How America educated the children of Nazi scientists

Plus: How wealthy were the Founding Fathers? |

Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.

By Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Within a few years of World War II’s conclusion, America had approved the migration of a group of Nazi scientists and their families to El Paso, Texas, as part of a program dubbed Operation Paperclip to help with missile development at the height of the Cold War. A new book, Educating the Enemy: Teaching Nazis and Mexicans in the Cold War Borderlands by education historian Jonna Perrillo, looks at the experiences of the scientists’ 144 children in local public schools. “One of the things that I uncover in this book is how their children were used by the press, by the War Department, by the federal government, in many ways to put a happy face on what was a really controversial act,” Perrillo tells TIME. “They were used to show how powerful our democracy was, how persuasive our public schools were—that our way of living was so powerful that we can even transform the children of fascists.” Click here to read the full story. Here’s more history to know:

HISTORY ON TIME.COM The Enduring Timeliness of Frederick Douglass's Last Major Speech By Olivia B. Waxman A new documentary on HBO and HBO Max 'Frederick Douglass in Five Speeches' looks at the life of the most famous abolitionist of the 19th century through five of his key speeches Read More » How Eleanor Roosevelt Worked to Stop Her Husband Approving Japanese Internment Camps During World War II By Francine Uenuma One of few voices countering anti-Asian rhetoric in the U.S. during World War II was First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Here's what to know about her work Read More » Column: History Demands We Preserve the Wreck of America's Last Slave Ship By Ben Raines "The wreck of the Clotilda, the last ship to bring enslaved Africans to the United States, remains buried in mud on the bottom of the Mobile River in Alabama, exactly where I discovered the long-lost ship three years ago" Read More » How Wealthy Were the Founding Fathers? By Willard Sterne Randall Some of the Founders were not rich Read More » Review: The Automat Traces the History of a Beloved Restaurant Chain, With Mel Brooks as a Guide First-time filmmaker Lisa Hurwitz's delightful documentary 'The Automat' features Mel Brooks Read More »

FROM THE TIME VAULT This week in 1978: The Computer Society “The rapid proliferation of microcomputers will doubtless cause many social dislocations. But the hope is that the burgeoning technology will create an almost limitless range of new products and services and therefore a great new job market… Says Isaac Asimov, the prolific author and futuristic polymath: ‘We are reaching the stage where the problems that we must solve are going to become insoluble without computers. I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.’” (Feb. 20, 1978) Read More » This week in 1980: CBS anchor Dan Rather “Dan Rather becomes CBS's $8 million man as network journalism booms… Rather's dazzling contract which took effect last week, makes him one of the two highest-paid broadcast journalists in the country, along with [Walter] Cronkite. It also puts Rather in the rarefied company of TV entertainers like Johnny Carson. That narrowing of the money gap between TV's news stars and its entertainment stars is perhaps only fitting. News is suddenly the hot act on TV. Information programs are beginning to rival sitcoms, shoot-'em-ups and other fictive fare for viewers and advertising dollars.” (Feb. 25, 1980) Read More » This week in 2000: Leonardo DiCaprio “In figuring out what he wants to talk about, DiCaprio says, ‘I want to be as dry and drab and as boring as possible.’ And although always nice, he does a remarkable job at this, listing, at one point, nearly 20 endangered species. The only other thing besides his dating that I can muster any interest in is what it's like to be crazy famous. ‘Is winning the lottery paradise for you? Is fame your paradise? Is that going to cleanse you of all your demons?’ he asks. ‘Paradise to me is a false concept. You learn that happiness is something that comes in fleeting moments, in little moments when you least expect it.’” (Feb. 21, 2000) Read More »

HIGHLIGHTS FROM AROUND THE WEB Women’s history: Roll Call’s Chris Cioffi reports on the news that the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall is getting its first statue of a Black woman: Mary McLeod Bethune, who became the highest ranking African American woman in government when she headed a federal agency in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration. Republican politics: In a Los Angeles Times op-ed, Edward H. Miller, author of a new book A Conspiratorial Life, traces the roots of many modern-day conspiracy theories to the John Birch Society, which started out promoting such theories about a communist infiltration of colleges, high schools and the government in the 1960s and 1970s. Democratic politics: For the New Republic, Sam Rosenfeld reviews historian Michael Kazin’s What It Took to Win, a new book on the history of the Democratic party and the people who shaped it. Twitter thread: On Twitter, Georgetown Law professor Aderson B. Francois traces the modern-day panics over what children are learning in school to the debates about the 1875 Civil Rights Act, and an outcry over a proposed provision that would have prohibited racial discrimination in schools. Style: Smithsonian librarian Alexia MacClain looks back at mail order catalogs from the early 20th century and the fashions they boasted, like “suspender skirts.”

Want more from TIME? Sign up for our other newsletters. Subscribe to TIME

TIME may receive compensation for some links to products and services in this email. Offers may be subject to change without notice.   Connect with TIME via Facebook | Twitter | Newsletters   UPDATE EMAIL     UNSUBSCRIBE    PRIVACY POLICY   YOUR CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS   TIME Customer Service, P.O. Box 37508, Boone, IA 50037-0508   Questions? Contact history@time.com   Copyright © 2022 TIME USA, LLC. All rights reserved.