CIA DOCUMENTS LINK MENGELE, DRUG DEALING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404200034-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 6, 2010
• Sequence Number: 34
• Publication Date: February 27, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404200034-6
AR T I CLE APPEARID
0. PAGE / j
LOS ANGtLES TIMES
L7 February 1965
STAT
CIA Documents
Link Mengele,
Drug Dealing
By ROBERT L. JACKSON,
Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON-Dr. Josef
Mengele, the notorious Nazi war
criminal, may have been involved
in South American drug trafficking
in the 1970s and moved freely
between Paraguay, Argentina and
Brazil, according to declassified
CIA documents released Tuesday
by two Republican senators.
The reported involvement in
drugs of Mengele, who would be 73
if-still alive, could explain how he
apparently was able to finance his
life and travels in South America
for years, according to one of the
senators, Alfonse M. D'Amato of
New York. One CIA document said
Mengele may have used a farm
machinery business in Paraguay
"as a mechanism to move or laun-
der large sums of money, as well as
to cover the movement of illicit
narcotics."
But the 28 heavily censored
pages of long-hidden CIA records
were often vague and inconclusive,
D'Amato and Sen. Arlen K. Specter
of Pennsylvania acknowledged at a
news conference. Because many
sentences were blacked out to
conceal the CIA's sources of infor-
mation about Mengele, it was diffi-
cult to determine what data in the
documents might be credible and
what might be rumor or hearsay.
'Not Very Diligent'
The CIA and other federal agen-
cies "were not very diligent" in the
past in pursuing leads about Men-
gele's activities, D'Amato and
Specter said. But they said CIA
officials are cooperating in the
current Senate inquiry into the
case of Mengele, known as the
"Angel of Death" for his grisly
medical experiments on, Jewish
women and children at the Au-
schwitz concentration camp in
World War II.
Specter, referring to the docu-
ments, said: "They're vague, but
that's the starting point for our
investigation." The Justice Depart-
ment also has undertaken a formal
investigation into Mengele's over-
seas movements and into reports
that U.S. Army occupation forces
held him in temporary custody in
Germany in 1947.
Some of the CIA documents and
cables spoke of Mengele living at' a
well-guarded ranch" and enjoying
"the protection of Stroessner"-a
reference to Paraguayan dictator
Alfredo Stroessner. One memo said
Mengele "had plastic surgery
(and) looks younger" than his age.
D'Amato and Specter also re-
leased a letter that they have sent
to Secretary of State George P.
Shultz asking him to seek coopera-
tion in the search for Mengele from
all foreign governments that have
been identified with his life as a
fugitive. He is wanted for prosecu-
tion in West Germany and Israel.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404200034-6