When Dwight D. Eisenhower retired from the office of President of the United States, he gave a final speech on January 17th, 1961. In this speech, he hinted at the fact that the United States was coming under the control of something he called "the military industrial complex". This same military industrial complex was apparently responsible for organizing the Kennedy assassination. He knew that democracy in the United States was slowly being eroded. Even then, the cracks were appearing.
"Jesus! Kennedy was going to start a second American Revolution?" Jason asked.
Heller nodded quickly. "Yes, that was what he had in mind, Jason. He was going to expose the U.S. military for the corrupt institution it had become, expose it for its existing war crimes, and then let the American people decide what to do next. For all the might of the U.S. Army, those in power knew that tens of millions of angry, armed Americans were a threat to them, and that they'd be lucky to face a firing squad if they were ever exposed. This was the fallout from 'Paperclip', Jason. This was the price of doing business with the devil himself.”
Something about what Heller said there sounded familiar to Jason for some reason. "Paperclip??"
Heller swallowed a mouthful of coffee, drew heavily on his cigarette, and exhaled. This was obviously going to take some explaining.
Chapter 18
How could it have come to this, he wondered. They'd reached new heights in scientific research and had come so close to achieving their goal of launching a rocket into orbit, even just temporarily. For all the insanity that had gone on over the last 6 years, he knew that a lot of his work had been justified. Peenemünde had been a harsh mistress to everyone who got involved with her, but the slave laborers had come off the worst of it. His childhood dream of conquering space had become the adult nature of conquering other human beings instead.
Unfortunately, it was the insanity of one man that had changed the course of human history, and tens of millions had died as a result. The same evil he’d poured out into the world was now following him back home though, destroying the country he loved so dearly. His dear Fatherland.
He felt lucky he'd managed to get this far West though, because at least this way, he'd be safe from the Russians. Developing the V2 rocket program had cost the lives of thousands of slave laborers who had died from starvation, being worked to death or just blown up near the failed rocket launches. He knew Soviet troops weren't going to be very sympathetic toward him if they caught him. The chances of him surviving more than a few days as a prisoner of the Russians was highly unlikely, especially now that his arm was broken.
He knew that he was a valuable asset, and that whoever captured him would want to keep him alive, even the hated Russians wouldn’t risk the wrath of Stalin by executing him before they emptied his head of everything he knew. From his point of view, it just seemed like the Americans were the better side to surrender to. He was pretty sure he could convince them to allow him to continue his work. The next race for humanity would be toward the stars, and he was the perfect guy to help the United States make that happen.
He stood up and dusted himself down with his right hand, the other arm still propped up in a cast. The door opened swiftly and a U.S. Army Major strode in. Smiling, he extended his hand and said, "Dr. von Braun, I presume? My name is Major Staver, it's a pleasure to meet you. We'd like to escort you safely out of Europe and to the United States. How does that sound, sir?"
Werner Von Braun sighed a little inside, knowing he was trading one "master" for another, narrowed his eyes, and shook the Major's hand, replying in broken English with, "The pleasure is mine, I'm sure. When do we leave?"
His fate was now in the hands of the Americans, and if the rumors were true, they had a weapon the Soviets would live in fear of for at least a few years. That would buy him the time he needed to get the Americans into orbit, and then the moon. Once the Americans controlled the space above planet Earth, they could control the Earth itself. It was just a matter of planning, resources, and time. That fool, Hitler, had never given very much of any of those.
He was smiling as he walked out of the room. It appeared the Americans wanted to make his Nazi past and alleged war crimes disappear, too. This was a good day to be alive.
Chapter 19
Heller was in full flight now, so there was no point in even trying to slow him down, never mind stop him. Telling his tale seemed to have given the old man a burst of energy - there was real fire in his eyes when he was explaining it all. Then again, Jason realized, this guy had lived through parts of history the rest of us can probably only imagine. Or have nightmares about. One or the other.
"At the end of World War II, there was a race to bring the best and brightest German minds back to the United States to help us with our weapons program. Remember that the Germans had been using their V2 rockets to attack the United Kingdom for several years before we'd even invaded Europe, so we knew they were in possession of some pretty advanced technology. 'Operation Paperclip' was a special mission to find and rescue these Nazi scientists before the Russians got their hands on them. We were lucky enough to grab most of the good stuff from their main facility in Peenemünde, and we also managed to capture the leader of their rocket program, Werner Von Braun. The Russians got their hands on some of the tech but none of the real 'know how'," Heller explained.
Most Americans had no idea that Werner von Braun was one of the brightest lights behind the Apollo space program, and the successful landing of humans on the surface of the Moon. He stood in the control room during major missions and launches, quietly watching his handiwork soaring up into the atmosphere. America could never have accepted that a Nazi helped put Americans in space, but Dr. Von Braun had been whitewashed of his Nazi past long before Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon.
Jason interrupted him, “So if everything was such a great success, what went wrong? I get a sense that it wasn’t exactly plain sailing dealing with these guys.”
Heller eyed him curiously before responding. Jason had obviously anticipated where this story was going, which was interesting to say the very least. "In the beginning, everything seemed to be going so well - we made rapid progress in our development of rockets capable of space flight, but then things started going wrong,” Heller waved his cigarette in a circle in the air in front of him. “Suddenly, we were having rockets blowing themselves apart on the launch pads, one after the other, while the Russians went from success to success. We finally figured out that some of the Nazis we'd brought with us hated the United States far more than they hated the USSR, plus we had our fair share of spies and saboteurs. We did obliterate most of their Fatherland after all, so they'd been quietly sabotaging our space flight projects for years after arriving here. Basically, we brought the Nazi Party to America and then found ourselves surprised that they'd never actually changed; in fact, most of them were still the same bastards we'd fought for several years, slogging our way across Europe in the process.”