Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Destructive Impact on Our Domestic and Foreign Policy(4 Forbidden Bookshelf)

A searing account of a dark "chapter in U.S. Cold War history . . . to help the anti-Soviet aims of American intelligence and national security agencies" (Library Journal). Even before the final shots of World War II were fired, another war began--a cold war that pitted the United States against its former ally, the Soviet Union. As the Soviets consolidated power in Eastern Europe, the CIA scrambled to gain the upper hand against new enemies worldwide. To this end, senior officials at the CIA, National Security Council, and other elements of the emerging US national security state turned to thousands of former Nazis, Waffen Secret Service, and Nazi collaborators for propaganda, psychological warfare, and military operations. Many new recruits were clearly responsible for the deaths of countless innocents as part of Adolph Hitler's "Final Solution," yet were whitewashed and claimed to be valuable intelligence assets. Unrepentant mass murderers were secretly accepted into the American fold, their crimes forgotten and forgiven with the willing complicity of the US government. Blowback is the first thorough, scholarly study of the US government's extensive recruitment of Nazis and fascist collaborators right after the war. Although others have approached the topic since, Simpson's book remains the essential starting point. The author demonstrates how this secret policy of collaboration only served to intensify the Cold War and has had lasting detrimental effects on the American government and society that endure to this day.

About the Author :
Christopher Simpson is a veteran reporter, historian, and analyst who teaches at American University's School of Communication in Washington, DC. His work has won national awards for investigative journalism, history, and literature, and has been published in more than a dozen languages. Current study includes technology, democracy, revolution, and peer learning.

Review :
"The story is one that needs to be told, and Blowback makes a major contribution to its telling, supplementing a thorough collation of known cases with ample new research." --The New York Times "A disgraceful chapter in U.S. Cold War history. . . . Simpson's careful research . . . raises profound questions for scholars, lawmakers, and citizens alike." --Library Journal "A bloodhound of a book. . . . [Simpson] does an impressive job--and it is not a pretty story (although certainly a fascinating one)." --Foreign Affairs "The ultimate book about the worst kind of cold war thinking, in which some of our most respected statesmen made shameful decisions for reasons they mistakenly believed to be justified." --Seymour Hersh