ABC NIGHTLINE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000200830007-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 27, 2008
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: August 16, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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ABC NIGHTLINE
16 August 1983
DOWNS: Good evening. I'm Hugh Downs, and this is Nightline....Also, the case of
Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie. U.S. Army officers helped him avoid prosecution,
but why? We'll talk with the man who headed a Justice Department investigation,
with an intelligence officer who dealt with Barbie and the man who tracked him
down in South America and ....
DOWNS: Thank you very much, Dr. Frank. We're going to turn next to the case of Klaus
Barbie, the former Gestapo officer now on trial now in France for crimes against
humanity during World War II. The United States today apologized to French
authorities for concealing Barbie's whereabouts for decades. We'll talk with a U.S.
official about the case. And later tonight, we'll look at a controversial plan to
capture 100 killer whales in the Pacific for research and display.
DOWNS: When Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie was found in Bolivia and'extradited to
France last January, some very unpleasant stories began to surface.. According to some
reports, U.S. Army officers had recruited Barbie for intelligence work after World War
II and had shielded him from prosecution for war crimes. The Justice Department began
an investigation in March, and today the results of that investigation were released
along with word that the United States has sent an apology to the government of
France. Here is correspondent John Martin with a report on Klaus Barbie and his.
relationship with the United States.
MARTIN: Klaus Barbie, a bright young man in Hitler's Germany before the war. Klaus
Barbie, a police intelligence officer for the Gestapo during the war, winner of the
Iron Cross and other medals, arrested as a neo-Nazi in 1946. Klaus Barbie, a family
man traveling to Bolivia in 1951, under the name 'Altmann.' Klaus Barbie, for three
decades as Altmann, living the life of lumber merchant, quinine exporter and shipping
executive in a South American country hungry for skilled immigrants. Klaus Barbie,
accused Nazi war criminal, under arrest seven months ago and on his way to France,
where he is expected to stand trial sometime next spring. ALLAN RYAN, JR. (Special
U.S. Prosecutor): Barbie was recruited by counter-intelligence agents of the United
States Army in April, 1947, in Munich, Germany. He was employed and paid by the Army
continuously until February, 1981.
MARTIN: Today, after six months of investigation, the American Justice Department
released a report that describes still another Klaus Barbie, American spy recruiter in
Germany in the early Cold War between 1947 and 1951, a cunning informant who boasted
of penetrating French intelligence and Soviet operations in West Germany and a man for
whom at least seven or more U.S. Army officers lied to the State Department to protect
him from extradition to France for trial on alleged war crimes. The report, compiled
by a team of special investigators inside the Justice Department says the Army
officers obstructed justice to protect U.S. spy operations, shielding Barbie from the
French and then spiriting him away to Bolivia through a top secret operation called
*Rap Lines. The report concludes that at first Army counter-intelligence innocently
recruited Barbie in 1947, unaware of his alleged role in Lyon, France, in the deaths
of more than 4,000 French Jews and Resistance fighters. The report also says
investigators found no evidence Barbie ever again worked for American intelligence in
the 32 years he spent in South America. When special prosecutor Allan Ryan visited
Bolivia in April, he found Interior Ministry records missing but was told by officials
of two regimes that in 1975 Barbie had passed information to the CIA through
intermediaries in the ministry. GUSTAVO SANCHEZ (Bolivian Interior Ministry) (Voice
of Translator): That he visited the U.S. Embassy, that he had contact with people at
the embassy, that he had relationships with people at the embassy, that is true. It
was obvious that the contacts at the embassy were to transmit information.
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MARTIN: The report says, however, that Ryan found no evidence American intelligence,
the CIA, ever paid for the information or ever replied or acknowledged it to Barbie.
RYAN: There was no relationship between Barbie and the CIA or any other government
agency during those years.
MARTIN: The report also finds no evidence that Barbie sold weapons to or for American
agencies, trafficked in drugs with American government approval or knowledge, escaped
from Europe with Vatican assistance, a possibility raised by the discovery of these
documents by ABC News. They show Barbie's sponsor for a Bolivian visa was a Croatian
priest named Dragonovic. RYAN: We pursued this investigation as far as, as it went.
