Editing Operation Paperclip (section)

==Background and Operation Overcast==
In February 1945, [[Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force]] (SHAEF) set up [[T-Force]], or Special Sections Subdivision, which grew to over 2,000 personnel by June. T-Force examined 5,000 German targets, seeking expertise in synthetic rubber and oil catalysts, new designs in armored equipment, V-2 (rocket) weapons, jet and rocket propelled aircraft, naval equipment, field radios, secret writing chemicals, aero medicine research, gliders, and "scientific and industrial personalities".<ref>{{Cite web|title=Chapter XVII: Zone and Sector|url= https://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/Occ-GY/ch17.htm |archive-url= https://archive.today/20120629054911/http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/Occ-GY/ch17.htm |url-status= dead |archive-date= June 29, 2012 |access-date=2024-11-10|website=history.army.mil}}</ref>

When large numbers of German scientists began to be discovered by the advancing Allied forces in late April 1945, the Special Sections Subdivision set up the Enemy Personnel Exploitation Section to manage and interrogate them. The Enemy Personnel Exploitation Section established a detention center, [[Camp Dustbin]], first near Paris and later in [[Kransberg Castle]] outside Frankfurt. The US [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]] (JCS) established the first secret recruitment program, called Operation Overcast, on July 20, 1945, initially "to assist in shortening the [[Pacific War|Japanese war]] and to aid our postwar military research".{{sfn|Lasby|1975|p=79}} The term "Overcast" was the name first given by the German scientists' family members for the housing camp where they were held in [[Bavaria]].{{sfn|Lasby|1975|p=155}} In late summer 1945, the JCS established the JIOA, a subcommittee of the Joint Intelligence Community, to directly oversee Operation Overcast and later Operation Paperclip.{{sfn|Jacobsen|2014|p=191}} The JIOA representatives included the army's director of intelligence, the chief of naval intelligence, the assistant chief of Air Staff-2 (air force intelligence), and a representative from the [[United States Department of State|State Department]].{{sfn|Jacobsen|2014|p=193}} In November 1945, Operation Overcast was renamed Operation Paperclip by [[United States Army Ordnance Corps|Ordnance Corps]] officers, who would attach a [[paperclip]] to the folders of those rocket experts whom they wished to employ in the United States.{{sfn|Lasby|1975|p=155}}

The project was not initially targeted against the Soviet Union; rather the concern was that German scientists might emigrate and continue their research in countries that remained neutral during the war.<ref name="cia.gov">{{cite web |title=The OSS and Project SAFEHAVEN – Central Intelligence Agency |url=https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/summer00/art04.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070613111100/https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/summer00/art04.html  |archive-date=June 13, 2007 |website=www.cia.gov}}</ref> Much US effort was focused on [[Saxony]] and [[Thuringia]], which on July 1, 1945, became part of the [[Soviet occupation zone of Germany|Soviet occupation zone]]. Many German research facilities and personnel had been evacuated to these states before the end of the war, particularly from the Berlin area. The USSR then relocated more than 2,200 Nazi specialists and their families—more than 6,000 people—with [[Operation Osoaviakhim]] during one night on October 22, 1946.<ref>{{cite web |title=Operation "Osoaviakhim" |url=http://www.russianspaceweb.com/a4_team_moscow.html#osoaviakhim |access-date=December 29, 2020}}</ref>

In a secret directive circulated on September 3, 1946, [[President Truman]] officially approved Operation Paperclip and expanded it to include 1,000 German scientists under "temporary, limited military custody".<ref>''The Paperclip Conspiracy: The Hunt for the Nazi Scientists,'' 1987, Tom Bower, ''et al.'' p. 178</ref>{{sfn|Jacobsen|2014|p=229}}{{sfn|Lasby|1975|p=177}} [[News media]] revealed the program as early as December 1946.<ref name="annie-jacobsen">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/books/review/operation-paperclip-by-annie-jacobsen.html |title=Willkommen: 'Operation Paperclip,' by Annie Jacobsen |work=The New York Times |date=February 28, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140301102351/https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/books/review/operation-paperclip-by-annie-jacobsen.html |archive-date=2014-03-01 |access-date=July 24, 2023 |last1=Lower |first1=Wendy }}</ref>

On April 26, 1946, the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued directive [[Morgenthau Plan#JCS 1067|JCS 1067/14]] to General Eisenhower instructing that he "preserve from destruction and [[332nd Engineer General Service Regiment#V-2 Rocket Plans|take under your control records, plans, books, documents, papers, files and scientific, industrial and other information and data]] belonging to ... German organizations engaged in military research";<ref name=McGovern />{{Rp|185}} and that, excepting [[war crime|war-criminals]], German scientists be detained for intelligence purposes as required.<ref name=Beyerchen>{{cite journal |last=Beyerchen|first=Alan|jstor=367770|title=German Scientists and Research Institutions in Allied Occupation Policy|journal=History of Education Quarterly|volume=22|issue=3|pages=289–299|year=1982|doi=10.2307/367770|s2cid=144397068}} Much of the FIAT information was adapted commercially, to the degree that the office of the Assistant Secretary of State for Occupied Areas requested that the peace treaty with Germany be redacted to protect US industry from lawsuits.</ref>