Outside/In: The Dark Side Of The Moon

[0] Christian nationalists want to turn America into a theocracy, a government under biblical rule.

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[10] That's the unforgettable Leslie Hazleton, who appeared on our episode about the Sunnishia conflict, War of the Worlds.

[11] It was one of the first episodes that we released, almost two years ago.

[12] But Leslie is still hearing about it from all kinds of people.

[13] From Sunni Muslims, it's usually, oh my God, I had no idea.

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[15] I'm Shia Muslims, it's just thank you, thank you for actually telling the story.

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[29] Now on with the show.

[30] Hey everyone.

[31] A few weeks ago, we asked you our listeners to tell us about episodes of ThruLine that have taught you something about another part of the world.

[32] Today, we're sharing one of those episodes from our archives.

[33] And it was suggested by, Hi, this is Felipe from Santiago, Chile.

[34] I really enjoyed the episode about the American space program.

[35] I had no idea that the mission to go to the moon had such a dark history.

[36] Thank you for the show through line.

[37] Now here's dark side of the moon.

[38] The moon rose above the horizon.

[39] Millions of her eyes hailed her appearance as her pale beams shown gracefully in the clear heavens.

[40] One set regarded her disc as a polished mirror, by means of which people could see each other from different points of the earth and interchange their thoughts.

[41] As for the Yankees, they had no other ambition than to take possession of this new continent of the sky and to plant upon the summit of its highest elevation the star -spangled banner of the United States of America.

[42] A terrible silence weighed upon the entire scene.

[43] not a breath of wind upon the earth not a sound of breathing from the countless chests of the spectators their hearts seemed afraid to beat at the 20th there was a general shutter as it occurred to the minds of that vast assemblage that the bold travelers shut up within the projectile were also counting those terrible seconds 12 11 10 No words No words An immense spout of fire shot up from the boughs of the earth is from a crater The earth heaved up And with great difficulty Some few spectators obtained the momentary glimpse Of the projectile victoriously pleading the air in the midst of the fiery vapors.

[44] You're listening to ThruLine from NPR.

[45] Exciting new air for NASA and SpaceX has both gear up for a mission to the moon, where we go back in time, and one day, a mission to Mars.

[46] To understand the president.

[47] Hey, I'm Rand Abd al -Fattah.

[48] I'm Ramtin Arablui.

[49] And on today's show, the secret operation that shaped the space race and made the first moon landing possible.

[50] So these days, we're hearing a lot about how humans have to go back to space and reach the next frontier, Mars.

[51] Private companies are getting into the game of space travel.

[52] Some even have plans to bring tourists to the moon.

[53] And it feels like a new kind of space race is emerging.

[54] But for most of human history, the thought of people flying into space, not to mention landing on the moon, was pure fantasy if they thought about it at all.

[55] And even then, it was usually confined to the realm of science fiction.

[56] The reading at the top is an excerpt from Jules Verne's 1865 novel, from the Earth to the Moon, describing what he imagined a moon expedition might look like.

[57] It was written when the Civil War was just coming to an end.

[58] At that time, people still got around by horse and buggy, and most people lived on farms or in small towns.

[59] Many didn't travel far from where they were born.

[60] So space travel was a wild far.

[61] fetched idea.

[62] But just about a century later, the idea became a reality.

[63] Here is what you probably know about the moon landing.

[64] The Cold War was raging.

[65] The Americans and the Soviets had been engaged in a space race for years.

[66] And then, on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to land on the moon.

[67] I'm going to step off the land now.

[68] There's that iconic image of Armstrong stepping off the lunar module.

[69] That's one small step for man. And then planting the American flag on the moon's surface.

[70] It was a triumphant moment for the U .S. We beat the Soviets to the moon, reached a new frontier, made this seemingly impossible possible.

[71] But like the moon, there's a dark side to this story.

[72] Because it turns out, that moment probably wouldn't have happened without the help of a group of former Nazi scientists and engineers.

[73] And in particular, one engineer who's lifelong, dream of space travel guided the mission to the moon.

