ARMY COUNTERINTELLIGENCE'S DEALINGS WITH KLAUS BARBIE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85M00364R001602730047-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 8, 2010
• Sequence Number: 47
• Publication Date: July 26, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2010/12/08: CIA-RDP85M00364R001602730047-5
"T ! r rear 11 "P.
F A, (E
Letters.
NEW YORK TIMES
26, July 1983
~4 rmy Counterintelligence's Dealings With Klaus Barbie
To -he Editor:
6 Associated Press dispatch
h e Jul!,
ea the Klaus Barbie case amounts to a
g a:uitous assault on the integrity of
U.S. Army Counterintelligence
Cc ps and on me personally.
The article purports to cite admis-
sicns by retired U.S. agents that they
helped "hundreds of Nazis ... to es-
cape prosecution." The subsequent
paragraph implies that I made such an
allegation, and quotes me as having
said, "We did not have any great pangs
of conscience." All this is nonsense.
The facts are that very few rather
than hundreds of "Nazis" were em-
ployed, that extremely few if any of
these faced prosecution and that the
Barbie case represented a singular
exception to a general rule of avoiding
dealings with persons with a question-
able political background. Further,
when exceptional circumstances red
us to employ such persons, we did so
with considerable moral qualms.
The facts with regard to the Barbie
case are that war crimes charges
against him were not raised during his
period of employment. Charges of his
.torturing or killing hundreds" and of
involvement in death-camp roundups
began to circulate much later, and the
sobriquet "Butcher of Lyons is of re-
cent vintage.
To our knowledge, his activities had
been directed against the underground
French Communist Party and Resist-
ance, just as we in the postwar era
were concerned with the German Com-
un st Party and activities inimical to
A =en can policies in Germany.
,Ater the war, Barbie, as a Gestapo
curia:, was apprehended and interned
in accordance with "automatic arrest"
policies. He was interrogated and sub-
sequently released without any war
crimes charges being raised.
Because his skills were badly need-
ed, given the ambitious operations as-
signed to the C.I.C. and the shortage of
experienced and professional Ameri-
can agents, he was subsequently em-
ployed as a recruiter of sources within
the German Communist Party and
some extreme rigl it wing groups.
Contrary to -the report that nothing
came of French appeals for informa-
tion on his whereabouts, French au-
thorities knew all along where Barbie
was and what he was doing, and until
2951 made no formal request for his ex-
tradition. They asserted they wanted to
interrogate him about his activities di-
rected against the Resistance, with a
view to identifying collaborators.
French authorities were given access
to him for such interrogation.
When French authorities finally
pressed for Barbie's extradition,
American relnetance to hand him
over was based on two considerations.
First, it was known that Soviet and
Communist agents had thoroughly
penetrated French intelligence agen-
cies. Consequently, be would have
been intensively interrogated about
American intelligence activities, jeop-
ardizing.not merely- our operations
but also the security and indeed tl:,_
lives of sources recruited by Barbie." - "
Second, it was known that the Barb
case functioned as a political football
(as it still does today) in the centurie...-
old conflict between the French pc 4i: i-
cal left and right. It was primarily ti?
left which at that time raised` the
charges against him and pressed Air
his extradition, as pan-of an ongoing'
effort to discredit some leading cen-
trist and right-wing political leaders. `
It should be noted that French ex --r
tradition requests then and later weremore pro forma than real, and 'hat :?
today the French seem most reluctant=:
to bring Barbie to trial because it in-:
wolves the reopening of old scars. -
I certainlydo not claim that any of us
who dealt with Barbie sbofld be db -
?solved of all guilt, and we all had pangs.
of conscience then and we have them -
now. While intelligence operations can--
not be conducted by adhering to some,,
rigid puritanical moral code, intelli-
gence personnel are certainly not de.:-
void of moral scruples. We certainly.;
did not live by the code that the end jus_ -
tifies the means. EUGENE J. Kuix.
Lieutenant Colonel, A.U.S. (retired)
Cape Elizabeth, Me., July 9,1963.
The writer, a Counterintelligence
Corps officer from 1943 to 1963, wcr,
chief of operations in the Augsburg
region in I949/50.
Approved For Release 2010/12/08: CIA-RDP85M00364R001602730047-5