And I am satisfied that it went as far as Father Dragonovic and no higher.
MARTIN: The report also says Barbie traveled to the United States, the New Orleans
and San Francisco but only on routine business for a shipping company.' That was two
and three years before Klaus Altmann was unmasked as Klaus Barbie in 1972 by *Beatta
Klarsfeld. But documents obtained by ABC News in a suit against the government show
the Army and the CIA knew where Barbie was. In this 1966 report, the Army told its
field support group, 'Klaus Altmann is undoubtedly Klaus Barbie.' Someone wanted to
use Barbie for an intelligence operation, but after consulting with the CIA, the Army
decided that, quote, 'The risk of U.S. Army association for intelligence purposes does
not seem to be warranted.' There is speculation the Army wanted to use Barbie to find
Che Guevara in the hills of Bolivia. The report cites no evidence of this, but
neither does it say why the CIA never told U.S. Immigration who Klaus Altmann was,
even though it knew he was Klaus Barbie seven years before the people who were looking
for him found out. I'm John Martin for Nightline in Washington.
DOWNS: Now when we return, we'll talk with the Justice Department investigator who
wrote today's report on Klaus Barbie. We'll also talk tonight with a former Army
intelligence officer who worked with Barbie after the war and with the French lawyer
who tracked Barbie from Europe to South America. And later, a look at the controversy
over a plan to trap killer whales for research and display.
DOWNS: Allan\Ryan, who directed the Justice Department investigation into the Klaus
Barbie matter, and who wrote the report issued by the department today, is with us now
live in our Washington bureau. Mr. Ryan, my question is-how could American Army
officers, having seen, this was right after the war, having seen the kind of
atrocities the Nazis were capable of, how could they have so easily recruited and
worked with a person like Klaus Barbie? RYAN: Well, the information that was
available about Klaus Barbie, that is the information in his SS records file,
indicated that he had been a counter-,intelligence officer throughout his career, and
in fact, he had been. He was associated with the Gestapo, he was chief of the Gestapo
detachment in Lyon, he was also in charge of the anti-Resistance forces there. And I
think the information available to the Army created the impression of somebody who was
trained as a foreign intelligence and counter-Resistance expert, and I think Barbie
did nothing to, to counteract that impression.
DOWNS: Is there any indication that people in the State Department knew what Barbie
really was? RYAN: No. No. The State Department had no knowledge of Klaus Barbie or
who he was, or what his background was until they began receiving inquiries from the
French government in early 1950.
DOWNS: Why the apology to the French government now? RYAN: Because when the State
Department started receiving inquiries from the French, and when it went to the Army
and said do you know anything about a Klaus Barbie or who he might be, the Army said
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we used to have him as an informant but we don't any longer. This was in the spring of
1950, when in fact Barbie was working for the Army continuously throughout that period
of time. Army officials simply lied to the State Department. The State Department
then told the French we don't know where Barbie is, we'll put him on the look-out
list, but we, we don't know where he is. And had the Army told the truth to the State
Department, the State Department could have extradited Barbie, or at least ruled on
his extradition to France. So, I think what that shows is that justice has been
delayed for some 33 years. Because it is only now that Barbie is going on trial in
Lyon.
DOWNS: One of the officers is reported to have said he was only following orders,
which has a kind of a grim echo to it. Does that mean that the United States
government ultimately is responsible? RYAN: Well, I think the United States
government is ultimately responsible for delaying justice in this case, because the
Army officers who, who lied to the State Department were acting in the course of their
official duties; they were, they were not off on a personal lark; they were, they were
doing this out of what they perceived to be the interest of the Army and the interest
of the government. So, I think whatever their personal culpability may be, the United
States cannot disclaim responsibility and say that this was simply the renegade acts
of, of a few officers. '
DOWNS: What was the perceived need, then? How much did they feel they needed to rely
on Nazis for information? RYAN: Well, I think the Barbie case in many ways was, was
not typical. I think that based on all of the documents that we saw and all of the
people that we talked to there were very likely no other Nazi officials, former SS
officials, who received as much prominence and who relied upon as much as Klaus Barbie
was. But you, there was a situation in Germany after the war where the, the adversary
had changed. It was no long Germany, it was now the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc.