[74] Hi, this is Shannon from Manoa, Wisconsin, and you're listening to ThruLine from NPR.

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[78] know that the song tainted love was a cover?

[79] Or that Falakuti created the sound of Afrobeat in Los Angeles?

[80] L .A. is a music capital for sure, but a lot of people don't know how much soul was grown here.

[81] That's why we're telling eight brand new stories about the music you think you know.

[82] This season on Lost Notes.

[83] From KCRW, part of the NPR Podcast Network.

[84] On March 23rd, 1925, a teenager living in Germany named Werner von Braun, Brown, got a telescope for his 13th birthday.

[85] The moment he peered through its lens up at the planets and the stars and the moon, it was love at first sight.

[86] Every night he looked at the sky, imagining what it was like up there.

[87] He began reading Jules Verne and other sci -fi writers who dreamed of space travel, getting lost in the fantasy.

[88] Around this time, some astronomers and scientists began publishing articles.

[89] Saying space travel was possible.

[90] It wasn't just a crazy science fiction idea.

[91] If you build a rocket of sufficient power, probably based on liquid propellants, you could propel something into orbit, you could go to the moon, maybe even eventually go to the planets.

[92] When Von Braun came across these ideas, he was floored.

[93] He said he had read an article in an astronomy magazine about an imaginary trip to the moon.

[94] And he said, it filled me with a romantic urge, not just to stare at the moon and planets, but to actually explore the mysterious universe.

[95] I knew how Columbus had felt, he said.

[96] Von Braun became obsessed with space travel.

[97] In fact, it became his dream to lead an expedition to the moon, to go to the moon himself, to land on the moon.

[98] This is Michael Neufeld.

[99] I'm a senior curator of the National Air and Space Museum here in Washington, New Sea.

[100] It's part of the Smithsonian.

[101] And he wrote a biography of Warner von Braun.

[102] He was raised in a very traditional, aristocratic family, largely in Berlin.

[103] Von Braun graduated high school in 1930, enrolled in college, and decided to major in engineering.

[104] And he linked up with a very new rocket group that was in Berlin.

[105] And this rocket group was part of this sort of enthusiasm for space travel that arisen in the Weimar Republic.

[106] The Weimar Republic was the government of Germany from 1919 to 1933, until the Nazi party took power.

[107] Von Braun got involved with this rocket group, which his father found kind of baffling.

[108] He ended up going off into this area, which his father thought was basically crazy.

[109] You know, why was he interested in this crazy rocket technology, which just seemed so far -fetched at the time?

[110] Before long, though, the Army started getting interested in rocket technology, too, pumping more and more money into it.

[111] Although, unlike von Braun, they didn't have space travel in mind.

[112] The army is building up this rocket program because it believes that you could attack an enemy almost without warning this missile would come super -sonically an impact in the city.

[113] And so they had visions of creating this surprise, secret weapon.

[114] They recruited rocket scientists and engineers, including von Braun.

[115] And then just a few months later, the world completely changed.

[116] At the end of January 1933, Hitler came to power.

[117] He consolidated power very quickly.

[118] And von Braun at this point was just a student who was working for the army.

[119] So he was a very minor person at this point.

[120] And like a lot of people, he sort of observed the Nazis.

[121] seizure of power.

[122] At this point, von Braun wasn't very interested in politics or anything other than rockets.

[123] But in time, there were some things about the Nazi ideology that von Brown would get behind.

[124] His upbringing was very conservative nationalist.

[125] So there were parts of the Nazi appeal, which he liked, you know, the nationalistic dimension of Hitler's rule.

[126] And I have many indications that he became a believer in Hitler.

[127] But then so did almost the entire German population.

[128] You know, Hitler had this string of remarkable success.

[129] Hitler was reasserting Germany's power in the region, which, for many Germans, including von Braun, was a good thing.

[130] As the 1930s went on, the Nazi party solidified its hold over the country.

