In a letter dated April 25, 1964, Ambros reminded Finance Minister Westrick that after he had been released from Landsberg Prison in 1951, “You helped me get back on the boards.” For this, Ambros said he was grateful. “I see it as an honor and a duty to [remain] there. I do this for pure altruistic reasons. I appreciate anything you can do.” In turn, Finance Minister Westrick wrote letters to the various boards on Ambros’s behalf. “Ambros was chosen for the board because of exceptional talent,” Westrick said. “In his field he is as wanted as Wernher von Braun. Everyone wants him. He can get a job anywhere he wants, anywhere in the world.”
The Israeli journalists refused to let up on Otto Ambros. They continued to write news stories about him, making it increasingly difficult for both the Federal Republic of Germany and the publicly traded companies on whose boards Ambros sat to maintain business associations with him. “Former War Criminal Found Refuge in Switzerland,” read a headline on June 6, 1964. The story detailed time that Ambros spent in the Swiss village of Pura. Ambros, furious, submitted a “statement of facts” to Labor Ministry state secretary, Ludwig Kattenstroth, in response. “I did not hide myself in Pura,” Ambros wrote. “It is my holiday home. And I have to say that when I bought the parcel there [in 1956] I informed the Swiss government by handing over the judgment at Nuremberg. I am only there for holidays… my children go there, and my friends. After consulting with my lawyer, I will never go back.” Then came the blaming. “The whole affair,” wrote Ambros, “has to be seen in the shadow of the Frankfurt trial. A certain faction of the press is trying to blame me.” The subtext was that “the Jews” were trying to blame him.
In late summer of 1964, AEG’s board members met and decided that they could no longer retain convicted war criminal Otto Ambros. Ambros then also quietly left at least two of the five taxpayer-funded consulting positions he held on Federal Republic of Germany boards.
In separate letters to Finance Minister Ludger Westrick and Deputy Finance Minister Dr. Dollinger, a new secret was revealed, though Ambros promised not to make public a piece of the information they shared. “Concerning the firms abroad where I am a permanent co-worker advisor,” Ambros wrote, “I won’t name them [publicly] because I don’t want to tip off any journalists who might cause trouble with my friends. You know about W. R. Grace in New York… and I hope I can stay with Hibernia Company. Concerning the firms in Israel,” Ambros wrote, “stating their names publicly would be very embarrassing because they are [run by] very public, well-respected persons in public positions that have actually been at my home and are aware of my position, how I behaved during the Reich, and they accept this.”
The “well-respected” public figures in Israel to whom Ambros referred have never been revealed. That Ambros also had worked for the American company W. R. Grace would take decades to come to light. When it did, in the early 1980s, the public would also learn that Otto Ambros worked as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Energy, formerly the Atomic Energy Commission, “to develop and operate a plant for the hydrogenation of coal in a scale of 4 million tons/year at the former IG Farben industrie.” That a convicted war criminal had been hired by the Department of Energy sparked indignation, and congressmen and journalists sought further details about Ambros’s U.S. government contract. In a statement to the press, the Department of Energy insisted that the paperwork had been lost.
The scandal was brought to the attention of President Ronald Reagan. Letters on White House stationery reveal that Deputy National Security Adviser James W. Nance briefed Reagan about how it was that the U.S. government could have hired Otto Ambros. Nance’s argument to the president was that many others hired him. “Dr. Ambros had contacts with numerous officials from Allied countries,” wrote Nance. “Dr. Ambros was a consultant to companies such as Distillers Limited of England; Pechiney, the French chemical giant; and Dow Europe of Switzerland. He was also the chairman of Knoll, a pharmaceutical subsidiary of the well known chemical corporation BASF.” President Reagan requested further information from the Department of Energy on its Ambros contract. Nance told the president, “The DOE and/or ERDA [The Energy Research and Development Administration] do not have records that would answer the questions you asked in the detail you requested. However, with Dr. Ambros’ involvement in the company shown and his special knowledge in hydrogenation of coal, we know there were productive contacts between Dr. Ambros and U.S. energy officials.” Even the president of the United States could not get complete information about an Operation Paperclip legacy.
In the midst of the scandal, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle telephoned Ambros at his home in Mannheim, Germany, and asked Ambros about his 1948 conviction at Nuremberg for mass murder and slavery.