The nazis were employed as scientists and intelligence. Fficers it is about one hour. We are really fortunate to have with us this evening an experienced Investigative ReporterEric Lichtblau. Eric first got into Investigative Journalism at the Los Angeles Times where he worked for 15 years. His final beat for the Los Angeles Times was in ashington covering the Justice Department. When he shifted to the New York Times, he continued serving justice. He was very well sourced after the september 11 attacks to report on the bush administration, stepped up the spying operations. In 2006, he and another New York Times reporter received a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting or as the Pulitzer Committee put it, there carefully sourced stories on a secret domestic eavesdropping that served a National Debate and the Boundary Line between fighting terrorism and protecting civil liberties. That reporting led eric a couple of years later to come out with his first book bushs law, the remaking of american justice. He talked about the nsa wiretapping program and other secret activity. In his new book, the nazis next door, eric elaborates on another an older story of covert activity, this one accounting out of the cia and fbi of former nazis in the United States after world war ii to serve as spies and informants in the cold war against the soviet bloc. Some of the stories have been known, but eric reveals a far more extensive recruitment of former nazis. Years later when the Justice Department was searching for former nazis in this country, the investigations were complicated by the efforts of other Government Agencies to conceal their own involvement, and the past of those being hunted. It wasnt until the first year of this century that the u. S. Government acknowledged much of this dark history. But even that acknowledgment came with the secret internal Justice Department report that officials did not want to release. In 2010, eric wrote a story about that document which became the impetus of the book. A review of the book in the New York Times said that eric quote brings ample investigative skills and an elegant writing style to this savory and important story. The nazis next door is a captivated book rooted in research. Another reviewer said it is both fascinating and infuriating correctly, the american anthology of the good war. Please help me in welcoming Eric Lichtblau. [applause] Eric Lichtblau thank you for having me. It is always back to be back at politics prose and also expanding to other locations which is great news for everyone in washington who loves books. Congratulations on that. This book began with a tip. I got a tip about four years ago from a source who told me there was a secret report at the Justice Department that laid bare the whole internal history of the governments efforts to find and deport nazis from the United States going back or than three decades, but for mysterious reasons the Justice Department had been sitting on this report for three or four years at that point, never put it out publicly. It was interesting stuff. You should see if you can get your hands on it. One sure way to get a reporters attention is to say the government does not want you to see. I wanted to get the report and eventually through a bit of blind luck, i did. It was fascinating. It concluded by declaring badly that america in the years after the war had allowed itself to become a quote unquote safe haven for the nazis. Even before i finished writing the story, i realized there was a book here to be written. There was so much history here. Such shameful history of such a lot of ways it demanded closer intention. I got that feeling you sometimes get as a reporter where you think you are into something big, there is more here, and there was. So the book was mostly about the nazis who fled to america after the war. But in another way, it is also about the Holocaust Survivors themselves who are the victims in those concentration camps. That is not something i intended to really focus on in the book. That took me by surprise as i was doing my research. And i realized as i looked at that period after the war that to truly understand how maddeningly easy it was for the nazis to get into america, you first have to appreciate how horribly horrific it was for the Holocaust Survivors to get out of the concentration camps at that very same time. So indulge me for a few minutes while i read from the first chapter of my book, which is called liberation. And this is what liberation looked like for the survivors. Spring 1945, the cornwall displaced persons camp. While the nazis fled, the victims were left to languish. His with a quote unquote lucky ones, hundreds of thousands of jews, catholics, gays, jehovahs witnesses, who somehow managed to survive the genocide. Even after germanys defeat, the survivors remained in prison in the same camps where the nazis have first for them to rot. The names were now replaced with a bright colored flags of the allies. They were in close were purgatory. Jacob who survived in ukraine was among the masses can find at this American Camp in cornwall. We felt like so much surplus junk, people would write of this confinement, human garbage which the governments of the world would wish to go away. The allies had come from all sides in the early months of 1945, the russians from the east and the americans and the british from the west. I had seen concentration camps abandoned by the retreating nazis. Inside the camps remained tens of thousands of survivors and heaps of unburied corpses. It mustve been the world embracing survivors, the iron gates were supposed to open up with the arrival of the allied forces. The bone thin victims must have poured out into their waiting arms to the world filled with shock and joy over the rescue, like trapped coal miners or the lonely accused prisoner