Thursday, May 21, 2009

J. Swift's Paris Travel Journal -- Part VIII

Madame continued, "When the German Army collapsed in the West, the Americans were the first to reach Pennemunde and Von Braun. He negotiated amnesty and American citizenship for all of his scientists in exchange for the truckloads of secret rocket data he had hidden in a large cave. The Americans agreed and soon Arnaud and I had been secretly taken to an American air base in England awaiting passage to America.

We were sent to England in early May of 1945 in an American Army DC-3. A day or so after we landed we were having lunch with Allen Dulles when his aide came into the room and said that the BBC had just broadcast the news that Himmler had commited suicide while in American captivity. Arnaud made the strange remark that Himmler would be replaced by the powers of Evil. Allen Dulles, with whom we having lunch asked Arnaud what this meant. A conversation ensued in which Allen Dulles of the American OSS learned of Arnuad's occult and alchemical studies.

"This was not so unusual as you might think because many Germans, especially the Nazis, had occult fascinations during the war. Arnaud, who was not a Nazi, shared the broader European fascination with occultism that had arisen in the 1920's during a renaissance of Madame Blavatsky's work. The OSS learned that Arnaud had a pre-war friendhip with Aliester Crowley and this interested Allen Dulles very much.

"Mr. Dulles had learned that Crowley was the occultic teacher of Jack Parsons, the American rocket scientist who worked at the Jet Propulsion Labs in Pasadena, California. This was all very pleasing to the Americans as it meant that Arnaud would probably be very happy to come to America and work with Jack Parsons. So Arnaud's OSS handler arranged for him to secretly meet Crowley in London to renew their pre-war friendship. When the OSS became the CIA in 1947, nothing changed for Arnaud and he continued to work with Jack Parsons. Jack was a very complex and charming man.

"Arnuad's meeting with Crowley lasted a few days. Arnaud and Aliester had many discussions, all of which they knew were being secretly recorded by Mr. Dulles. This did not matter as their talk centered on non-scientific matters and focused on Crowley's work with the Golden Dawn in America and Jack Parsons. Arnaud agreed to meet with Parsons when he arrived in America. Only too conveniently, the next day Mr. Dulles told Arnaud that he was being assigned as a senior scientist to work on the secret rocket fuels program being conducted at the Jet Propulsion Labs and Muroc Army Air Force Base in Mojave. Jack Parsons was also assigned to the program. Muroc was then a very secret base where captured German technology of all kinds was Americanized and tested:



"Arnaud was the only captured German scientist to be sent to America so quickly. We were both given a new identity as a German-Polish couple who had spent the war in England with our children. We had no belongings other than some clothes and so a new household was easy to begin. We had our family and some of the other scientists and their families we had known in Pennemunde were soon moved to Pasadena and we had friends. It was good to forget the war and its horrors.

"The first few years spent in America were very productive for Arnaud at JPL. He and Jack Parsons become very good friends and discussed science and occult matters at length. Jack had not been formally trained as a scientist and learned a great deal from Arnaud, who by then was known by the new name the OSS/CIA had given him, but we will call him Arnaud just the same.

"Arnaud and Jack Parsons went to England twice to see Crowley and I knew there was some sort of CIA involvement and experiments into paranormal matters and electrical equipment to measure the paranormal. I gathered all this from "electronic seance" experiments that Arnuad and Jack conducted in our home with another experimenter named Volney Matheson... and then there was L. Ron Hubbard. He was living there in Jack Parson's home. Ron and Jack liked to...."

"What, what, what?" Bill stammered.

"Not now, we can talk later about that," Madame replied.

I knew what she didn't want to tell Bill. He was not ready to hear it in any case.


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