U.S. PROBES REPORT NAZI COLLABORATORS WERE HELPED TO EMIGRATE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000403790009-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 16, 2010
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: May 18, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

rSTAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/16: CIA-RDP90-00552R000403790009-1
ARTIC - A.PFEA?1 D
ON PAC;
THE WASHINGTON POST
18 May 1982
U.S. 'Probes Deport Pvazi~
collaborators mere Helped to E~iignt~
By Thomas-.0 Toole
~?R;:: _a and Morton Mintz
, wawne~AO.isarrwN~a '~?I
The Justice Department said yes-j
terday that.it has been investigating
.."for some time, whether Soviets who
c..collaborated with the Nazis were'
: brought into the United -States after''
World War.'II by- .US. intelligence
agencies and whether those agencies
,.lied to Congress about their involve=
,?ment in such Soviet-emigration. ,I
"Widespread 'publicity has been
given to allegations that a number of
;;Byelorussian ... who took part in
Nazi persecution of minority groups
were subsequently assisted by U.S.
intelligence agencies to enter the
;;U.S.," the department, said in a pre-
pared statement. -
"It has also been alleged that in.
recent years attempts by Congress,
through the General Accounting Of-
fice, to obtain information about
these persons have been deliberately
thwarted by executive branch agen-.
cies.
"Both matters have been under
investigation for some time by thel
Department of Justice's Criminal)
Division," the statement said.
The statement was the depart
ment's first formal response to
charges aired Sunday on CBS tele.
vision's "60 Minutes" by former Jus
tice Department prosecutor John J.
.'Loftus. He said that as many as 30
White Russian Nazi collaborator
were brought to the United States '
after the war by the State Depart
ment and U.S. Army intelligence
services to be used as spies, infor-
mants and propagandists against the
Soviet Union during the Cold War. j
Loftus also charged that the same' l
intelligence agencies covered up - the
smuggling operation and lied to Con-
gress when asked the whereabouts of
the Byelorussians who. had been
Nazi. collaborators before emigrating
here.
Now a Boston attorney in' private
practice, Loftus had worked for the
department's Office of Special Inves-
tigations until November, 1980. Hel
has written a book about the smug-
gling operation called `The Belarisl
Secret." Belaris was the name of a
Byelorussian division that fought fort
the German SS in World War II.
In its statement, the Justice De-
ipartment said it has been investiga-
ting for almost a year the charge
that U.S. intelligence agencies may
have covered up the smuggling op-
eration and for about 2V2 years the
charge that the Byelorussians had
entered this country illegally.
"As to the allegations that exec-
utive branch agencies engaged in aJI
.cover-up to prevent Congress from l
obtaining accurate information I'
about the emigres, the [depart.
ment's] Office of Public Integrity,
began inquiries last year and those'
efforts are continuing," the state.!
ment -said. "No more can be said
about that matter at this time." I
Justice also said it has been ac-1
tively investigating whether Byelo-;
russians entered this country illegar !
ly, with or without the help of U.S.!
intelligence agencies. - ~
.This [investigation] neces-!
sitates the painstaking process of as-'
sembling a case [against these per-
sons] that will prevail in federal;
court. If and when evidence of that'
strength is assembled in the inves-
tigations of Byelorussian emigres,;
charges will be filed against them,!
just as they have been in more than;
two dozen other cases in the last
three years," the department said.
On "60 Minutes," Loftus charged
that the Office of Policy Review, for-
merly a covert intelligence unit in
the State Department, had smuggled
in, about 300 Nazi collaborators,
mny of whom had been Nazi-ap-
pointed officials in the Soviet lie-.1
public of Byelorussia, occupied by
Germeny in World War IL
Loftus also said federal agencies
including the FBI, the Army and the
State Department had helped the
Byelorussian become naturalized
citizens. ? ' .
In March, 1977, then-Rep. Joshua
Eilberg (D-Pa.) asked the Pentagon
for information about 48 suspected
Nazi war criminals, including a Bye-
lorussian he called Emmanuel Jas-
tuk, in reality Emmanuel Jasiuk,
mayor of the Byelorussian district of
Stulpche. -
The Army told Eilberg it could
'find no record of an Emmanuel "Jas
tuk" nor any of anyone with eight'
other variations of the last name.
"We conducted the search. irk good
faith, based on the information re-
quested. We did not lie," an Army
spokesman said. . .
In a telephone interview, . Loftus
said Jasiuk had long been on the
computerized index of the Defense
Investigative Service and that the
name could have been turned'
up',
"with a simple phone call."
Loftus said Jasiuk was also listed
in an Army file with-the Immigra-,
tion and Naturalization Service that
bore a note spying the file contained
defense information and could not;
be turned over to Congress.
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.);
charged on "60 Minutes" that Jasiuk'
"helped murder innocent Jewish
people" as mayor of Stulpche,
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/16: CIA-RDP90-00552R000403790009-1