U.S./FRANCE/NAZI

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000200830005-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 27, 2008
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: August 16, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000200830005-2
ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT
16 August 1983
U.S./FRANCE/ JENNINGS: Good evening. We begin tonight with an American
NAZI apology to a foreign country. After World War II, France was
trying to put on trial the head of the Gestapo in the French
city of Lyon. His name, now familiar to millions of people, is
Klaus Barbie. Barbie was wanted by the French in connection
with the murder of 4,000 Jews, for ordering 7,500 other Jews and
French resistance fighters into Nazi concentration camps. The
French couldn't put him on trial because U.S. Army Intelligence
was hiding him. Now, the United States has told France it
regrets what Americans did. And here's ABC's John Martin.
MARTIN: The announcement was made at the Justice Department by
Special Prosecutor Allan Ryan, who investigated for six months
and said U.S. Army officers had broken the law to protect spy
operations. RYAN: These were American officers who were acting
in what they perceived to be the best interest of the United
States government. And, therefore, the government must pay a
responsibili-ty for those actions.
MARTIN: Ryan released a 800-page report which shows, he said,
that U.S. Army Counter-Intelligence personnel innocently
recruited the former Gestapo chief in 1947 without knowing he
was suspected of war crimes in Lyon, France. The report says
the officers broke the law by hiding and relocating Barbie when
they learned'he was wanted by the French. As for Barbie's
alleged ties to the CIA and South America between 1951 and this
year... RYAN: There was no relationship between Barbie and the
CIA or any other government agency during those years.
MARTIN: Ryan said an apology was needed because shielding
Barbie had delayed his prosecution. RYAN: Justice delayed is
justice denied. If we are to be true to that principle, and we
ought to be true to it, we cannot pretend that it applies only
within our borders and nowhere else. We have delayed justice in
Lyon.
MARTIN: There will be no prosecutions of Americans because the
statute of limitations have run out. And with this apology, the
government says it hopes that after 36 years the Klaus Barbie
affair is finally at an end. John Martin, ABC News, Washington.
Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000200830005-2