Posted on 06/06/2006 2:48:47 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
Determined to win the Cold War, the CIA kept quiet about the whereabouts of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in the 1950s for fear he might expose undercover anticommunist efforts in West Germany, according to documents released Tuesday.
The 27,000 pages released by the National Archives are among the largest post-World War II declassifications by the CIA. They offer a window into the shadowy world of U.S. intelligence — and the efforts to use former 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 that they knew where Eichmann was hiding. Eichmann played a key role in transporting Jews to death camps during World War II. "He is reported to have lived in Argentina under the alias 'Clemens' since 1952," authorities wrote.
But neither side acted on that information because they worried what he might say about Hans Globke, a highly placed former Nazi and a chief adviser in West Germany helping the U.S. coordinate anticommunist initiatives in that country.
Two years later, when Jewish authorities captured Eichmann, the CIA pressured journalists to delete references to Globke.
"Entire material has been read. One obscure mention of Globke which Life omitting at our request," CIA Director Allen Dulles wrote in a Sept. 20, 1960, internal memorandum, after Life magazine purchased Eichmann's memoir.
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.
"CIA has been struggling with the nettlesome problem of how to balance the public's interest in the historical record of CIA's connections to Nazis, and an intelligence agency's need ... to protect the identities of sources," said Stanley Moskowitz, a former CIA official who is now a consultant to the agency.
"The passage of time has shifted the balance," he said.
Material relating to Japanese war crimes were scheduled to be released later this summer.
"for fear he might expose undercover anticommunist efforts "
Too bad our efforts failed to prevent the Genocide of 40 million committed by the communists after WWII.
We should have let Patton take the last two nukes into Moscow and Stalingrad.
bump
I am not sure it would have advanced the Israeli investigation all that much if the CIA had passed them that information about Eichman in the first half of 1958. I will have to check the source (Isser Harel's great book,"The House on Garibaldi Street"), but I recollect that by mid-1958 or not long thereafter the Israelis had developed this information from other sources and were actively looking into it.
The impression I have is that a lot of former nazis were allowed to move to South America unmolested as a price tag for making Germany governable.
"We should have let Patton take the last two nukes into Moscow and Stalingrad."
elaborate please
i knew Curtis LeMay was pushing to use nuclear weapons against the Soviets, but i thought he was planning to use bombers to deliver them
what was the Patton plan?
So what exactly is the problem here? The Nazi regime was crushed, while Communism was on the rise. We needed to use whatever assets we had available at the time to combat that rise, and if it happened to be a former Nazi regime member, then so be it.
"One obscure mention of Globke which Life omitting at our request," CIA Director Allen Dulles wrote ..."
Fat chance of anything like that happening today ...
"what was the Patton plan?"
To take the SS (largely intact and willing) and attack Russia.
A moral compromise I am happy we did not make, regardless of how foul Russia was. It would have bitten us somehow, somewhen.
Gotta give Patton credit for creativity.
The Israelis seemed awfully concerned about hiding their plans to kidnap Eichmann, even from the Americans who were supposed to be their allies, and I've always wondered why.
"A moral compromise I am happy we did not make"
Moral Compromise?
What of the moral compromise as we stood by and did nothing to save 100 million from genocide.
What of the moral compromise that prevents us from bringing the first communist to justice for crimes against humanity.
"Moral Compromise?"
Yeah, there was this thing the SS did with Jews. You may have heard about it.
"Yeah, there was this thing the SS did with Jews. You may have heard about it."
Hold on there partner. My people lost 19 million during WWII.
My mother and father escaped the Russian invasion of Western Ukraine/Poland by a few months -my remaining aunts and uncles wound up in Nazi concentration camps. This is years AFTER the communists killed 10 million Ukrainians during the unknown Ukrainian Holocaust - the one that made quite an impression on the young Hitler.
Now how do you justify impeding efforts to stop Communist genocide?
Patton said (of the bomb) "give me two of them things and we'll take care of the communists now - because we'll only have to do it after they have these things too."
No wonder he was the most feared by the Nazis ( and commies).
Apparently US and Israel don't always see eye to eye.
I don't blame Israel for going their own way on this one.
""what was the Patton plan?" "
"To take the SS (largely intact and willing) and attack Russia. "
This was hardly necessary given that Stalin had to liquidate millions of his own soldiers who realized upon invading the west that the standard of living was far higher than what there brainwashed minds could conceive.
Add to this the millions of Ukrainians, Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, etc that faced enslavement and Stalin would not have had a chance.
Our fleet could have sailed into the Black Sea which was undefended and our airforce would have commanded the skies.
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