American Gratitude

In the movie Hidden Figures Americans are being brainwashed with the Fake History that we couldn’t have made it to the moon without sassy black women doing the math. Paul Kersey has already pointed out that the flight path trajectory was actually developed by a white Southerner, Dr. Jack Crenshaw. But there’s an even more Politically Incorrect truth: we couldn’t have done it without Germans—specifically, Nazi rocket scientists. For that matter, we probably couldn’t have launched the Star Wars anti-missile program and won the Cold War. I know. I was there. And the shameful treatment America meted out to one of those scientists, Arthur Rudolph, troubles me to this day.

As older readers may recall, at the end of the war—that would be WW II for us octogenarians—our government took the role of the coyote and smuggled a few illegal aliens into the country. In “Operation Paperclip” we snatched Wernher von Braun and his team from under the nose of the advancing Soviets and transported them in darkest secrecy to the desert of White Sands Proving Grounds, near El Paso. There they resumed work where they had left off in Germany. (Attn. VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow: Is it possible that not all illegal immigration is bad?)

Von Braun’s team continued their rocket experiments by re-assembling and firing Hitler’s leftover V-2 rockets that we had confiscated when we invaded Germany. Eventually—now get this—on an appointed day these foreigners were smuggled from Texas into Mexico, from whence they merrily sashayed across the Rio Grande bridge and legally immigrated into the U.S.A.! Eventually, they became American citizens.(Right, a 1955 citizenship ceremony in Huntsville High School, in which 103 German nationals swore the Oath of Allegiance.)

In 1955, the team was moved to Huntsville, AL, and to its sprawling Redstone Arsenal. When President Kennedy announced the goal of sending a man to the moon, the team transferred to the newly-formed NASA, where they became famous in the eyes of the world during the glorious days of the dawning Space Age. Von Braun was chosen to head the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center. Then came Explorer, Gemini, Apollo, and on to the moon!

I had two personal connections to these men. The first relates to a dark spot amidst the brilliance of the Space Race.

One of von Braun’s top lieutenants, Arthur Rudolph (right) developed the Saturn V, the world’s greatest booster rocket and the one used in the Apollo mission. However, once America no longer needed Rudolph, the Office of Special Investigations accused him of war crimes.

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