U.S. APOLOGIZES TO FRANCE FOR CONCEALING ACCUSED NAZI WAR CRIMINAL KLAUS BARBIE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100370029-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 28, 2010
• Sequence Number: 29
• Publication Date: August 17, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/28: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100370029-1
r rT!''LE APPEARED WALL STREET JOURNAL
r."'R^ 17 August 1983
U.S. Apologizes to France for Concealing I
Accused Nazi War Criminal Klaus Barbie
By Roi;strr E. TAYLOR
Sla.`(Reporier of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON-The U.S. has expressed
"deep regrets" to France for concealing
accused Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie
after World War II.
The apology, which was delivered to
French authorities last Friday, was recom-
mended by Allan A. Ryan, the Justice De-
partment's chief investigator of alleged Nazi
war criminals. In a 218-page report, Mr.
Ryan confirmed that as many as six U.S.
Army intelligence officers knowingly ob-
structed efforts to extradite Mr. Barbie from
Germany to France for trial in 1950.-Tbe re-
port also' verifies .that U.S.- officials ar-
ranged his escape to Bolivia via an under-
ground railroad known as "the rat 'line:"
Many of the details in the report have
been previously alleged, but Mr. Ryan's vol-
ume represents the first official U.S. confir-
mation of them.
The report documents that the U.S.
Army's Counter intelligence Corps recruited
Mr. Barbie in 1947 and employed him as an
intelligence operative through 1950. At first,
the report finds, Army officers lacked credi-
ble evidence linking Mr. Barbie to war
crimes. But when serious allegations
emerged, the report says, they decided to
conceal him.
Mr. Barbie, 69 years old, is awaiting trial
in France on charges of torturing French ci-
vilians and sending thousands more to con-
centration camps. He was tried and con-
victed in absentia in the 1950s on similar
charges and sentenced to death, but that
ser. ence n?: longer applies. He was extra-
citec soli ?z last February only after
pe-s:s'en: efiors by France to obtain his re-
turn tc face tr;a:. Dir. Ryan*s study of Mr.
Barbie s case was ordered by department
officials to determine the truth of allegations
that the U.S. helped Mr. Barbie evade jus-
tice.
According to the report, certain Army of-
ficers decided to prevent the French from
obtaining Mr. Barbie, because they believed
the U.S. would be embarrassed if he were
confirmed to have been a 'war criminal.
They also feared, Mr. Ryan concludes,
. Intelligence operations, inc u m ose
against the French.
Mr. yan Ryan ~s the officers' actions "in-
defensible." And in a memo to Attorney
General William French Smith, he noted
that they weren't officially condoned by the
U.S. government. Yet he said that the gov-
ernment can't disclaim responsibility as the
officers acted "to protect what they believed
to be the interests of" the U.S.
Mr. Ryan's study fails to find evidence to
verify allegations that the Central to r
ency:or y oilier U.S. government
unit a any reation with r. Barbie in
German or m via. it finds only that the
Army briefly considered "reactivating" him
in the mid-1960s, but decided against it.
In a news conference, Mr. Ryan also said
he doesn't :believe any other suspected Nazi
war criminal was shielded from justice by
U.S. government actions.
During World War 11, Mr. Barbie was
head of the Gestapo, the German secret po- ! The report finds that Mr. Barbie traveled
'lice, in the southern French city of Lyon. to the U.S. in 1969 and 1970 under his alias.
t th -- - ---
A _di
c
h
n
co g o e report,
e was,recrutted
in April 1947 by Army intelligence officer
Robert S. Taylor, partly because Mr. Barbie
was a' leader of a network of former Ger-
man police and intelligence men. The-report
says that was a "defensible" action; Mr..
Ryan concludes that the Army found Mr.
Barbie useful and didn't then believe that
the man later known as the "Butcher of
Lyon" was guilty of war crimes.
narcotics or-weapons trafficking.
Mr. Ryan concludes that the Army offi-
cers who concealed Mr. Barbie from French
g
n
But in 1949 and 1950. new charges sur- U.S. intelligence agencies in recent years
faced that -Mr. Barbie had committed war make it less likely that this could happen
crimes. and the French authorities stepped again.
up efforts to locate him and secure his ex-,
tradition.
Initially, the report says, Army officers
responded that the new charges were "prob-
ably not true." And they disregaded instruc-
tions from their headquarters to drop him as
an employee. ,
Mr. Ryan finds that attempts to locate
Mr. Barbie were frustrated for a time by
bureaucratic confusion. But he says that
Army intelligence officers decided on May 4,
1950, that the former ; Gestapo leader
shouldn't be turned over to the French. He
says officers falsely told U.S. civilian au-
thorities in occupied Germany six weeks
later that their intelligence agents hadn't
been in touch with him since April and
didn't know where to find him. At the time,
he was living in an Army intelligence house -
in Augsburg, in the U.S.-occupied zone, the
report says.
In the news conference Mr
R
an
id
.
y
sa
that the highest-ranking officer involved in
the deception wa3 the late Brig. Gen. Robert
K. Taylor, director of L.S. military intelli-
gence in the U.S. occupied Germany (He
was no relation to Mr. Barbie's recruiter
Robert S. Taylor): Yet the report says it
"cannot be stated with absolute certainty".
that Gen. Taylor- ]mew that Mr. Barbie was
being harbored.'
-Officers arranged-Mr. Barbie's escape to
Bolivia on International. Red Cross travel
documents and other arrangements made
by a Croatian priest who was known as a
fascist war criminal. Mr. Ryan's report sug-
gests that using this route risked compro-
mising intelligence methods or informa- I
Klaus Altmann, apparently on business for a
Bolivian shipping company. But the report
discounts allegations that he was involved in
authorities were concerned only about pro-
tecting operations and didn't show any
"awareness:' that they were obstructing jus-
tice. He expresses optimism that chan
es i
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/28: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100370029-1