KLAUS BARBIE COVER-UP

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000200730010-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 27, 2008
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: June 10, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000200730010-7
RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
PROGRAMI The Today Show
S T A T I O N W R C T V
NBC Network
DATE June 10, 1983 7:00 AM CITY Washington, DC
Klaus Barbie Cover-up
JANE PAULEY: Some new developments in the Klaus
Barbie case are startling. Correspondent Mark Nikannen is here
with them.
MARK NIKANNEN: Thanks, Jane.
The Justice Department is investigating Klaus Barbie's
relationship with U.S. spy agencies after World War II. Now
according to sources close to the investigation, Barbie ran a spy
network for U.S. military intelligence in postwar Germany. But,
the sources say, there was a problem using Barbie as a spy. The
French wanted him for war crimes, so U.S. officials devised a
coverup. They used a front man.
A small castle deep in the Bavarian forest, a house that
was a spy nest near Augsburg, Germany, a question mark next to
the description of a Nazi spy's death; his grave in a small
German town: All were part of Joseph Murk's secret life and
mysterious death.
During World War II, Murk was a Nazi spy in France. He
worked closely with Klaus Barbie who ran the German Gestapo in
Leon. Sources close to the investigation say, in 1948, in this
house near Augsburg, Germany, U.S. military intelligence used
Murk as a front man for Barbie's spy work. Information gathered
by Barbie was attributed to Murk in spy reports.
A source at the Justice Department says the substitution
of Murk's name for Barbie's is causing problems, because investi-
gators can't tell exactly what Barbie did by reading the spy
reports. The source also says the investigation has been
hampered because other reports from Murk and Barbie were read and
Material supplied by Radio N Reports, Inc. may be used for file and reference purposes only. It may not be reproduced, sold or publicly demonstrated or exhibited,
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destroyed by military intelligence.
In February, 1951, Barbie went to South America to
escape the French. Within months of his departure, Joseph Murk,
who knew exactly what Barbie did for the U.S., died at the age of
36 in this Bavarian castle, a center for U.S. spying in postwar
Germany. His family says he was murdered to keep him silent.
They say U.S. officials told them he died from a poisonous
bee sting. Roman Catholic Church records in his home town list
his cause of death as heart attack-question mark.
[FILM CLIP]
MAN: It is questionable if he died of natural cause or
he was murdered.
NIKANNEN: Dr. Rudolph Thannheimer was the German
physician called in to examine Murk's body. Then, he said, Murk
died of a heart attack. Now, after a silence of nearly 32 years,
he says, "I don't know how he died." Thannheimer would not talk
to us on camera, nor would he answer any other questions about
Murk's death, saying, "I don't want to be involved in this
thing." Sources close to the Justice Department investigation
fear that when Murk was buried, so were many of the secrets of
Klaus Barbie's role as a U.S. spy.
Apparently, Klaus Barbie won't reveal any secrets to
U.S. officials. NBC News has learned the Justice Department will
not be permitted to question him about his involvement with U.S.
intelligence agencies.
PAULEY: And classified documents that belong to the
U.S. and French governments are telling a little bit more about
the Barbie case. Some documents were recently turned over to the
Justice Department by Nazi hunter, Biata Klairsfield. She and
her husband, Serge, tracked down Barbie in Bolivia. Incidental-
ly, Biata Klairsfield is a paid consultant for NBC News.
BIATA KLAIRSFIELD: Well these new documents that have
been discovered by the high commander from the U.S. in Germany.
And they show exactly that the United States protected Barbie,
that they had known who was Barbie, and they delayed any decision
in turning him over to the French government of (unintelligible).
PAULEY: There's some inconsistency, in that the
American officials evidently were offering him for one purpose
and yet denying they knew his existence on the other.
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BIATA KLAIRSFIELD: Yes. In '48, Barbie was interro-
gated by the French police officers four times: in Munich and
Frankfurt, in the U.S. zone in Germany. And then the Americans
proposed to the French to have him for the Hardy trial in Paris
under certain conditions: to return him to the U.S. zone, to
keep him only for a short time, and to assure him his personal
security.
NIKANNEN: Why, if the U.S. officials were making him so
available to the French, didn't they just turn him back over to
the French and say, 'here, you can have him'?
BIATA KLAIRSFIELD: Don't forget that Barbie was a Nazi
and a Gestapo leader and anti-communist fighter; and he was used
by the American CIC to spy in communist countries. And one
document also says that he had some contact persons in Poland,
Czechoslovakia, but especially in the Soviet zone.
NIKANNEN: So he was running a spy network?
BIATA KLAIRSFIELD: Oh yes, it was.
NIKANKNEN: Was there some fear, do you think, on the
part of U.S. officials, that if they turned him over the French,
that he might reveal something about the American operations?
BIATA KLAIRSFIELD: Yes. I think
want to let him go to the French, because
work he had done for the United States. And
he could reveal the
finally, then, the
ially in Washington.
And in '51, Klaus
left (unintelligi-
French government offered a position offic
They gave him the permanent travel document.
Barbie, with the help of certain Americans,
ble), Italy for Bolivia.
PAULEY: A remarkable story that we have not yet heard
the end of.
We'll be back. This is Today on NBC.
Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000200730010-7