KLAUS BARBIE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100140031-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 2, 2011
• Sequence Number: 31
• Publication Date: April 5, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/06/04: CIA-RDP90-01208R000100140031-4
RADIO TV P
PROGRAM
DATE
SUBJECT
PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
CBS Evening News
STATION
W D V M- T V
CBS Network
April 5, 1983
Klaus Barbie
7:00 P.M.
CRY
Washington, D.C.
DAN RATHER: . Two months ago today, former Gestapo
official Klaus Barbie was spirited back to France to stand trial
for Nazi war crimes. For the 32 years before that, Barbie had
lived in Bolivia, his close ties to that government blocking
French extradition demands. But what about the. years between the
fall of Nazi Germany and Barb'ie's arrival in South America? CBS
News has learned that documents not yet made public establish
that from 1947 to, 1950 Barbie was in occupied Germany, an
employee of U.S. Army Intelligence.
Robert Schakne reports.
ROBERT SCHAKNE: The evidence gathered so far by the
Justice Department is now indisputable. Klaus Barbie, Nazi SS
officer and war criminal, became Klaus Barbie, secret agent, paid
for and protected by American intelligence in postwar Germany.,
EARL BROWNING: Klaus Barbie's name appeared on the list
submitted for authorization to use as an informant. He was being
used through the back door, I guess you would say.
SCHAKNE: Pentagon documents and eyewitnesses. trace
Barbie's shadowy moves through U.S. headquarters and.safe houses
from 1946 to 1950. Although Colonel Browning says he ordered
Barbie.'s immediate arrest in 1947, the documents show that for
unexplained reasons the never happened. Instead, American
intelligence kept employing Barbie.
GENE BRAMEL: We knew that Barbie had been a Gestapo
officer. We knew that various ways that he was wanted by the
French. We didn't care.
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SCHAKNE: Barbie's first mission, providing information
about suspected Communist influence in French government and
security services, using his wartime contracts as a Nazi SS
officer combatting the French resistance in Lyon.
ERHARD DAUBRINGHAUS: We were still trying to get what
is the hottest information here in occupied Germany. So we use
any -- any force -- any sources of information.
SCHAKNE: In 1949 and '50, France formally requested
Barbie's extradition for wartime atrocities, without success.
One French document ruefully notes, "Barbie enjoys the protection
of American occupation authorities."
The reasons why the United States would protect a war
criminal are cloudy. But these were the early Cold War years,
when combatting Soviet influence took first priority.
DAUBRINGHAUS: They were unaware of the enormity of
these war crimes. They said, "Well, okay. We know that they've
committed crimes." They knew about the concentration camps and
the extermination of Jews. He says, "We want to get the informa-
tion, no matter how.
BRAMEL: The most valuable people to us, the ones who
had the expertise, were Nazis. To deny ourselves the use of them
would have been on the verge of suicide, as far as the intel-
ligence mission.
SCHAKNE: Whatever U.S. intelligence knew about Barbie,
U.S. authorities nonetheless issued him a transit visa under the'
alias Klaus Altman for his escape first to Argentina and event-
ualaly to Bolivia.
And the Barbie story doesn't end there. CBS News has
also been told that interest in Barbie continued. In the
mid-1960s, at the time of the Che Guevara insurgency in Bolivia,
American military intelligence discussed recruiting Klaus Barbie,
until the CIA said no.
11 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/06/04: CIA-RDP90-01208R000100140031-4