FRANCE/EX-NAZI

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000200820008-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 27, 2008
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: August 9, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP88-01070R000200820008-0
ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT
9 August 1983
FRANCE/ JENNINGS: A cuestion: Can you think of some person in
EX-NAZI contemporary-history whose name you will never forget? Well,
for a great many people swept up by the Nazi holocaust in World
War II, one such name is that of Klaus Barbie. In France, he
was know as the Butcher of Lyon. Though he was convicted of his
crimes twice at the end of 'the war, he disappeared. Be lived
the life of a fugitive until only this year, when he was
returned to a cell in the city he once ruled. How Barbie
escaped at the end of the war continues to fascinate
investigators. Now, a U.S. government report has laid out some
of the answers. ABC's John Martin has learned some of those
findings.
MARTIN: The, Justice Department report says Barbee was shielded
and spirited out of Europe by American Army counterintelligence
officers who lied to their government and broke the law to
protect spy operations. Accozding to the report, here is what
happened: It was the beginning of the cold war, a time when
American counterintelligence looked frantically among the
surrendering German armies for reliable informants, men and
women who knew how to spy, and recruit spies for what seemed an
impending war with Soviet and East European, communist forces.
in 1942, American Amy Intelligence recruited Klaus Barbie, who
had been head of the Gestapo in Lyor., France, directing Nazi
agents trying to infiltrate and destroy the French Resistance.
EUGENE KOLB (Former Intelligence Officer): He knew bow to go
out and recruit sources., He knew how to play or. strengths and
weaknesses in order to recruit the sources that we needed and
wanted.
MARTIN: Eugene Kolb was an American agent who later supervised
Barbie's contacts and read his file. KOLB: There were no
charges of war crimes against him at the time. And, number two,
he was damned useful, just damned good at it.
MARTIN: Only later, says agent Kolb, did Army
counterintelligence learn of Barbie's alleged role in the deaths
of 4,000 French Jews and resistance fighters. In 1949,
surviving resistance fighters accused Barbie of atrocities. The
French began asking the State Department for him. And U.S.
counterintelligence officers using Barbie in Augsburg, Germany,
dropped him from their roster. ROLB: We got a rather strange
communication from headquarters to drop Barbie as a (inaudible)
as a matter of record, but continue to use him.
MARTIN: The report says the Army then lied to State Department
official Benjamin Shute, who says that in June 1950 a young Army
general visited his office at the U.S. High Command in Germany.
BENJAMIN SHUTE (Retired Diplomat): We had a cuestion from our
headquarters as to whether a man named Barbie wanted by the
French was in Germany. We were told by the Army that he was not
in Germany anymore.
.CONTINUED
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 Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000200820008-0
a.
?` FTIN: The report says the Army then got Barbie these travel
documents and that, since the French formally asked for his
extradition, helping Barbie escape to Boliva was an obstruction
of justice, at a high level. KOLB: I know that some people are
trying to wash their hands and say it was a renegade operation.
The arrangements to get Barbie out after my time could only have
been made by headquarters.
MARTIN: Documents obtained by k.BC News show Barbie visited the
United States in 1969 and 1970, but the report says this was
routine business for a Bolivian government shipping agency. It
says immigrating, officers did not know Barbie's alias, Klaus
Altman, until 1972, when Nazi hunter *Biata *Karsfeld traced him
to Bolivia and publicized his presence. Over the years, as his
children grew and he pursued lumber, shipping, and other
interests, American investigators say they found no evidence
Barbie dealt in arms or drugs, at least in any scheme involving
the U.S. government. Last April, special U.S prosecutor '~ASan
Ryan and a deputy visited the Bolivian Interior ?iinistry.
Question: Did Barbie work for American intelligence? Answer:
Only once, indirectly, in 1975. The report says Ryan found no
evidence, in fact, that the United States ever employed or
directly used Barbie in the 32 years after he escaped to South
America. The report was completed two weeks ago, and while it
does not answer all the questions raised about Barbie, the only
remaining questions for now are, why the government is still
.keeping its Barbie records secret, and why the attorney general
has not released the report to the public. John liartin, ABC
News, New York.
Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000200820008-0