Reply #22: CIA covered up Nazi war crimes, documents show [View All]

CIA covered up Nazi war crimes, documents show

Updated Tue. Jun. 6 2006 11:35 PM ET
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The CIA kept quiet about the whereabouts of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in the 1950s for fear he might expose undercover anti-communist efforts in West Germany, U.S. documents released Tuesday show.

The 27,000 pages released by the National Archives are among the largest post-Second World War declassifications by the CIA. They offer a window into the shadowy world of U.S. intelligence -- and the efforts to use Nazi war criminals as spies, sometimes to detrimental effect.

The war criminals "peddled hearsay and gossip, whether to escape retribution for past crimes, or for mercenary gain, or for political agendas not necessarily compatible with American national interests,'' Robert Wolfe, an expert on German history and former archivist at the National Archives, said at a news briefing announcing the document release.

In a March 19, 1958, memo to the CIA, West German intelligence officials wrote they knew where Eichmann was hiding. Eichmann played a key role in transporting Jews to death camps during the Second World War.

"He is reported to have lived in Argentina under the alias `Clemens' since 1952,'' authorities wrote.

SNIP...

Among the other findings:

* Former Nazi officers such as Heinz Felfe, who served in the "Gehlen organization'' -- the West German intelligence service which in its early years was sponsored by the U.S. army and then the CIA -- were typically hired by the Soviet Union to be double agents.
* The CIA routinely misled U.S. immigration officials in the mid-1970s about the role of CIA agent Tscherim Soobzokov and his connection to Nazi war crimes.
* The documents were among the latest released under a 1999 law -- resisted by the CIA -- that called for disclosure of government records related to war crimes committed by the Nazi and Japanese governments.

CONTINUED...

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060606/cia_nazis_060606/20060606?hub=CTVNewsAt11