And I think all of the nations that occupied Germany, France, Great Britain, the
Soviet Union, as well as the United States made whatever use they could of the
resources of Germany within whatever limits they set for themselves to advance their
own, their own interests.
DOWNS: ABC News reported while you were there in Bolivia, that you were told that
Barbie in 1975 had passsed information to the interior ministry of that country and,
which was later passed on to the CIA. Doesn't that represent that kind of link that
your report says never took place after 1951? RYAN: No.
DOWNS: No. RYAN: Those, those reports are accurate and, we, we, I, I dealt with
them, in, in my report that was issued today. Barbie passed information to a Bolivian
official who in turn passed it on to U.S. government officials. But as I think John
said in his opening story, that, that information was never acknowledged, it was
never, nothing was ever sent back to Barbie. In fact, there is some question as to
whether the American officials knew it came from Barbie. But even if you assume that
they did know that, there were never any directions that went back to him, never any
working relationship.
DOWNS: You wouldn't consider that a kind of a laundering of information, then? RYAN:
No, I don't think it was intended to be a laundering of information. I don't think
the American government treated it that way.
DOWNS: Uh hum. Is this it, then? I mean does, does your report wrap it up? Is that
the end of the Barbie incident in your mind? RYAN: Well, I think the report says
everything that really can be said about the relationship between Klaus Barbie and the
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United States government. I don't think there's any more information out there at
this point. It may be a, a matter of debate. It, it may be something that stays with
us. We'll just have to wait and see. I think my job, essentially, is, is over. We
did the investigation; we issued the report; it's now on the public record, and, and
from here on out I think the Justice Department bows out and we let the, the public
say what it will.
DOWNS: Barbie seems to be a point on which this focuses, but is anyone else being
investigated? RYAN: Well, the Office of Special Investigations in the Justice
Department, which was created four-years-ago to investigate and prosecute Nazi war
criminals in the United States has been very active and, and continues to be very
active. I was director of that office for three-and-a-half years before. taking on
Barbie and, and the office is now prosecuting over two dozen cases in American courts
of Nazi war criminals who came to the United States illegally.
DOWNS: We've heard reports of as high as 20 such cases, and maybe not as grim as the
Butcher of Lyon, but that exist in the United States. Will there be official attempts
to ferret these out and bring them to justice? RYAN: Well, as, as I say, that's
what, that's what the office of special investigations has been doing, really, for the
last three-and-a-half-years to, to bring these into court on the grounds that they
entered the United States illegally; that they were not entitled to American
citizenship; and that that citizenship should be taken away; and that they should be
deported.
DOWNS: Is there any evidence that there might be a change in, in underlying
philosophy of the use of informants? It seems to me that many cases point up to fact
(sic) that all of techniques in dealing with informants seem to be shot through with
that idea that you can somehow fight scum with scum. RYAN: Well, I think there's
been, within the last 10 years particularly, long after the Barbie incident really was
finished--I, I think in the last 10 years in this country there's been a, a, a very
dramatic and a very healthy change in our attitudes toward intelligence operations
and, and the, the way intelligence agencies operate. I think they are more
accountable; I think there is much more oversight on the part of Congress and, and the
executive; I think the attitude that you can do anything in the name of intelligence
gathering no longer prevails in the United States; and I, I think that's generally to
the good. And I think that if someone in 1949 or 1950 had said have we ever
considered the possibility that we're obstructing justice here, this may not have
happened. And, and, I, I would hope that those who are now responsible for
intelligence opertations in the United States if they were to be faced with a similar
situation, might think of that. And I think if that happens, these changes have been
to the good.
DOWNS: Thank you very much, Mr. Ryan. When we return we'll be joined in our
discussion by a former Army intelligence agent who worked with Klaus Barbie in Europe
after World War II. Also tonight, the fight over a plan to trap orcas, or killer
whales off the West Coast.