[131] Von Braun eventually joined the party, became an SS officer, and despite the fact that he was still in his 20s, he quickly climbed the ranks of the rocket program to become one of its leaders.

[132] Fawn Brown was this kind of wonder -kinned scientist, adored by everyone who he came in contact with.

[133] This is journalist Annie Jacobson, who wrote a book called Operation Paperclip.

[134] He was tall, blue -eyed, blonde, extremely good -looking, diplomatic.

[135] He had this polished aristocratic background if he wanted to be so.

[136] But he was also able to essentially be, you know, sort of buddy -buddy and talk to the ordinary worker.

[137] So he had an ability to inspire people.

[138] But he was also a very Machiavellian character, meaning he was willing to do whatever it took to see his dreams come to fruition.

[139] In my biography, I argue that he essentially becomes trapped in a Faustian bar.

[140] market with the Third Reich.

[141] And one of the deals that he made very early on with the devil, meaning Hitler himself, was to build rockets for the Third Reich.

[142] You know, they'll give him all the power and resources he wants to build rocketry, but only if they do it their way for their purposes.

[143] A means to an end.

[144] Von Braun figured if he played by the Nazis' rules and put in the time building up the rocket technology for military purposes, he might eventually be able to use that for space travel.

[145] We take you now to Berlin.

[146] Tonight, here in Berlin, we should have a decision whether it's to be peace or war.

[147] This is London.

[148] You will now hear a statement by the Prime Minister.

[149] I am speaking to you from the cabinet room at Tin Downing Street.

[150] In the fall of 1939, Germany invaded Poland.

[151] Britain and France declared war on Hitler's Nazi state, and World War II began.

[152] It is evil things that we shall be fighting against.

[153] Brut force, bad faith, injustice, oppression, and persecution.

[154] And against them, I am certain that the right will prevail.

[155] Pressure mounted for the rocket program to succeed.

[156] They brought prisoners from nearby.

[157] concentration camps to work on the rockets, underground, in a factory with horrible conditions.

[158] And von Braun was there, and he saw some of the things that were going on.

[159] It was a hellish environment.

[160] Dark, cold, dirty, dangerous.

[161] Thousands of people living and working in concealed caves, sleeping on straw or bare rock.

[162] They were beaten, sometimes even killed, for not working fast enough.

[163] And one Polish survivor later recounted that von Braun seemed, quote, completely unperturbed by the pile of corpses.

[164] There was not a whole lot he could have done about it, but he wrote documents, you know, regarding how concentration gap labor should be used.

[165] He was involved in decision -making about how the missiles are going to be produced.

[166] It's hard to say exactly how much von Braun was involved in the day -to -day decision.

[167] decisions there.

[168] But notes from one meeting revealed that he was among a small group of people who decided to set up the factory and bring prisoners from concentration camps to build the rockets.

[169] He was still morally responsible in some sense because he was part of that system.

[170] Fast forward to 1942, the U .S. had joined the war, and the tide was turning against Germany.

[171] But then, a breakthrough.

[172] Von Braun and his team successfully launched a potentially game -changing rocket called the V2.

[173] The V2 was a technological revolution in terms of rocket development.

[174] It was 46 feet long.

[175] The world's first ballistic missile.

[176] These giant rockets are set to attain a speed of 2 or 3 ,000 miles an hour.

[177] The actual takeoff is very slow, something like 30 miles an hour.

[178] What was so deadly about it was the payload in its nose cone.

[179] So the V2 carried 2 ,000 pounds of explosives, and that's what rained down on parts of Europe.

[180] London and Paris.

[181] Toward the very end of the war in Europe.

[182] On September 8, 1944, those of us in Britain who have listened to the roar that followed the explosion of a V2 on a rival, will certainly recognize it.

[183] But even the V2 couldn't save the Germans from defeat.

[184] Now the white flag of capitulation has taken the place of the crooked cross.

[185] Eisenhower himself once said that if the V2 had been developed earlier on in the war, the tide of war could have gone in a very different direction.

