This approach, which provided truthful, if incomplete, answers to the questions posed, seemed to work wonders. A month later he had his first promising interview. He was nervous and jittery, but that wasn’t unusual among job candidates. He was hired by Roebling Wire Products, and entered their foreman training program in August 1951. The plant was relatively close, and although the starting salary was low, it was a desk job with only supervisory visits to the shop floor. He was 33 years old, and Fred felt he was finally on the right track. When he completed the trainee program in October 1951, Fred was appointed foreman for extra-heavy industrial cloth at the Roebling plant. He could spend almost all of his time seated at his desk, which was exactly what he needed.
WERNHER VON BRAUN
Wernher’s immigration status was still in limbo, but newly revised security files had finally arrived. In the new files, notations like “ardent Nazi” had been changed to “not an ardent Nazi,” and his SS membership was either ignored or downplayed. Wernher (and any other Paperclip contractee who had been in the US for two years) was considered to have proven himself worthy of security clearance. Lingering questions about Wernher’s lying and dissembling about his past, his colleagues, and hidden document troves were brushed aside.
To summarize the latest von Braun report, it stated that he was not wanted by the German police and that his involvement in war crimes could not be determined because the relevant records were in the Soviet zone of occupation. Given that he had been working in the US since 1945, “he may not constitute a security threat to the US.”160 The way now seemed clear for him to apply to the Immigration Department for an entry visa. The file was forwarded to the Department of Immigration in July 1949, but his application was kicked back yet again, pending further evaluation and clarification. Although the Army was gung-ho on von Braun, the Immigration Department remained unconvinced. In September, the resubmitted file cleared that hurdle. It was then forwarded to the Department of Justice, and in October, with the DoJ onboard, the file returned to the State Department for final approval. With all of the checkboxes ticked, Wernher could be granted a visa, albeit based on a misleading, carefully crafted, repeatedly massaged, and falsified history. On 2 November 1949, Wernher von Braun and a security guard traveled to Juaréz, Mexico, to file immigration papers and receive an entry visa for the US. When the pair recrossed the border, and US Immigration stamped his visa, Wernher was elated. He no longer had to worry about being exiled to Germany, and in five years, he would be eligible for full US citizenship.
Wernher, Maria, and their new daughter, Iris, were finding the quarters at Fort Bliss unsuitably small, but he was assured that would change relatively soon. Thanks to the Communist takeover of mainland China and the Soviet detonation of an A-bomb, missile technology was back in favor with the military, the press, and the public. Plans were underway to move the entire German rocket team from Fort Bliss to a military facility known as the Redstone Arsenal, in Huntsville, Alabama. Wernher was told that the move would allow him to find much nicer housing in the surrounding community.
Wernher completed The Mars Project by the summer of 1949, but the manuscript was in German. A colleague had been translating completed chapters into English, and once the translation process was complete, Wernher was eager to submit the novel to a publisher. Before that could happen, however, it had to be reviewed and cleared by Army Ordnance Security staff to make sure that it didn’t contain classified information. With that process behind him, Wernher began submitting his manuscript to US publishers in 1950, but one submission after another generated rejection letters. The technical details were overwhelming, the plot was strange, the human aspect was altogether missing — it had no future in the US market. So Wernher decided to try his luck with German publishers, since the original manuscript was in German anyway. This led to a publishing contract with a German publisher who would have The Mars Project rewritten by someone who had crafted Nazi propaganda during the war. The publisher felt that the rewriting would make the story more palatable to the general public.
Wernher was excited to start serious planning for the move to Huntsville. His first appointment would be as Project Director of the Guided Missile Center. In the early years at Peenemünde he had been a civilian Director reporting to Major Dornberger, and now he was a civilian Director reporting to Major Hamill. He had 300 German staff working for him, most of them ex-Peenemünders. It felt familiar and comfortable.
When the Korean War began in June 1950, the rocket team dusted off the V-2 design and assembled a Super-V2 using more advanced versions of the engines that had been developed by a company called Rocketdyne. What emerged, called the Redstone, could travel several hundred miles with a payload 50% greater than the V-2. Unfortunately, the guidance system of the Redstone, adapted from that of the V-2, was wildly inaccurate.161 Some of the early V-2 launches at Fort Bliss had wandered off into Mexican airspace and almost landed in Juarez. On a flight of 185 miles, the impact site could be anywhere within a radius of 10-20 miles of the intended target, a margin of error equal to 8-10% of the range. With a nuclear warhead onboard, a margin of error that large would have horrific consequences. The Defense Department wanted a weapon that could reliably strike within 150 yards of a specific target at a range of 185 miles, a margin of error of 0.04% of the range. Developing a suitable guidance system suddenly became a high priority.
Overseeing the Redstone development, pushing for advances in guidance systems, maintaining correspondence with other scientists, societies, and journalists — nobody could fault Wernher’s work ethic. This was recognized and rewarded, as Wernher received an 8.8% raise, to $11,550 per year ($113,500 today). He did have some unsettling moments in 1951, however, when journalists, including Drew Pearson, began asking questions about the employment of former Nazis by the US military.