DOWNS: Joining us live now from Portland, Maine is Eugene\Kolb, a retired Army
counter-intelligence officer who was chief of operations in the Augsburg, Germany,
region in 1949 and '50; and was Barbie's supervisor and dealt directly with him. And
via satellite form our London bureau Serge\Klarsfeld, a French attorney, who with his
wife, helped hunt down Barbie in Bolivia. Gentlemen, welcome. And I'd like to start
by askig Mr. Kolb--you told ABC News last week, Mr. Kolb, that, that Barbie was very
good at recruiting and that he was very useful to, to us. Do you at this point have
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any regrets at having used such a person? KOLB: Oh yes. I had at the time and I
have now, as I told you John Martin, certainly at he very least, shall we say, strong
reservations. But again, I'd like to point out that this is hindsight now from the
perspective of 1983. That conditions in 1948, '49, '50 were quite different, and that
furthermore, and I emphasis this very much, none of the allegations that are currently
being made were voiced to us at that time. The only thing that we held against Barbie
was that he was a Gestapo official, and we don't, didn't at that time like to play
around with Gestapo officials. But he proved his utility to a great extent.
DOWNS: What was the perceived necessity then? We followed the news back then, and
why, why was it felt necessary to deal with those people? KOLB: Because around,
particularly 1948 or thereabouts, we were suddenly loaded with brand new targets and
brand new operations in the context of the cold war. We still had the old projects;
the (inaudible) program; to some extent the location and apprehension of war
criminals--but now we had brand new targets. And when you have brand new targets,
such as, for example, go penetrate the Communist Party, or up in Berlin go penetrate
the Iron Curtain, and penetrate the Iron Curtain and penetrate the Communist Party
there--you're starting from scratch. And starting from scratch is a difficult
operation at any point. On top of that, again, in the late 1940s, we had a horrible
personnel problem in the entire intelligence community. Basically, the only one that
was left operating was the counter-intelligence corps, and we were full, filled with a
lot of brand new people. Some of them couldn't even speak German, and the problem
was, how can you use these people to recruit sources within the Communist Party. And
for the most part, it was simply impossible. You had to look around for Germans or
other non-American personnel who had the talents, the skill, the ability to do this.
Barbie was one of these.
DOWNS: At that time, who authorized you to penetrate French intelligence? France was
an ally. KOLB: That, to my knowledge, is not the case. It may have been before, it
may have been before my time, but everything I know about it, about the case suggests
it was not the case at all.
DOWNS: You mean... KOLB: Our, our operations were in the Augsburg area, but
concentrated on the Bavarian Communist Party and similar activities in Bavaria or West
Germany. Certainly not in France or the French occupation zone, nor even to my
knowledge did Barbie have any information about the Soviet zone or the Soviet Union.
DOWNS: You said in, in a letter to the New York Times quite recently, you said it was
known that Soviet and Communist agents had thoroughly penetrated French intelligence
agencies. KOLB: Right. That did not come to us from Barbie.
DOWNS: I see. So, this was not, not bearing on the Barbie case? KOLB: No. Well,
only, in, indirect, in a sense that was one of the major reasons why we were reluctant
to (inaudible) him over. But certainly that information did not come fron Barbie. He
had no way of getting that kind of information.
DOWNS: Would you do this again? Do you feel that the spy operation was that
important? KOLB: Oh, Mr. Downs, that's, that's very difficult to answer. You know
I, I, I'd like to say one thing. The impression seems to have been, I don't think
justice meant this, or certainly Allan Ryan didn't mean it, that up to, prior to 10
years ago we in the intelligence business were a completely amoral people who felt
that anything goes, or as you put it, fighting scum with scum is the proper way to do
things--not at all. There were some cowboys of that type in the outfit then, and I'm
quite sure they're still around today. But most of us at that time, you know, we are
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after all products of the so-called Judeo-Christian ethic. We do have morals, and we
certainly considered these factors when employing Barbie, and those of us, those in
the outfit after my time who got him out of Germany, I'm sure felt that way also. But
there are certain decisions you have to make when you're faced with assignments we
were given.
DOWNS: Why were you reluctant to turn him over, though? KOLB: Why was I elected?
DOWNS: Yeah. No. Why was the machinery reluctant to turn Barbie over as a, as a war
criminal? KOLB: Because number one...