[186] With the end of the war looming, the Allied powers, Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the U .S. began making a new calculation.

[187] Everybody looked at this situation and said, well, you know, if we don't grab some of these technologies or maybe some of the people who built them, then maybe the Soviets will or maybe the French or the British will.

[188] So there was competition.

[189] Part of it was sort of east -west.

[190] You know, a lot of people in the West were very suspicious of the Soviet Union.

[191] The U .S. was especially suspicious.

[192] So in the final days of the war, both the Soviets and the Americans began quietly gathering intel on some of these innovative technologies, most importantly, the V -2 rocket.

[193] and they each independently put together a list of names.

[194] They were looking for different scientists.

[195] German scientists who could help them piece together that information.

[196] American officers were ordered by the Pentagon to locate promising scientists.

[197] The Joint Chiefs wanted their visa applications sped up.

[198] The covert mission was called Operation Paperclip.

[199] As scientists were identified, they were questioned about their involvement in the atrocity.

[200] Those who might have trouble getting a visa because of their actions during the war were marked quietly.

[201] And when a potentially promising scientist would be presented, that officer would place a simple paperclip at the top of the file indicating that this was someone that needed to be looked at.

[202] The paperclip indicated that it would be difficult getting that scientist approved for for a visa by the State Department.

[203] On the other hand, von Brown and his rocket team saw the writing on the wall.

[204] They knew the end was coming.

[205] So as to make the situation advantageous for them, what von Brown and his team did was stash away a bunch of documents, engineering blueprints about the V2 rocket, were hidden.

[206] Then von Brown and his team fled to the Bavarian Alps, where they waited out the end of the war kind of sun tanning themselves, on the decks of these ski slopes.

[207] General Schlemer, commander of the 14th tank corps, surrenders.

[208] Major General von Drebber, commanding the 297th Infantry Division, surrenders.

[209] Lieutenant General Rinaldi, commander of the medical corps of the 6th Army, surrendered.

[210] Within hours of hearing the news of Hitler's suicide, von Braun decided it was the right time to make a move.

[211] They guessed correctly that they would be very valuable to the Americans.

[212] And so they turned themselves over to the Americans and made a deal.

[213] The deal was simple.

[214] They would tell the Americans where the documents were hidden in exchange for their freedom.

[215] The documents and the scientists were essentially married together and brought to the United States to build up America's new arsenal of weapons.

[216] Soon after the war ended, the U .S. government started bringing the scientists over to the U .S. And by the time the operation was completed, nearly 1 ,600 German scientists would be brought over.

[217] When we come back, Werner von Braun and the other Nazi scientists begin their new lives in the U .S. and set the stage for America's space program.

[218] This is Nick Bulteis from Holland, Michigan, and you're listening to ThruLines from NPR.

[219] On the TED Radio Hour, MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle, her latest research into the intimate relationships people are having with chatbots.

[220] Technologies that say, I care about you, I love you, I'm here for you, take care of me. The pros and cons of artificial intimacy.

[221] That's on the TED Radio Hour from NPR.

[222] Support for NPR and the following message come from Carnegie Corporation of New York, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace.

[223] More information at carnegie .org.

[224] After fighting a war with Germany and knowing about the atrocities committed by the Nazis, how do you sell this idea to the public that we're going to import, basically, German personnel who are going to help us, you know, with our own programs?

[225] Well, it wasn't sold to the public at all at first because it was secret.

[226] The Germans were bought to the United States in secret by going around the immigration system.

[227] They were essentially prisoners of the armed forces.

[228] And this was the subject of a few rumors in the United States and the media and so forth.

[229] But fundamentally, there was no public knowledge and there was no rationalization offered until December 1946.

[230] More than a year and a half after the end of the war, when this program was finally declassified.

[231] Here's how the Army explained Operation Paperclip to the public.

[232] America got the good German scientists.

[233] These individuals knew nothing of the horrors of Nazi Germany, of crimes being perpetrated by the Reich, of genocide, of mass murder, of slavery.

[234] Right.

