In June 1948, newly promoted Brigadier General Charles Loucks transferred to Heidelberg as chief of intelligence collection for chemical warfare. He partnered with Dr. Richard Kuhn, a former Nazi chemist who had developed the soman nerve agent. Through Kuhn, Loucks traveled to Switzerland in December to meet Professor Werner Stoll about a powerful incapacitating agent: lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). Loucks recognized its military potential and US agencies began exploring LSD for battlefield and mind control applications.

That summer, Loucks received a cryptic call from SS-Brigadeführer Dr. Walter Schieber, a former member of Hitler’s inner circle. Schieber offered help with the Chemical Corps’ failing sarin production program. Though the Air Force had recruited Schieber in February 1948, his denazification trial resulted in a guilty verdict, stalling his contract. When the Air Force later discovered the extent of his war profiteering, it cancelled his recruitment. Loucks, however, was focused on Schieber’s scientific value.

Beginning December 11, 1948, Loucks secretly hosted Saturday meetings at his home where Schieber and former IG Farben chemists created detailed blueprints for industrial sarin production. Their work became the foundation for the US plant at Rocky Mountain Arsenal, producing weaponized sarin under the codename Gibbet-Delivery. In January 1950, Loucks faced Pentagon reprimand for fraternizing with Nazis, but received covert intelligence funding to continue the work.

Meanwhile, the Berlin Blockade in June 1948 accelerated Paperclip’s expansion. The CIA and JIOA established joint operations at Camp King in Oberursel, a clandestine interrogation facility that became a Cold War black site. There, the CIA developed interrogation techniques, including coercive methods, under Operations Bluebird and Artichoke. In 1949, the CIA assumed control of the Gehlen Organization, a spy network of former Nazi intelligence officers, and established the Office of Scientific Intelligence to research Soviet mind control programs. Paperclip expanded, operating largely in secrecy with limited oversight.

On November 2, 1948, Walter Schreiber, former Surgeon General of the Third Reich, appeared at a press conference claiming he had escaped from Soviet custody. The vague details of his escape drew skepticism. Schreiber also warned that the Soviets were rearming East Germany with defected Nazi generals. Army Intelligence recommended Schreiber for Operation Paperclip. General Loucks hired him at Camp King but harbored doubts about his loyalty. In November 1949, Schreiber became Camp King’s post physician, responsible for Soviet prisoners undergoing CIA interrogation, a post with obvious security risks if he were a double agent.

In September 1949, John J. McCloy became US High Commissioner of Germany. A longtime Paperclip supporter, McCloy faced pressure to grant clemency to Nazi war criminals, including Otto Ambros. The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 intensified the push for German scientific expertise. McCloy created Accelerated Paperclip, or Project 63, to evacuate top scientists on a classified “K” list with a million-dollar budget. The new policy allowed recruitment of Class I Nazi offenders, including Kurt Blome and the still-imprisoned Ambros.

In January 1951, McCloy announced his clemency decision, drastically reducing most sentences. On February 3, Ambros walked free with his finances restored. In March, US agent Charles McPherson recruited Blome for Project 63, but a security report accurately describing Blome as an ardent Nazi caused Army Intelligence to reject his admission. McPherson, fearing the rejection would destroy the program, falsely told Blome about a temporary suspension and instead offered him a position as post doctor at Camp King, the job recently vacated by Schreiber. Meanwhile, Schreiber arrived in San Antonio with a government settlement of $16,000 and began work at the School of Aviation Medicine, where his past soon drew scrutiny.

In the fall of 1951, Dr. Leopold Alexander arranged medical treatment in Boston for Janina Iwanska, a Ravensbrück concentration camp survivor. That same month, Alexander read in a medical journal that Walter Schreiber was working for the US Air Force in Texas. Recognizing Schreiber from the Nuremberg proceedings, Alexander contacted the Boston Globe. On December 8, 1951, a Globe reporter called Schreiber, who denied any involvement in human experiments. The next day, the newspaper published a major story. The scandal reached the Pentagon. Harry Armstrong, who had personally recruited 58 Nazi doctors for the postwar Aero Medical Center in Heidelberg, feared the exposure could jeopardize the program. He secretly recommended terminating Schreiber’s contract while publicly maintaining a facade of support.

In January, FBI agents interviewed Iwanska, who identified Schreiber from photographs as present at Ravensbrück during the medical experiments. The FBI learned that Schreiber planned to flee to Argentina. Public outrage intensified. Alexander and former prosecutor Alexander Hardy sent a detailed letter to President Truman documenting Schreiber’s crimes. Schreiber refused to leave Texas voluntarily, instead relocating to his daughter’s home in California. Behind closed doors, the government negotiated his departure.

In April, a letter surfaced showing Air Force General Otis Benson had sought a university position for Schreiber, blaming the scandal on “medical men of Jewish ancestry” (362). In May 1952, Lieutenant Colonel G. A. Little of the Joint Chiefs flew to California and persuaded Schreiber to accept payment and transportation to Argentina. On May 22, the military flew Schreiber and his family to New Orleans, where they boarded a ship for Buenos Aires. With arrangements by Argentinean General Aristobulo Fidel Reyes and US-funded police protection, the Schreibers settled in Argentina. The Senate never held hearings and the attorney general never opened a case.

As Schreiber departed for Argentina, CIA interrogation programs at Camp King expanded to include drugs and chemicals. Dr. Kurt Blome served as post physician during this period, working on a classified Army project. Operation Bluebird was renamed Artichoke with the goal of preventing the agency from lagging behind Soviet research in behavior modification.

The CIA partnered with the Army Chemical Corps and Camp Detrick’s Special Operations Division. Detrick bacteriologists Dr. Harold Batchelor and Dr. Frank Olson became CIA field agents. In April 1950, Olson received a diplomatic passport and began traveling to Camp King. In June 1952, Artichoke techniques were tested on two suspected Soviet spies at a Camp King safe house: The men were drugged, hypnotized, interrogated, and subjected to efforts to induce amnesia. Dr. Henry Knowles Beecher, a public advocate of the Nuremberg Code, consulted on these nonconsensual experiments.

Olson returned from Germany deeply conflicted, comparing the interrogations to concentration camp experiments. CIA Technical Services Staff director Dr. Sidney Gottlieb decided to test covert LSD administration on unwitting subjects. In November 1953, several SO Division agents, including Olson and his supervisor Vincent Ruwet, attended a retreat at Deep Creek Lake. Gottlieb’s deputy, Robert Lashbrook, secretly dosed the men with LSD. Olson suffered a severe psychological breakdown. The experiment demonstrated that covert dosing did not produce amnesia.

Over the following days, Olson’s mental state deteriorated. Fearing he might reveal classified information, Lashbrook brought him to New York. On the night of November 27, 1953, Olson crashed through a 10th-floor hotel window and died on the pavement below. Lashbrook’s first call was to Gottlieb. When police arrived, Lashbrook misled them about Olson’s employment. The death was ruled suicide.