KLAUS BARBIE UPDATE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000100640007-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 21, 2007
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: April 5, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-01070R000100640007-8
RADIO 1V REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEW CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 656-4068
FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
PROGRAM ABC World News Tonight
DATE April 5, 1983 7:00 P.M.
SUBJECT Klaus Barbie Update
STATION WJLA-TV
ABC Network
Washington, D.C.
FRANK REYNOLDS: Now we have more on the case of Klaus
Barbie, the Nazi Gestapo chief in Lyon, France, who is now, at
last, in French custody and facing trial for crimes committed
during World War II.
John Martin has been following the trail of the American
connection with Barbie and has new and disturbing information.
JOHN MARTIN: Earl Browning, a former Director of Plans
and Operations for Army counterintelligence in Germany, says he
ordered Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie arrested in Bavaria in
1947 when field agents attempted to recruit Barbie as an in-
formant.
EARL BROWNING: We were shocked that CIC should be
considering using him as an informant, the people in the field.
MARTIN: Browning recalled that Barbie's name and
aliases appeared in this central registry of war criminals, that
he was wanted for murder, and was one of only a handful of high-
ranking Nazi criminals still at large.
BROWNING: If he were wanted as a criminal, he should be
arrested, not be proposed for use as an informant.
MARTIN: What happened when you told that lower office
to have him arrested?
BROWNING: We got the word that he had disappeared.
MARTIN: But two years later, according to this tele-
gram, the State Department asked the American High Commis-
OFFICES IN: WASHINGTON D.C. ? NEW YORK ? LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ? DETROIT ? AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES
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Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-01070R000100640007-8
 Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100640007-8
sioner in Germany, John McCloy, why Barbie had not been turned
over to French police, who had interrogated him in the presence
of this U.S. intelligence agent, but who had not been permitted
to take him away. Agent John Willms says the French agents were
furious at Barbie.
JOHN WILLMS: They even said, "You'll never leave this
room alive." And they swore at him and pounded the table and
shook the chairs and made all kinds of commotion and threat. But
he felt rather secure that he was in U.S. custody and that he
wasn't going to be turned over to the French.
MARTIN: In this 1949 cable, High Commissioner McCloy
told Washington he had no record of French requests for extra-
dition. Mr. McCloy, who turned 88 years old last week, has told
ABC News he doesn't recall anything about a Klaus Barbie or a
Klaus Altman, doesn't recall any documents, doesn't recall this
State Department telegram addressed to him as High Commissioner
in Germany, and doesn't recall replying to the Secretary of State
on November 23rd, 1949.
But one man who does admit remembering Barbie is Michel
Thomas, a member of the French resistance, who says he was
interrogated by Barbie and also later worked for the U.S.
counterintelligence corps in Germany.
What was the policy?
MICHEL THOMAS: That automatic arrests were automatic
arrests to be arrested and to be processed, and not to be
released or protected.
MARTIN: It was fairly common practice to use former
Nazis in intelligence work in Germany. Is that correct?
BROWNING: Yes, that's true. Yes. And we did that too.
But not people with blood on their hands. We drew the line on
that.
MARTIN: Somebody didn't draw the line. But inves-
tigators are still not convinced that Barbie's protectors came
from another organization, and they want to know who thought
Barbie was too valuable to pay for his crimes.
Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100640007-8