KLAUS BARBIE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000100570007-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 13, 2007
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: February 11, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/03/14: CIA-RDP88-01070R000100570007-6
RADIO N REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 656-4068
PROGRAM ABC World News Tonight
STATION WJLA-TV
ABC Network
DATE February 11, 1983 7:00 P.M. CITY Washington, D.C.
FRANK REYNOLDS: The Soviets have now begun what will
probably be a sustained campaign of attacks on the United States
for the alleged connection between this country's intelligence
services right after World War II and Klaus Barbie, the former
Gestapo chief in Lyon, France, who has now, after all these years
finally been extradited from Bolivia to France to stand trial for
war crimes.
Tonight, John Martin has a report on Barbie and a man
who knew him in Bolivia.
JOHN MARTIN: The man who took these photos of Nazi
fugitive Klaus Barbie in Bolivia is a former international jewel
thief and burglar named Robert Wilson, who says the two men met
there in 1972 and formed a fast but wary friendship.
ROBERT WILSON: I have a criminal background for some 30
years. And he's obviously a very cultivated criminal. We felt
very comfortable around each other.
MARTIN: So comfortable, by 1975, Wilso says, that
Barbie permitted him to record a conversation in which he asked
Barbie about his infamous reputation.
KLAUS BARBIE: In the world history, that is true. That
is absolutely true.
MARTIN: In halting English, Barbie talks, says Wilson,
of wartime Lyon, where 4000 French Jews and resistance fighters
died at the hands of Barbie and his men, crimes for which he was
later convicted in absentia.
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 Approved For Release 2007/03/14: CIA-RDP88-01070R000100570007-6
BARBIE: I [unintelligible] to kill, to
[unintelligible]. I have been ordered to try to correct, and
this order has been [unintelligible] to kill.
MARTIN: Wilson says Barbie claimed that Rene Hardy (?),
a resistance officer, betrayed his leader, Jean Moulins, who
Barbie says he tortured but did not murder.
BARBIE: He died not in my hands. I have given a test
[unintelligible]. I take him to Paris. And many, many years
after, in '64, I have read that he has died on the way from Paris
to Frankfurt.
MARTIN: After the war, there were allegations that in
exchange for information on Soviet intelligence, Barbie and his
family escaped to Bolivia with the help of American agents.
WILSON: They became very friendly towards him. And
according to him, he struck a deal with them.
MARTIN: Did he ever tell you that he had continuing
contacts with the American intelligence...
WILSON: Oh, he told me that on a number of occasions.s
MARTIN: What did he say about that?
WILSON: Well, he just used the term, "I'm on very
friendly relationships with the Americans, and have been." He
mentioned the fact that he's been in New Orleans, he loved San
Francisco.
Military intelligence told ABC News it is researching
its files on Barbie to decide whether to release information.
In Vancouver, Wilson is writing a book, sifting
materials he says he took from Barbie, including this rare
photograph of young Adolf Hitler, which he says Barbie kept on a
dresser in his bedroom.
Much of Wilson's material remains to be documented. And
the original of a 126-page statement he says Barbie wrote out for
him in Spanish is missing. But if they are authentic, his
recollections and his recording offer an unusual glimpse of the
man France is preparing to prosecute for crimes against humanity.
Approved For Release 2007/03/14: CIA-RDP88-01070R000100570007-6