The MJ-12 program had remained the most highly classified project in the United States for the past fifty-five years, at first because of the atomic information. Then, after the Soviets had finally detonated their own bomb — using information stolen from the United States — the existence of the mothership and the bouncers was kept secret for several reasons.
Duncan turned the page in the briefing book and looked at the official reasons. One was the uncertainty of the public’s reaction should the information be released — a topic Dr. Slayden was supposed to cover in his briefing.
A second reason was that once flying the bouncers had been mastered, in the mid-fifties, the craft were incorporated into the Strategic Air Command on an emergency use-only basis. All of the bouncers were fitted with external racks for nuclear payloads to be used in case of national emergency. It was felt that because of their speed, maneuverability, and nonexistent radar signature, the bouncers would be a last-ditch method to get to the heartland of the Soviet Union to deliver a fatal blow in case of all-out war.
Another reason, spawned by the Cold War, was simply security. The Russians had been able to develop their own atomic weapons off of plans stolen from the U.S. It was feared that, even though the American scientists couldn’t figure out the propulsion system of the bouncers or even, for so many years, how to get into the mothership, the Russians might do a better job. That fear was especially heightened after the Russians lobbed Sputnik up into space, beating the United States to the punch.
One thing the report didn’t mention, though, Duncan knew, was the existence of Operation Paperclip and its effect on the MJ-12 project. Paperclip was officially launched in 1944 as the war in Europe was winding down, but Duncan felt that Paperclip really began the day Von Seeckt was shipped over from England to the United States.
Paperclip — a rather innocuous name for a very deceitful operation. As the war in Europe was ending, the United States government was already looking ahead. There was a treasure trove of German scientists waiting to be plundered in the ashes of the Third Reich. That most of those scientists were Nazis mattered little to those who had invented Paperclip.
When Duncan had first read of Paperclip, she’d been shocked by the blatant incongruity of the situation. The end justifies the means was the motto of those who recruited and illegally allowed the scientists into the United States. Yet at the same time, colleagues of those same scientists were being tried for war crimes where the defense of the end justifying the means had been ruled immoral. In many cases intelligence officers from the JIOA, Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency, were snatching Nazi scientists away from army war-crimes units. Both groups were hunting the same men but with very different goals in mind.
Despite the fact that President Truman had signed an executive order banning the immigration of Nazis into the United States, the practice continued unabated, all in the name of national security.
Majestic-12 had started with Werner Von Seeckt — an undisputed Nazi — and it had continued over the years, using whatever means were required. Several of the scientists used in the early work on the bouncers and mothership were Nazis, recruited by Paperclip. While the names of some of the former Germans working on the NASA space project were highly publicized, the vast majority of the work covered by Paperclip went on unobserved. When news of the project became public, the government claimed that Paperclip had been discontinued in 1947. Yet Duncan had affidavits from an interested senator’s office that the project had continued for decades beyond that date.
One of the things that disturbed Duncan the most about the present state of affairs was not so much the work being done at Area 51 with the mothership and the bouncers.
What bothered her was what General Gullick was hiding. She was convinced he was holding something back. And she had a strong feeling it had something to do with other aspects of the MJ-12 program that they weren’t showing her.
The senator who had provided Duncan with information on Paperclip was under pressure from several Jewish groups to disclose the history of the project, with the possibility in mind of prosecuting some of those involved.
Duncan was concerned about the past, but she was more worried about the future. While the German physicists had gone to MJ-12 and the German rocket scientists had gone to NASA, the largest group of Nazi scientists involved in Paperclip had yet to be uncovered: the biological and chemical warfare specialists.
As advanced as German rocketry had been at the end of the war with the V-2 and jet aircraft, their advancements in the field of biological and chemical warfare had been chilling.
With plenty of human beings to experiment on, the Germans had gone far beyond what the Allies had even begun to fear. While the Americans were still stockpiling mustard gas as their primary chemical weapon, the Germans had three much more efficient and deadly gases by war’s end: tabun, soman, and sarin — the latter of which the American military immediately appropriated for its own use after the war.
Where were all these biological and chemical scientists whom Paperclip had saved from prosecution? Duncan wondered. What had they been working on all these years?
She put the briefing book down in aggravation. There were too many questions and everything was going too rapidly. Not only was this whole Paperclip issue a problem, but she also wondered about the Mothership test itself. Was Gullick moving ahead quickly with the flight for reasons that weren’t apparent, and in doing so was he overlooking problems with the mothership and its propulsion system?
She most definitely remembered the feeling of nausea she’d had in the hangar during the test.
She’d been sent here by the President’s advisers to check on the situation and look into the potential problems that revealing the existence of the MJ-12 project might create.
After all, the President had been in office three years already and his administration by default would be implicated in any cover-up.
She flipped open the lid on her laptop and went to work, typing out her findings so far.
CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET, Q
CLEARANCE, ADDRESSEE ONLY
TO: Chief of Staff, White House
FROM: Dr. Lisa Duncan, Presidential Observer Majestic-12
SUBJECT: AREA 51 Inquiry.
I have studied the official inbriefing, toured the facilities at Area 51, and attended one meeting of Majic-12.
Based on these initial inputs my impressions are:
The technology that is present at Area 51—particularly the mothership — is beyond what you can imagine from reading the papers and viewing the video briefing.
Security at the facility is excessive in light of the present world situation.
The President’s concerns about the psychological and sociological effects of revealing the project are to be addressed at a meeting tomorrow morning.
As for the upcoming test flight of the mothership, I request that the President withhold authorization pending further investigation. There is some dissension on the Majic-12 staff about the testing, and while it may turn out to be nothing, I believe more time is needed.
As expected, General Gullick and the other staff members are very evasive about the early days of the program and any links to Operation Paperclip.
The one who would know the most is Werner Von Seeckt, but I have not been able to meet him since my initial inbriefing. He has not returned my calls. I will try to corner him tomorrow after the psychological briefing.
I have not received any communication from Captain Turcotte. I assume he has not found anything to report of significance.