[235] I mean, certainly the Defense Department was presenting, the story that these were not Nazi war criminals that they were Germans who had just been Nazi party members out of opportunism or because they had to be.

[236] Basically, they left out all the messy, more damning details.

[237] Several of them had favor with the furor, meaning they wore what was called the Golden Party Badge.

[238] And some even worked side by side at some point in their career with Hitler, Himmler, or Goring.

[239] suggest that many of them not only knew about the atrocities and possibly participated in them, they had received special treatment.

[240] It was a carefully devised PR campaign to make these former Nazi scientists seem less threatening, less guilty.

[241] Still, when the American public found out about the operation, many people were uncomfortable with it and made their frustration known.

[242] At the end of 46 in the early part of 1947, there were protests.

[243] Some people wrote letters to Congress.

[244] and a few prominent public figures spoke out against it.

[245] One of the first detractors of this mythology was actually Albert Einstein, together with Eleanor Roosevelt.

[246] They kind of rallied public opinion about the idea that these Germans were not so beneficent.

[247] And if they were, they would have left Nazi Germany when they could.

[248] But then, world events, shifted to such a degree that the idea of Operation Paperclip became about the lesser of two evils.

[249] Of course, as you go from 1947 into the early 1950s, you get this growing anti -communist hysteria and fear.

[250] The American military establishment began preparing for what was known as total war with the Soviet Union.

[251] And it was absolutely imperative that we grab as many of these expert former Nazi scientist weapons makers that we could because if we didn't get them, surely the Soviets would.

[252] And that pretty much killed the discussion.

[253] The former Nazi scientists were here to stay.

[254] Werner von Braun came to the U .S. with 115 of his team.

[255] members from the rocket program.

[256] They were settled at Fort Bliss, outside El Paso, Texas.

[257] And as the Cold War ramped up, von Braun continued doing the same work he'd done for the Nazis, improving the V -2 rocket, testing new types of missiles, thinking up innovative weapons.

[258] But space travel was still there, in the back of his mind, a childhood dream that hadn't faded with time.

[259] President Truman's dramatic announcement that Russia has created an atomic explosion, In August 1949, the Soviets exploded their first atomic bomb.

[260] And suddenly...

[261] A new race was on.

[262] And that was to develop a delivery system for the atomic bomb.

[263] That delivery system was going to be a ballistic missile.

[264] Von Braun's specialty.

[265] So he and his team got to work, trying to figure out how to build something even more powerful than the V2, something that could cross continents before the Soviets could.

[266] After spending two decades on two continents, designing rockets for two different militaries, he decided this was the time to push for a full -fledged space program.

[267] And he took his shot.

[268] Fun Brown is among a number of prominent people who begin proselytizing the American public to believe in a space program.

[269] So even though his day job is to build ballistic missiles or lead a team to build a ballistic missile.

[270] You know, he was spending a lot of time in the 1950s advocating for space travel.

[271] Here to reveal a plan for a trip around the moon is the chief of the guided missile development at the United States Army's Redstone Arsenal, one of the foremost exponents of space travel, Dr. Werner von Braun.

[272] A voyage around the moon must be made in two phases.

[273] A rocket ship taking off on the Earth's surface will use almost all the fuel, Run Brown knew that for people to buy into a space program, he had to sell the idea of space travel.

[274] He had to make them feel what he felt, that space was the next frontier.

[275] So he wrote magazine articles, which got a lot of attention.

[276] And he went on TV.

[277] Walt Disney's Disneyland.

[278] When you wish upon a star makes no difference who you are.

[279] This real shift toward American space hero comes when he's hired by the Walt Disney Corporation.

[280] He's hired to develop and be featured in a special series devoted to space for a show called Disneyland, Man in Space.

[281] Here to introduce you to this new series is Walt Disney.

[282] One of a man's oldest dreams has been the desire for space travel to travel to other worlds.

[283] Great new discoveries have brought us.

[284] very thick German accent, he would explain to Americans sitting in their living rooms happy to be watching this incredible new technology called television.

