Rather than recruiting from Ivy League universities, he concentrated on technical schools and state colleges.... "Typically, these technical recruits had shown a childhood penchant for tinkering that eventually turned into engineering and hard-science degrees," one Technical Services officer later wrote. "They were often the first or only member of their family to attend college and many came from rural communities in the Midwest and Southwest. They arrived at the CIA seeking technical opportunities and adventure. It did not take long before these newly engineers began delighting in calling operations officers 'liberal arts majors.'"My father grew up in a small town in Utah, was the first of his family to go to college (somewhat against his father's wishes), said he studied physics because they said it was the hardest discipline (and considered engineering to be dull), and spent his entire college and graduate school career at a conservative religious institution before working undercover for the agency on the Glomar Explorer project. He also believed that history professors worked part-time in the summer as rangers at National Park sites.
"Despite the claims that Cameron’s experiments were a legitimate medical treatment, these experiments had devastating impacts on patients and their families.... [Charles] Tanny was given over 50 days of insulin-induced ‘sleep therapy’, in which he was given multiple drugs: barbiturates (Seconal, Nembutal, Veronal, Amobarbital), antipsychotics (Sparine, Reserpine, Chlorpromazine) and glutethimide, a hypnotic sedative. He was also given frequent ECT treatments, many of which were Page-Russell, an intensive form of ECT where shocks continued during convulsions. After his treatments, Tanny experienced near total memory loss and disorientation, as well as incontinence, symptoms which never completely disappeared. Returning home from the hospital, Tanny had changed from being a loving and engaged father to emotionally distant and volatile, even physically abusive towards Julie Tanny, a young child at the time. This class action lawsuit entitled all of Cameron’s former patients to compensation for their injuries, and all family members and dependents to compensation for loss of support and emotional trauma as a result of their relationship with the patients.
Cameron’s experiments had devastating consequences for patients and their families. What began as hopeful treatment for severe mental illness strayed from legitimate medical treatment and became a form of medical torture likened to the Nuremberg Trials.... We must be aware that we are all capable of such atrocities if we allow our desire for answers to come before our first duty: to do no harm."
When I was at UVa, I was in a distinguished history majors seminar and we had to read a dopey anthropology book on Eva Peron for Brian Owensby. In the discussion, I reasonably asked why the book never even mentioned Juan Peron's ties to the Nazi regime. Owensby was really dismissive and said that there was absolutely no connection between Peron and the Nazis. The next week, Thomas F.X. Noble, the faculty coordinator, played some silly game where people supposedly got upset by some comment or something.
Of course, they were utterly wrong.
Peron's autobiography Yo, Juan Domingo Peron states -
En Nuremberg se estaba realizando entonces algo que yo, a titulo personal juzgaba coma una infamia y como una funesta leccion para el futuro de la Humanidad. Y no solo yo, sino el pueblo argentino. Adquiri la certeza de que los argentinos tambien consideraban el proceso de Nuremberg como una infamia, indigna de los vencedores, que se comportaban como si no lo fueran. Ahora entonces dandonos cuenta de que merecian haber perdido la guerra. Cuantas veces durante mi gobierno pronuncie discursos a cargo de Nuremberg, que es la enormidad mas grande que no perdonara la historia!
A chilling, detailed story of one of Argentina's most shameful secrets: the enthusiastic role of dictator Juan Peron in providing cover for major Nazi war criminals as the Third Reich collapsed, allowing them to lead prosperous and protected lives after the war. Few characters get off easily in this passionate account, which untangles the networks and escape mechanisms that made it all possible. Coming to Peron's assistance were numerous institutions and individuals: the Vatican, the Argentinean Catholic Church, the Argentinean government, and the Swiss authorities who cooperated through a secret office set up by Peron's agents in Bern. Operatives from Heinrich Himmler's secret service arrived in Madrid as early as 1944 to prepare an escape route; in 1946, this operation moved to Buenos Aires, establishing its headquarters in the presidential palace. Eventually, this operation's tentacles stretched from Scandinavia to Italy, aiding French and British war criminals and bringing in the gold that the Croatian state treasury had stolen from 600,000 Jewish and Serb victims of the Ustasha regime. Ingrained antisemitism, anticommunism, greed, and corruption all fortified these clandestine protection rackets. Today, the stain remains, as does the secrecy. This astonishing book delineates in gripping detail what was long suspected -- and also hints at how much remains to be told.
