BLOWBACK; The First Full Account of America's Recruitment of Nazis, and Its Disastrous Effect on Our Domestic and Foreign Policy.

Simpson,Christopher

ISBN 10: 1555841066 / ISBN 13: 9781555841065

Published by NY1988 (4/88). Weidenfeld & Nicholson., 1988

About this Item

grey &blue 1/2 cloth hardbound 8vo fine cond. binding square & tight. covers clean. edges clean. contents free of markings. clean text.dustwrapper in fine cond. not torn.not price cliped. first edition so stated. first printing (#1 in # line).xv+398p. b&w photo illustrations. source notes. selected bibliography. selected archival sources. index. world history. world war ii. nazi germany . espionage. cold war. rocket science. ss. wernher von braun. cia. anticommunism. antisemitism. holocaust. george kennan. reinhard gehlen. klaus barbie. cia. ~ Blowback is the fullest and most authoritative, account ever written of America's collaboration with Nazis after World War II, and of the long~range effect this has had on the nation's domestic and foreign policy. Drawing on extensive firsthand research and a wealth of documents previously classified or never before made public, Christopher Simpson has written a major and often startling work about the extensive connection between high~ranking American officials and ex~Nazis and collaborators, and about the effect this relationship has had on American society and the cold war. Blowback investigates a hushed~up but vitally important chapter in American history. It explores U.S. recruitment of Nazis and Nazi collaborators in Europe through programs such os the Gehlen Organization, Klaus Barbie's network, and the labor Service Battalions. Perhaps more significantly, Blowback reveals the government~approved (though usually extralegal) immigration of ex~Nazis and collaborators into the United States itself, and the significant impact this has had on American society. Among the wealth of new material in this book, Blowback brings to light for the first time how senior members of the State Department and the CIA, including noted diplomat George F. Kennan, helped organize clandestine programs that brought high~ranking Nazis and Axis government officials to America~and how the State Department has covered up the evidence ever since; how the Pentagon falsified its own files to bring former Nazi scientists, some of them SS officers such as Wernher von Braun, into the country; how in 1948 Nazis on the U.S. intelligence payroll seriously misrepresented the nature and extent of the Soviet threat, thereby materially heightening the cold war; how the Pentagon trained and equipped former Nazi collaborators for use as anti~Communist guerrillas in the event of a nuclear confrontation; how the CIA has spent millions to bankroll anti~Semitic emigre political groups inside the United States~and has consistently hidden the part played by leaders of these groups during the Holocaust. Blowback is a sober and sobering account of how a clandestine national security policy, often embarked on for limited or pragmatic ends, has resulted in a disastrous blowback effect that escaped the control of its instigators, unseated those who had participated in its inception, and Significantly contributed to the hysteria of the cold war and the McCarthy era. Authoritative, shocking, controversial, Blowback opens for public scrutiny a chapter of our recent history that remains essential to the understanding of our world, but that many would prefer to keep shut.[41919]. Seller Inventory # 1106065

Bibliographic Details

Title: BLOWBACK; The First Full Account of ...

Publisher: NY1988 (4/88). Weidenfeld & Nicholson.

Publication Date: 1988

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Fine

Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included

Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

Looks at how U.S. government officials secretly used, shielded, and supported Nazi War criminals

From Publishers Weekly:

The postwar recruitment of Nazis and collaborators by agencies of the U.S. government stemmed, the author illustrates, from intense East-West competition after the German surrender, prodded by the prospect of war between the superpowers. Simpson, a freelance journalist, reveals that many covert operations of the early Cold War era involved the use of operatives known to have committed crimes against humanity during the Second World War. The underlying theme here is the corruption of American ideals in connection with this hushed-up recruitment policy in the name of anticommunism. In elaborating the policy's "negative blowback," Simpson emphasizes the long-term corrosive effect on American intelligence agencies in particular.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.