It made Wernher very uncomfortable to think that newsmen were investigating his background. He had hoped that his Nazi activities had been buried and forgotten. Negative press coverage could jeopardize his funding, and a big enough fuss could jeopardize his US visa. He needn’t have worried, however, as the JIOA looked after their own. Military intelligence teams responded to the potential publication of an exposé by investigating and intimidating the journalists involved. These actions were considered justified in defending national security.
Interviewers from the New Yorker Magazine were allowed access to the program but given misleading information. For example, when asked about von Braun’s salary, Major Hamill assured them that Dr. von Braun’s salary was very modest. The implication was that Wernher was all but volunteering his services to help his adopted country. In reality, the average annual income in the US at that time was $2,799, whereas Wernher was making over four times that much and receiving additional benefits.
Some details in the 21 April 1951 article slipped past the censors, however. The security officer at Fort Bliss made an interesting comment, “They seem to have a group spirit, based on the idea that on each one’s model behavior rested the glory of the Third Reich.” It was left to the imagination to decide how popular that spirit was with the Army personnel on the base. For his part, Wernher attempted to use the interview to defuse any rumors about his past. He retold and embellished the story of his detention by the Gestapo, claiming that Himmler thought he was planning to defect to the Allies by flying to England with secret papers.162 When asked if he had considered surrendering to the Russians rather than the Americans, he said no, but added:
Working in a dictatorship can have its advantages if the regime is behind you. I’m convinced that the man behind Stalin’s atom bomb project just has to push a button, and he’ll be supplied with a whole concentration camp full of labor. We used to have thousands of Russian prisoners of war working for us in Peenemünde.
His intention was to highlight the fact that the Soviets had the labor resources to make rapid advances, which could only be matched by giving his team more funding. But to some readers, it sounded like a wis
tful remembrance of the Good Old Days in the Third Reich. Fortunately for Wernher, there were no followup questions about his greatest slip-up — acknowledging his use of POWs as forced labor.
1952-1955
FRED MARTINI
As 1952 began, Fred had a steady job and was earning average wages ($2,900 per year, the equivalent of $28,500 today). His VA pension may have been reduced to a 10% disability, but his feet still felt like he had hot coals inside them, and he was still jumpy, anxious, prone to depression, and quick to anger. Although he never struck or abused his family during such episodes, the anger rolled off him in waves. The sudden bursts of rage worried Betty and terrified his son, as did the cries heard through the walls when Fred was having nightmares.
The Martinis were still living with the Hovers, and Ricky spent a lot of quality time with Betty’s brother, his Uncle Dick. Dick had his own internal scars accumulated as a young infantryman in the Battle of the Bulge, but those combat memories hadn’t affected his underlying personality. Dick loved kids, music, science fiction, humor, and storytelling — all things that Ricky avidly absorbed. Their closeness bothered Fred at some level, but he kept that to himself.
Every summer, Fred, Betty and Ricky would go to the Jersey shore where Mildred, Betty’s mom, rented a beach cottage in Island Heights, on Toms River. Fred commuted to work from there. Late in 1952, Fred was recruited by a headhunter and hired by Air Associates, a company building electronics on contract to the military. Fred was put in charge of entire projects, from planning and budgeting through procurement and manufacturing. He loved the work, his employers were impressed, and raises followed. In 1953, the family moved out of the Hover household for the last time, shifting to an apartment complex in Union, New Jersey, a bit closer to New York City and to Fred’s sisters. It was also within reach of Dodger baseball games.
In the fall of 1953, Ricky started first grade at the Franklin school in Union, New Jersey. He did not finish the year there, however, because early in 1954, Fred was offered an attractive position with another small electronics company. The increased revenue enabled them to buy a starter home in a new suburban development in the town of Pompton Plains, New Jersey. The community was situated near Route 23, and a quick connection to Route 46 made the commute brief. It also made it possible to get to New York City in 30 minutes or less. Pompton Plains had a progressive school system that Fred and Betty felt would be ideal for their son. The only downside to the community was that a store on the main street still had a sign in the window that said, “No Jews or Italians.” Fred shrugged that off — he’d seen signs like that in many places in New York and New Jersey — and in all other respects, Pompton Plains was a great suburban community.
Most of the people in their development had children for Ricky to play with. Betty was a stay-at-home mom taking care of the house, cooking the meals, and driving neighborhood kids to and from the local primary school when the weather was foul. In fine weather, the kids could safely walk to school carrying highly decorated lunchboxes. When Fred wasn’t at work, he was usually to be found working on the yard. It was a small yard, so he didn’t have to walk a long way to spread grass seed or fertilizer around. He found that the activity calmed him down, almost like meditation.
Fred also worked on their cars, his two-tone Rambler and Betty’s little baby-blue Metropolitan, which the local kids thought was cool. He was an excellent mechanic and could fix almost anything, but he didn’t really enjoy the process as he did before the war. His son used to hang around him when he was tuning the engine or otherwise tinkering, and one day Fred confessed that he wanted a life where his hands and fingernails were always clean. He didn’t like feeling dirty, even for short periods, as it sometimes reminded him of times he was trying to forget.