emerging labor free at last. Hot meals, warm beds, showers, doctors. The reality was much darker. Many thousands of survivors did not leave the allied camps, some not for months, some not for years, some not at all. Thousands died from disease and malnourishment even after hitlers defeat. They remain jailed inside the walls that hitler erected. Liberating allied forces led by general dwight d. Eisenhower would not allow them to leave. The world did not know what to do with them. The survivors were left to wear their strike camp uniforms, which had become such a topic toxic symbol of nazi oppression. They were held sidebyside with nazi pows, who had been their oppressors. Some of them were even put in charge of the jews. Exiled jews originally from germany and austria were classified no different from the nazi prisoners. Many germans had it better. Allied camps reserved for german prisoners of war, they watched movies, talk, and played soccer. And the Holocaust Survivors fought to get an extra ration of black bread and coffee to make up for the starving. The americans claimed jews were getting preferential treatment and using black market systems to violate limits on food rations. Became so volatile that the German Police with the consent of american officials staged a raid on jewish supplies. Rioting broke out, the Police Killing one jewish detainee. He had survived the holocaust but not the aftermath. Word got out to washington about the horrific conditions even in victory the survivors were experiencing, and washington did not want to believe it. Truman, the house, the senate. And suddenly the call got for action so loud that truman had to point an emissary to investigate whether or not these reports of such horrific Living Conditions could be true. I have seen a lot of damning reports on washington covering this time. This was about the most damning report i have ever read. The dean of pennsylvania at that time wrote back to truman and said, as matters now stand, we appear to be treating the jews just as the nazis treated them. Except that we do not exterminate them. The nazis victims were being victimized once again but this time by the americans. So how could this have happened . How could liberation look so tragic for the survivors of the holocaust . As i said when i began my research for this, i did not intend to look for the survivors, seeing more that side of the nazi fugitives. This was a book about the nazis. I wanted to know, how could this have happened . I was doing a fellowship at the Holocaust Museum much of last year and became to rummage around. I looked in the diary of the man who ran the camp. His name is general george s. Patton. He is the subject of a biography of a fawning guy on fox news i believe is called bill oreilly. The ward euros, the caricature of the Great American hero, also as it turns out, it brutal antisemite. This is what i found in pattons journal when he described his reaction from that report i just read to you from truman. Hold on the second, im sorry. This is what patton wrote. Harrison and his ilk to the displaced person is a human being, which is not, and this applies particularly to the jews who are lower than animals, patton wrote, laying bare the antisemitism that had affected the american refugee effort. Patent complaint how they had no sense of human relationships, would defecate on the floors and live in filth. He took as an how are to a place where the jews wanted to celebrate the holy day of yom kippur. Weve entered the synagogue which was packed with it was all knew of him. I have seen since the beginning and marveled something in the form of god can look the way they do or act the way they act. Remember, this was the general in charge of the prisoners for the allied forces who had just won the war and yet to speak with such vulgarity and such latent antisemitism, at first when i read this, i thought it must be a forgery. I found it hard to believe general patton had really written these words. So i went to see if this was an authentic document, and unfortunately it was. There were many other episodes in pattons career that affirm his views towards the prisoners and how he felt towards them. At the same time he had an almost odd fondness and admiration for the nazi pows in his camps, despite orders from eisenhower to denazify postwar germany. He allowed them to posts in civilian government. If you need these man, patton told his officers, keep them and dont worry about anything else. He saw that has brutally efficient. I tell another story about patent that is also illuminating as far as his views and admiration for the nazi prisoners. Let me read that for a second. Weeks after germanys surrender, general patton visited a german pow camp and found out one nazi prisoner being held there, scientists, a leading german rocketeer and then had run the program for rockets and had been with werner von braun. Are you the guy that was in charge of the rockets . Yes. He pulled three cigars from his pocket and congratulated him. I congratulate you. I could not have done it. So again the horrific, unfathomable treatment of survivors had really everything to do with this easy path to america that greeted the nazis. And i began to use that as a framework for the story. You have to remember that for every jew who did not get into america or in palestine in those different years, that was one more visa for a nazi collaborator that was disguised as a pow, disguised as a farmer, civilian administrator, that could get in. These were precious commodities with 7 million left stateless, 40,000 visas were the small lot that was issued in the first three years after the war. The immigration policies were stacked against the jews. This is what they wanted to do when they were trying to limit the number of survivors into america after the war. The jews did not desire to work but