[285] How space flight worked.

[286] To facilitate this refueling operation, we will establish an advanced space in the orbit, a thousand miles above the Earth.

[287] And how one day man could travel to the moon and maybe even Mars.

[288] If we were to start today on an organized and well -supported space program.

[289] I believe a practical passenger rocket could be built and tested within 10 years.

[290] And when that first episode aired, some 42 million Americans tuned in, making it the second most watched program in the history of television at the time.

[291] People loved him.

[292] He is as far as the U .S. news media is concerned the profit of space travel.

[293] His star status was solidified.

[294] So he's already a famous person in 1955, you know.

[295] And this is 10 years after he come to the United States in secret as a prisoner.

[296] And he's already a celebrity.

[297] Who will be next to launch math in space?

[298] Me!

[299] And these efforts to create public support for a space program worked.

[300] Bunchmen in space, complete with missile base.

[301] With astronauts and satellite, you send them into flight.

[302] Branches of the military began devising plans to launch a satellite into Earth's orbit.

[303] But in 1957, something unexpected happened.

[304] Moscow newspapers were first.

[305] Then headlines around the world echoed the news.

[306] On every continent and in every land, the story of Sputnik 1 dominated the front pages.

[307] The Soviets had scored a size of Sputnik 1.

[308] the world's first satellite, into orbit.

[309] It caught the American public totally off guard.

[310] It was embarrassing for them.

[311] The Soviets beat them to space.

[312] Some American politicians were angry, so Congress held hearings to strategize a faster way to space.

[313] Von Braun testified at those hearings.

[314] And in 1958, the government started a civilian space program separate from the military, whose sole focus would be space travel.

[315] It was called NASA.

[316] Von Braun became the chief architect of the Saturn 5 rocket, a key part of the Apollo program.

[317] He was finally working on the thing he'd always imagined, and the moon was within reach.

[318] So it's probably no surprise that NASA's main objective also quickly became...

[319] Land a human on the moon and bring him, in those days only a him, bring him back alive.

[320] We choose to go to the moon.

[321] We choose to go to the moon.

[322] Kennedy said a deadline of the end of the decade, which could be 1969 or 1970.

[323] But it was an extraordinarily ambitious project.

[324] We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other thing, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

[325] When we come back, Von Braun's dream becomes a reality, and his Nazi past comes knocking.

[326] Well, this is Octavian from San Diego, and you're listening to the two line from NPR.

[327] This is Apollo 5, the first all -up unmanned flight test for the lunar module.

[328] A 6 .2 million pound Saturn 5 launch vehicle now on its own power at 38 seconds in counting.

[329] The mission of NASA's unmanned Apollo 6 will test the Saturn 5 for the second time.

[330] The United States completed one of its most remarkably successful tests yet of man and machine in space.

[331] Throughout the 1960s, the Apollo program, launched mission after mission.

[332] Some successful, others disastrous.

[333] Apollo astronauts, Roger Chaffey, Edward White, and Gus Grissom lose their lives and a tragic flashfire aboard their grounded space capsule.

[334] All the while, the scientists and engineers adjusted their measurements, tweaked the design of the rocket, ran tests, failed, ran more tests.

[335] And Von Braun's team was one of the most important parts of this equation.

[336] So Von Braun's team is building the...

[337] Saturn 5 rocket, this super booster rocket that's going to lift the space capsule into orbit and essentially make it possible for the moon landings.

[338] And his team included some of the same people who worked with him in the underground slave factory to build the V2.

[339] Getting the Saturn 5 technology right was critical for a safe flight.

[340] Two minus one minute, 35 seconds on the Apollo mission, the flight to land of the first men on the moon.

[341] After nearly a decade of work, all the pieces finally fell into place.

[342] The countdown ends.

[343] Three, two, one, zero, all engine members.

[344] And Apollo 11.

[345] Lipthar, we have a liftoe.

[346] Lips off.

[347] What a moment.

[348] I am on the way before.