DOWNS: Was a deal made with him? KOLB: Again, for the primary, the two primary
reasons. Number one, the charges were not that he was a war criminal. To our
knowledge in Augsburg and to the people I dealt with at headquarter's,*the problem was
that the French wanted him primarily to identify and possibly serve as a witness
against Frenchmen of the political center and right who allegedly had collaborated and
turned traitor. And this is what they wanted him for, to our understanding. It was
on this basis that the French at one point were, this was again before my time, but
given the opportunity to interrogate him and got whatever information and got whatever
information they wanted from him, supposedly.
DOWNS: Let me turn not to Ser, Serge Klarsfeld, if I may. Both Allan Ryan earlier,
and now Eugene Kolb has said, Mr. Klarsfeld that the intelligence officers of the U.S.
Army were not aware that Barbie was, not aware at that time, that he was a war
criminal when he was recruited as a spy. Do you agree with that? KLARSFELD (Nazi
Hunter): Not exactly, because I must say that Klaus Barbie was number 239 on the
first list drawn up by the commission on war crimes of the United Nations. And that
list was drawn up in in 1944. And secondly, during the Nuremberg trial, there was a
famous telex which was signed by Klaus Barbie as head as the Gestapo of Lyon, and in
that telex, Barbie said that he liquidated the same day, April 6, 1944, Jewish home
children, with 41 children from three to 13 that he sent to the (inaudible) in order
to be deported to Auschitz. So, this telex was (inaudible) during the Nuremberg trial
as evidence of the French accusation against Nazi war criminals in France, and as a
number (inuadible) says 1,235. So, I, I think that either they didn't want to check,
or as they checked and they found that the information they could get from him was
more valuable than the souvenir of the 41 children.
DOWNS: Well, isn't it possible, though, that the intelligence officers did not know at
that time of, of those documents in the trial? KLARSFELD: Well, these are official
documents, official even for the United States who were part of the United Nations and
as a war crime commission, and also organizers of the military international military
tribunals. So, if intelligence don't check such information so, I ask myself how they
can be efficacious when they try to get information about the Soviets.
DONWS: Are you satisfied with today's report, with the conclusion of it? KLARSFELD:
Yes, I am very satisfied. I will even say proud by, of the United States, a country
which is able and I think that's one of the rare countries able to, to lead such an
investigation with such results and with expression of regrets to the French
government for the attitude of some officers of the American intelligence
30-years-ago. I believe that's something exceptional and that shows that we are not
in a totalitarian world. I don't believe even that in the Western world another
country would have done such an investigation with such results.
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DOWNS: Do you think that Barbie was connected with or worked with the CIA at all while
he ws in Bolivia? KLARSFELD: You know, I disclosed the links between Barbie and the
CIC just after the capture because during 10 years with the green light of the French
presidency I could gather the evidences of the steps of the French governmetn to
obtain Barbie from the Ameicans. And I immediately told that knowing well the
sitatuation in Bolivia, I don't believe that Barbie worked with the CIA. Because his
situation in Boliva and the attitude toward the efforts made by us and by the French
government to obtain his extradition would have been very different if he had worked
for the CIA.
DOWNS: Let me go back, for a moment, to Allan Ryan, and, and ask with your report in
now, does this in your mind absolve the, the United States government, along with its
apology to France, and so forth? Do you think that, that really closes the matter?
RYAN: Well, Hugh, I, I want to say one thing first that in fairness to Kolb--he was
not involved in any of the activities in which I have concluded were an obstruction of
justice. He was operating in Augsburg. The representations to the State Department
were being made from headquarters in Stuttgart, and, and he was not involved in that.
So, I just want the record to be clear on that. And I think that a lot of waht he
says is true. These were not amoral evil people. They were good patriotic Americans.
I think it was a case of insensitivity more than malevolence. I think as far as
whether this closes the record in the United States goverment--I, I believe it .
probably does. I, I'm not aware of anything further we can do. I think the note to
the French expressing the regret of the United States government, although it, it's
little enough, I think it's probably the most that can be done under the
circumstances. Certainly if there's anything else I'm, I'm not aware of it.
DOWNS: It does make one wonder what climate changes might- be in the offing in the, in
the future--what things are we doing now that we can consider moral that might be
under a cloud years down the line. I want to thak all of you gentlemen from being
--.w,,i.th us. Allan Ryan, Serge Klarsfeld, and Eugene Kolb.
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