expect to be cared for. The visas were a Golden Ticket out, and for every jew kept in the camps denied exit to america that meant one more available for someone else. In those the early years after the war, 40 of all visas by design went to others. The captive states that are occupied by nazis during the war, hundreds of thousands of lithuanians, estonians, latvians, and ukrainians. These people were of good stock and good breeding, and they work welcome in america. I dont want to diminish the victimization of many of those refugees. Many were legitimate victims held captive by the nazi state or effectively held captive by the soviet bloc for decades more. Among those 400,000, now clear, there were many nazi collaborators that played a role in the holocaust. These were people who were Police Chiefs under the nazis or prison wardens or concentration camp guards or interrogators who played every role you can imagine in terms of being what is often called hitlers willing executioners during the occupation of Eastern Europe. They were men like carl litman who ran a concentration camp in estonia were thousands upon thousands of jews were shot to death on his orders. He would lead schoolchildren from a bus that took them to the camp to the edge of the death pit, in their underwear, making sure to see [indiscernible] he was able to disguise himself as a war refugee and lived on long island. Quietly for 36 years. There were also men like jacob who settled in queens and made a good living selling potato chips around the city. He was down as a pow during the war and left out the more haunting aspects of his wartime biography, celebrated as a decorated officer for the ss, taking part in raids and more. Half a century later, they came after him for his wife to deport him for his role at the nazis. This is what prosecutors explained to the judge. He was never entitled to immigrate to america where only a limited number of visas back then, and he took the visa of a real victim. One less nazi in america is one less actual victim but got to leave. It was simple math. So they came, thousands of nazi collaborators scattered across the map in queens, washington, baltimore, chicago, los angeles. It was not hard to identify yourself as a pow or farmer or Civil Servant and put down a fake name. You put on a alias and lived in southern california. If they used their real name, officials might have realized he was the top cabinet minister in croatia, the man that signed decrees to get rid of serbs, romans, and jews. There was little chance of getting caught in the postwar refugees. Think of the flawed rollout of obamacare but without computers. Thousands of nazis came in quietly through the backdoor disguised as someone else. Several thousand others came in through the front door, invited by the u. S. Government, the pentagon, the cia and other intelligence branches. I mentioned the 1600 nazi scientists that came to the war in a secret program you might have heard about. It was called program paperclip. It was all about the cold war and defeating the soviets. It was to keep pace with the russian scientists, so we brought over our own german scientists. Officially they could not be quote unquote ardent nazis whatever that meant, but this was clearly a tea leaf that was disregarded very quickly. These were highranking nazi officials who worked in hitlers Scientific Program building rockets on the backs of slave laborers, doing medical experiments on prisoners and worse. Werner von braun [indiscernible] the nonbuild themselves of course. Slave labor did that for them. Most of the prisoners were pows. Not jews for the most part but french, russian, poles, and more. The word to them to death building rocket ships. They wanted to bomb london and antwerp. The faster he wanted them, more prisoners died doing it. Some 10,000 slave laborers died in all of disease, and that nutrition, and exhaustion or worse. They would sometimes sabotage the parts. They were taken to a giant construction crane and hanged while all the other prisoners had to watch. This was the place that these nonardent nazis ran before they came to america and set up shop in alabama. Unlike dachau and other camps we talked about, americans did not hear the liberation of this place, and i suspect that was by design. They let them know they were rating this factory, reading it not only of hardware and blueprints, but scientists and engineers as well and bringing them back to live as americans in alabama, texas, california. A man named Arthur Rudolph was the head of this production. He reported to werner von braun. He came as one of the paperclip engineers. Decades later, prosecutors confronted him about what had really happened under his watch with that slave labor factory. Rudolph said he just built rockets. The prisoners as far as he knew with a straight face were well treated. He was just doing his job. A bunch of nazi doctors came over on paperclip too. What werner von braun was to rocket science, this man was to space medicine. He was a revered scientist, the father of space medicine. His job was to keep the pilot alive in space with the changing atmosphere. He was doing it long before he got to texas. In germany, he and the doctors under him ran and oversaw the grisly experiments on prisoners at dachau and elsewhere. Children are put into a Flight Simulator and subjected to sudden violent changes in altitude. Many died. Others were to drink kindred seawater until they vomited or died. The idea was how much the nazi pilot could withstand and survive once their planes crashed as was happening often during the war itself. He was brought over to america and sit into america. You could make the case that reality aside, the scientific case outweighed the obvious nazi baggage they brought with them. If it wasnt for von brauns work on jet propulsion and the series on edison, the