry was so much further along than ours was. Hiller and others call it wonder weapon. And there was this idea that we are really behind the curve here. So is the war was ending, thats why the rich can about which is what we have to grab this and i think that the most interesting conclusion ive come to was that the cold war really began in the last month of world war ii. Scientists are now at one manto creating genetically modified organisms and social media out of hundreds of people, fluoride is in our water that came from the knotty scientist. Did you find any of that in your research . Thats a fascinating question. So that not a Science Program was rolled up into another element of the department of defense. Which is the office of research and engineering. That became the Defense Advanced Research project which is the subject of my next book. A shameless plug. Yes you. [applause] see talked about the russian and was there a reason for this . Remapped they couldnt stand the german scientist. And thats a very interesting question. But they sent them back to germany and we had a program that was called operation dragon return. And we scooped up anyone who had been in the soviet union working on the Weapons Program and use them as intelligent asset area. Is it true that allen dulles was sort of the front man and he was setting up the cia . Good question. He was at camp king and he was the head heller soviet Intelligence Program on the soviet union Intelligence Program. He became a major player in all of this, sadly. And his story is interwoven into this, but he is at camp king with his team of officers and former intelligence agents and they were all run by the Army Intelligence and the cia took them over. So then the soviet spies who were talking to them and subjected to those enhanced interrogation programs were actually caught in it. One more . Yes, could you speculate to what impact this new information might have based on the inquiry is and im just wondering what you think has been a part of this . As i said earlier, i think that when people are interested, it just kind of creates a bigger web of information. So hopefully my reporting, because it is just the tip of the iceberg, one of the things i mentioned earlier today was how ambrose was he convicted not a war criminal, he came to the United States on the u. S. Department of energy contract. He came here three times in the 1960s. While i couldnt get any information about what he was doing and what his program was on. And by the way as i write in the book, neither could president ronald reagan. But i thought to myself, he came to the United States as a convicted not a war criminal and the freedom of information act tried to write out about his travels and how you came here in who he is being sponsored by. And that information was also classified areas its probably not lost or classified. I couldnt find it out, but i that am curious journalist and youre well. [applause] [applause] thank you all. If you have a book, please call us and we will get it signed. Single file line. You are watching booktv. Nonfiction authors and books every weekend cspan2. Next month with tv, peter singer talks about Internet Security and cyberwarfare. This is about one hour. [applause] thank you. I want to thank the panel for helping to host this. And also for organizing it in the very kind introduction. So i am old enough that i remember the very first time that i ever saw and used a computer. My dad took me to a ryan center in North Carolina at the age of seven years old area i learned how to program this amazing device to design a smiley face out of a series of letters. And then i printed out on one of those oldschool printers with perforated paper and it was my First Experience with computers are you so since then, this neutrality computers is almost impossible to fathom. For example, we live in a world where every year over 40 trillion individuals are sent, and the first webpage was made in 1991 area there is now more than 30 trillion individual webpages out there and moreover the internet is no longer about compiling and sharing information. It is also emerging to have an impact on the world beyond the online demand and for example cisco estimates that over the next five years there will be more than 40 billion internetenabled devices. Everything from refrigerators to cars to thermostats to a couple billion dollars for a thermostat business smart power grid all linking together and what that means is the domains ranged from communication to critical in the structure to conflict. 90 of u. S. Military operations that run over the internet. All of these domains are increasingly cyberdependent. We truly do live in a digital age area but with this relatively short history of computers and the network that barely into, i think that we have reached a turning point or leased a defining point, just as our dependence on this is going, this is as well. You can see this in a number of differen