Operation Paperclip
In September 1946, President Harry Truman authorized a program called Operation Paperclip, which aimed to lure scientists from Nazi Germany to the United States following World War II. Officials at the Office of Strategic Services (the predecessor to the CIA) recruited German scientists to America to aid the country’s postwar efforts, which would also ensure that valuable scientific knowledge would not end up in the hands of the Soviet Union or the divided East and West Germany.
Operation Paperclip’s most famous recruit was rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, who would go on to mastermind NASA’s Apollo moon missions.