[DEBATE] : Papers: CIA knew of Eichmann whereabouts

[tony roshan samara]

       Papers: CIA knew of Eichmann whereabouts                                                            By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer 46 minutes ago  
                 
  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.
  ___
  On the Net:
  Interagency Working Group: http://www.archives.gov/iwg/



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