Special Agent Carlton F. Maxwell, commander of a CIC Team in Heidelberg, was assigned the task of analyzing the letter and the situation. Maxwell quickly determined that the letter was legitimate and its implications dangerous. “Dr. Schieber, described as an extremely valuable scientist in the employ of the Chemical Division, EUCOM, where he possibly has access to Chemical Corps information of a highly classified nature, appears to be one person whom the United States can ill afford to have involved in any sort of international scheme of the nature which the letter seems to imply,” Maxwell wrote. “Subject’s connections during the Nazi regime with the armament industry, in his capacity as Armaments Supply Chief under Dr. Albert Speer, would make him valuable as a consultant and intermediary in any sort of plan involving illegal sales and shipments of arms.” It is remarkable that despite many warning signs, the U.S. Army placed so much trust in Schieber in the first place, and that General Loucks was allowed to make back-door deals with him.
Special Agent Maxwell worried that “in light of recent indication of revival of right-wing activity it is not impossible to image that these arms might be used in a possible German monarchist coup.” Schieber needed to be watched closely, Maxwell advised. The Counter Intelligence Corps put a tail on him and followed him into the Soviet zone. In four months’ time, CIC confirmed, “Schieber has contacts with a Swiss Import-Export Agency in a dubious transaction involving the sale and shipment of arms to a foreign power.” But there was even worse news for U.S. national security. The CIC also learned that Schieber was working for Soviet intelligence. “Subject is in some way involved with the MGB [Ministerstvo Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti, or the Ministry of State Security, a forerunner of Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti, or the KGB] in Weimar,” Maxwell learned.
Maxwell advised his superiors that it appeared Schieber was a Soviet mole and summarized the dangers involved. Schieber had been cleared to work with highly classified material for the U.S. Chemical Corps, including but not limited to tabun and sarin nerve gas. He had worked on classified design projects involving underground bunker systems for the U.S. Air Force, ones that would supposedly protect the U.S. government’s greatest military assets in the event of a nuclear attack. And now he was meeting with Soviet agents who were connected to the intelligence service. Maxwell was told to notify the CIA. The response from the Agency was surprising. “Just forget it,” the CIA told Maxwell, and he was instructed to share this message with his colleagues inside the Counter Intelligence Corps. According to declassified memos in Schieber’s file, in addition to working for the Chemical Corps, Schieber was also working for the CIA. The Agency told Special Agent Maxwell that they had Schieber under their control. Whether that meant that Schieber was spying on the Soviets as part of an Agency plan or that he was double-crossing both nations remains a mystery. Either way, he was also working on an illegal arms deal. According to a declassified memo in Schieber’s foreign scientist case file, he remained on the Operation Paperclip payroll until 1956.
In America, Dr. Walter Schieber left an indelible mark on the future of the U.S. Chemical Corps. After he and his team of Farben chemists provided General Loucks with the secret of sarin gas, the United States began stockpiling the deadly nerve agent for use in the event of total war. The program was fast-tracked at the start of the Korean War. On October 31, 1950, Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall authorized $50 million (roughly $500 million in 2013) for the design, engineering, and construction of two separate sarin production facilities, one in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and another inside the Rocky Mountain Arsenal. Most information on biological and chemical weapons was classified, and no one outside a core group of senior congressmen who portioned out money for these programs had a need to know about them. “Only five members of the House Appropriations Committee, and no more than 5 percent of the entire House of Representatives, were cleared for information on chemical and biological weapons,” writes chemical weapons expert Jonathan Tucker. “As a result, a small clique of senior congressmen was able to allocate money for these programs in secret session and then bury the line items in massive appropriations bills that were brought to the floor for a vote with little advance notice, so that few members had time to read them.”