[349] Werner von Braun, born Silesia 1912, nationality American, boss of a group of former German rocket scientists, today understandably jubilant.

[350] The greatest day in our life, I think, that we see this as a fulfillment in their life, in their professional life.

[351] So the height of von Braun's fame most certainly comes in the ticker tape parade moment after the Americans successfully land on the moon.

[352] Yeah, the moon landing was a great triumph for him personally.

[353] And then the aftermath was pretty disappointing.

[354] In just a few years' time, the whole Apollo program is shut down in the wake of the Vietnam War.

[355] And this idea by a great majority of Americans that money should not be spent that way.

[356] And the Nazi issue began creeping back in in the 1960s.

[357] You know, with the overwhelming Cold War atmosphere of the 1950s, nobody really wanted to talk about it, and a lot of information about his past was classified.

[358] Stuff began seeping out in the 60s.

[359] Of course, there were popular parodies, and most notably Tom Laird's famous song about Vener von Braun.

[360] Gather around while I sing you a Vener von Braun.

[361] You know, Vener rockets are up.

[362] Who cares where they come down?

[363] and that's not my department, says Vanneufant Brown.

[364] Call him a Nazi.

[365] He won't even frown.

[366] Nazi schmazzi says Van der Van der Van Braun.

[367] You know, Hollywood makes a movie about him called IAM at the Stars, but it bombs.

[368] It wasn't a very good movie.

[369] You know, jokes are made about him.

[370] But in general, he was still for the most of the American public, a hero.

[371] Von Braun left NASA in 1972 and began working with a private company.

[372] But the following year, he was diagnosed with cancer.

[373] He died just a few years after that, before the Operation Paperclip documents were officially declassified.

[374] It's been a decades -long battle to have the truth about Operation Paperclip unearthed and brought into the light.

[375] NASA has been complicit in trying to make sure that that doesn't happen, same as the U .S. Army.

[376] In the mid -1980s, a reporter named Linda Hunt started to break the story.

[377] open.

[378] She filed Freedom of Information Act requests and forced the U .S. Army into declassifying many of these paperclip files, which for the first time revealed the truth about the German scientists.

[379] The army gave Linda Hunt a bill for Xeroxing that totaled $240 ,000.

[380] So the message was clear to journalists, don't mess with us.

[381] I mean, Linda Hunt got out of paying that, but it did take decades for more documents to come to light by myself and others through the Freedom of Information Act.

[382] This new information began to shift how people viewed these scientists.

[383] And it left a shadow over the legacy of Warner von Braun.

[384] If you look at the sum total of his efforts, without a doubt, he's one of the most significant scientists of the 20th century.

[385] I mean, he was able to get America's first satellite into space, and then he was responsible for the science and technology behind the entire Apollo program.

[386] But his legacy will always be tainted by this Nazi past.

[387] He's not going to escape it.

[388] He shouldn't escape it.

[389] I think Operation Paperclip is a pitch -perfect cautionary tale.

[390] It's a nod.

[391] to future scientists, to be mindful of who they're working for and what the goals are behind the programs in which they participate.

[392] That's it for this week's show.

[393] I'm Randabb de Fattah.

[394] I'm Ramtin Arablui, and you've been listening to ThruLine from NPR.

[395] This episode was produced by me. And me and...

[396] Lawrence Wu.

[397] Jamie York.

[398] Lou Olkowski.

[399] Lane Kaplan Levinson.

[400] Jordana Hochman.

[401] and Nigery Eaton.

[402] Fact -checking for this episode was done by Kevin Vocal.

[403] Thanks also to Anya Grunman and Neil Rauch for his voiceover work.

[404] Our music was composed by Ramteen and his band, Drop Electric.

[405] If you like something you heard or you have an idea for an episode, please write us at ThruLine at NPR .org.

[406] Or hit us up on Twitter at ThruLine NPR.

[407] Thanks for listening.

[408] Hey, remember that Bananas episode we did?

[409] Of course.

[410] I can't look at a banana the same way anymore.

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