ARMY COUNTERINTELLIGENCE' S DEALINGS WITH KLAUS BARBIE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100370042-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 31, 2010
• Sequence Number: 42
• Publication Date: July 26, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

t Y,, Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/31: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100370042-6
a NEW YC,K TIMES
26 Jul.: 1983
Letters
4_1 my Counterintelligence's Dealings With Klaus Barbie
c :;! Editor:
-'.-e ?u',? 6 Associated Press dispatch
c-: :.`.e Kraus Barbie case amounts to a
:L::cus assault on the integrity of
the L.S. Array Counterintelligence
mac. ,. s and on me personally.
The arJcle purports to cite admis-
s,:ns by retired U.S. agent 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 led
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
to Luring or killing hundreds" and of
involvement in death-camp roundups
berar 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-
a.-:ce, just as we in the postwar era
were concerned with the German Com-
munist Party and activities inimical to
.k=er:can policies in Germany.
.'.`er the war, Barbie, as a Gestapo
r" :.in..:, 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 right-wing groups.
Contrary to the report that noticing
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
1951 made no formal request for his ex-
tradition. They acted they wanted to
interrogate him abort his activities di-
rected against the Resistance, with a
view to identifying collaborators.
French authorities were given aaxss
to him for such intersogatiom
When French authorities finally
pressed for Barbie's extradition,
American reluctance to hand him
over was based on two considerations.
First, it was known that Soviet and
Communist agents had thoroughly
penetrated French Intelligence ageD-
des. Consequently, be would have
been intensively interrogated about
American intelligence activities, jeop-
ardizing not merely our operations
but also the security and indeed Ll.,:
lives of sources recruited by Barbie.'"
Second, it was known that the Ba- i, -'
case functioned as a political foo:ba.
(as it still does today) in the certunn--
old conflict between the French p : ?-
cal left and right. It was primariiy t1?
left which at that time raised th-:-
charges against him and pressed -far
his extradition, as part 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 were
more pro forms than real, and that
today the French seem most reluctant
to bring Barbie to trial because itin-.
valves the reopening of old scars. - . -
I certainly do not claim that any,of us
who dealt with Barbie shocild be i3b-
"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 certainjy;
did not live by the code that the end jus-
tifies the means. EuGz J. KDLa.
Lieutenant Colonel, A.U.S. (retired)
Cape Elizabeth, Me., July S,1983 -
The writer, a Counterintelligence
Corps officer from 1943 to 190, war-,
chief of operations in the Augsburg
region in I949/50.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/31 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000100370042-6