He never did manage to forget, however, and the echoes reverberated through his family life. Betty had been lobbying hard for a family dog since Ricky’s birth, and finally got Fred to agree, although he was still uncomfortable around dogs, even small ones. They adopted a springer spaniel named Speckles who became totally bonded to young Ricky. One evening when Fred got angry about something and was walking toward his son, fuming, the dog, lying with his head in Ricky’s lap, sensed danger and growled. That was all it took — Fred lunged forward, grabbed the dog by the neck, and stormed out of the house. Despite pleas from Betty and Ricky, Speckles went straight to the pound. No dog was ever going to growl at Fred again.
In August, Fred received a letter from the War Claims Commission stating:
It is requested that you furnish the commission with an affidavit setting forth the circumstances concerning your capture on August 5, 1944 by the Gestapo while you were in civilian clothing. Your affidavit should contain a statement showing the date you first notified the German authorities that you are a member of the Armed Forces and what date the German authorities first recognized you as such. Your statements should be corroborated by affidavits from two disinterested persons who know the facts concerning your capture as a civilian and subsequent transfer from a concentration camp to a prisoner of war camp.
Further action on your appeal will be held in abeyance pending receipt of the requested affidavits. Very truly yours,
Lucy S. HOWORTH, Deputy General Counsel
Fred had already provided those details in the letter that registered his appeal, but he submitted the information. Unfortunately, he had no way of finding “disinterested persons” who could validate his account. In November, he received a letter informing him:
In your application and on appeal, you stated that you were captured on August 5, 1944, and held as a civilian prisoner until October 21, 1944, when you are recognized as a prisoner of war. However, you failed to relate the circumstances in detail.
It is, therefore, requested that you submit, within 60 days from the date of this letter, a statement in affidavit form setting forth your activities during the period in question and the circumstances which led to your recognition as a prisoner of war. Affidavits from persons having personal knowledge of the facts may likewise be submitted for consideration.
Your failure to comply with this request may result in a dismissal of your appeal, in accordance with the governing regulations of the War Claims Commission. Very truly yours,
James L. Thomas
Acting Chairman
Council on Appeals
Once again, he submitted the affadavit requested, and again noted that he had no access to supporting witnesses. He had no idea how to reach Paul Wilson or Alex MacPherson, and in any case, they could hardly be called disinterested. Why didn’t they believe him? The Army had liberated Buchenwald. Surely they had kept records, and besides, he had been interrogated repeatedly in the ETO about what transpired. He knew that Ed Ritter, Sam Pennell, and many others had been interviewed as well. So what was the problem? He couldn’t make sense of it.
After a long pause, he received notification that a hearing had been scheduled and that he could testify in person at that time. That would be a logistical challenge, as he would have to leave work to go to the hearing. But the real problem was that Fred would need to stand before a panel of skeptics and relate his story in person. The thought made him both anxious and angry. He decided that the safest course would be to sit down and compose his statement in writing and then read it to the panel. It was a brief summary, almost an outline of events. The whole thing took just two typewritten pages that had been carefully trimmed of any graphic or emotional content. He didn’t want to think about such details, and he certainly didn’t want to write them down or say them aloud.
Fred attended the hearing without Betty but with a representative from the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) who provided physical and moral support — very useful, as Fred was extremely agitated. At the session, he stood and read his brief statement, knowing (as the panel surely recognized) that he was repeating verbatim what he had written in his application and his appeal. When he completed his statement, he was dismissed without receiving
any comments or followup questions from the panel. He left the room just as uncertain of the outcome as he had been before he arrived.
After a month, Fred received notification that the committee had decided to award him the $1.50/day for his time from 5 August 1944 to 21 October 1944, but they did so without acknowledging that anything in Fred’s testimony concerning Buchenwald was true. Buchenwald was never mentioned. The panel merely said that there was (undisclosed) evidence that Fred had been captured in Paris on 5 August 1944, and that they had no information indicating that Fred had been outside of German control between the time of his arrest and his arrival at Stalag Luft III.
Fred took that judgement as a form of closure. Although it still frustrated him that his stories of Buchenwald were considered fabrications, he decided to declare victory and get on with his life. He gave up trying to convince the VA that he was telling the truth, which meant he stopped talking about the war altogether. He tried to put the whole business behind him and focus on his career and his family.
Their house was a modest one with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen/dining room, and a small living room furnished with two overstuffed chairs and a couch. Fred liked to keep up with trends in stereo equipment and other electronics, so they now had an 11-inch black and white TV in the living room. Each evening, the family would sit together and watch shows like Lucille Ball, George Burns, Ed Sullivan, and of course the Mickey Mouse Club and Disney specials. When there were reruns of the Life in the Desert documentary, Fred would get queasy and upset, leaving the room because the musical score included passages that had been broadcast over the speakers in Buchenwald, over and over and over.
Betrayed: Secrecy, Lies, and Consequences Page 34
