Part 12 (1/2)

86 ”leading coordinator”: Marrs, Rise of the Fourth Reich.

86 ”good offices of the Spanish banks”: Manning, Martin Bormann.

87 ”It is possible that Germany will be defeated”: Marrs, Rise of the Fourth Reich.

88 Operation Penguin: Steven J. Zaloga, V-2 Ballistic Missile 194252 (Oxford: Osprey, 2003).

88 V-2 attacks in London: A4/V2 Resource Site, .

88 ”under rocket attack for some weeks”: Michael J. Neufeld, The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemunde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era (New York: Free Press, 1995).

89 ”We have invaded s.p.a.ce”: Walter Dornberger, V-2 (New York: Viking, 1954).

89 ”first actual record on film”: Roy M. Stanley II, V Weapons Hunt: Defeating German Secret Weapons (Barnsley, UK: Pen and Sword, 2010).

90 ”Polish Home Army partisans”: Marek Ney-Krwawicz, The Polish Home Army 19391945, trans. Antoni Bohdanowicz (London: Polish Underground Movement (19351945) Study Trust, 2001). See also mon hate”: von Ha.s.sell et al., Alliance of Enemies.

112 ”Auergesellschaft plant in Oranienburg:” Baggott, Atomic.

113 Operation Big: Kelly, Manhattan Project.

113 ”all the German scientists”: Rhodes, Making of the Atomic Bomb.

113 ”Soviet atomic research facility”: Baggott, Atomic.

113 ”unidentified black substance”: The National Archives, Kew, London; File ADM 223/214.

114 ”To h.e.l.l with the Russians”: After-action report by Col. John Lansdale Jr., quoted in Rhodes, Making of the Atomic Bomb.

114 ”advanced aviation designs”: After the war, the renowned German aircraft designer Prof. Kurt Tank, famous as the creator of the Focke-Wulf Fw.190 fighter, emigrated to Argentina under the name of Pedro Matthies to avoid prosecution by the Allies. There he was engaged to design the Pulqui II or Arrow jet aircraft at the Inst.i.tuto Aerotecnico in Cordoba, first flown on June 27, 1950, soon after the outbreak of the Korean War. Although largely successful, the Pulqui project was canceled in 1960 due to escalating costs and the availability of surplus F-86 Sabre jet aircraft. After the Peron regime fell in September 1955, the German design team was disbanded, and many of its members found employment in the U.S. aeronautical industry.

Similarly, soon after Bormann's arrival in Argentina, the Peron government hired n.a.z.i scientist Dr. Ronald Richter in October 1948 to develop a nuclear fission reactor for peaceful objectives. Instead, Richter persuaded Peron to fund the more advanced technology of nuclear fusion with the promise of producing limitless nuclear energy in milk-bottle-size containers to power all manner of household devices and vehicles. Construction of the fusion facility began in June 1949 on isolated Huemel Island in cold-water Nahuel Huapi Lake, not far from Hitler's lakeside house at Inalco. On March 24, 1951, the Peron government announced that ”On February 16, 1951, in the ... Isla Huemel ... thermonuclear reactions under controlled conditions were performed on a technical scale.” This would have made Argentina the first country in the world to harness nuclear energy for peaceful applications. It was, of course, all nonsense; controlled nuclear fusion remains the holy grail for scientists to this day. Richter and his team were sacked in November 1952 after Argentina had spent the equivalent of approximately $1 billion in today's money and some 150 times the amount that the United States was spending on nuclear fusion research at the time. Nevertheless, the Centro Atomico in nearby Bariloche remains the focal point of Argentine nuclear research. Proyecto Huemel or Project Huemel lives on in the Argentine pun Huele a mula, which means ”It's a rip-off!”

115 ”ma.s.sive discrepancies in military funds”: Baggott, Atomic.

Chapter 12: BORMANN, DULLES, AND OPERATION CROSSWORD.