VATICAN BODY AIDED REPUTED CRIMINALS OF WAR, STUDIES SAY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100120002-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 25, 2011
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: May 8, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE / --
Vatican body aided
reputed criminals
of war, studies say
By Stephen Kurkjian
Globe Staff
WASHINGTON - A Vatican-
controlled college in Rome pro-
vided sanctuary to numerous al-
leged war criminals shortly after
World War II and helped them
gain safe passage to Argentina
and other countries, according to
recently declassified US Army
Counter Intelligence Corps docu-
ments.
The documents, which were
written shortly after the war.
state that the Allies knew that the
suspects, mostly Croatian govern-
ment officials, were hidden in a
complex of buildings that consti-
tute St. Jerome's College, a Roman
Catholic seminary for priests.
But in the end, the documents
indicate, the Americans decided
not to raid the seminary and
break up the operation because of
(,ration was headed by Rev. Krun-
oslav Draganovic, a Croatian
CAtkolic prtest.who served as sec-
retary of St. Jerome's College, and
who has since died. But the docu-
ments leave unanswered the ques-
tion of whether papal advisers or
Vatican diplomats had known of
or had approved the operation.
Among those protected was
Ande Pavelic, head of the Nazi-
controlled Croatian government
from 1941 to 1945, and considered
one of the most prominent pur-
ported war criminals ever to es-
cape prosecution. Pavelic was
killed in 1959.
Another Croatian -government
official who escaped through the
smuggling network was Interior
Minister Andrija Artukovic. who
emigrated to the United States in
1948 with a false passport.
Artukovic was extradited from
the United States in February and
is now on trial in Zagreb. Yugosla-
via, on charges that he was direct-
ly responsible for 450 civilian
deaths during the war.
BOSTON GLOBE
8 May 1986
As many as 500 Croatians a
month were able to gain passage
out of Italy through the smuggling
network, according to the docu-
'"flier" k6i-e h22fidn at SC'':ferome s
or were provided with talsifipd
identification papers through the
college, the documents allege.
"Pavelic's contacts are so high
and his present position is so com-
promising to the Vatican that any
extradition of [him] would. deal a
staggering blow to the Roman
Catholic Church," one of the re-
ports states.
Like others in the package of
documents, that report urged cau-
tion in any attempt to arrest Pave-
lic.
. The reports also reflect debate
and shifting loyalties among the
Allies in setting policy on how ag-
gressively to pursue suspected
Croatian war criminals and
nda_ - , , whether to extradite the suspects
0 r via, where it was feared that they
would be subjected to mock trials
and execution.
Pavelic's party, Ustachi,
gained control of the provinces in
northern and central Yugoslavia
soon after war broke out in the
Balkans. The party then declared
those provinces the independent
state of Croatia.
While supposedly. a sovereign
nation, Croatia was one of the nu-
merous Nazi puppet governments,
and its army fought on the East-
ern front alongside the Germans.
Among those who served with
Croatian officers was Kurt Wald-
helm, then an officer in the Nazi-
controlled Austrian army, who re-
ceived Croatia's highest. military
award for his wartime record.
Waldheim, the former UN secre-
tary general, is now seekin g elec-
tion as Austria's president, and
his campaign has, been hampered
by protests over his role in the
war.
In 1945, near the end of the
Evar, Pavelic fled tote British sec-
tor of Austria, where, according to
the Army Counter Intelligence re-
cords, it was believed that he was
hidden by British forces. The doc-
uments are not explicit as to why
the ,British would have provided
sanctuary to Pavelic.
By 1946, the documents show,
Pavelic, disguised in clerical garb,
made his way to Italy and St. Jer-
ome's College, where he stayed in
several buildings until at least the
fall of 1947.
Nothing came of British and
American plans to assist Italian
officials in a raid on the college.
The reason for the decision npt
to raid the premises is hinted at in
.a report written in late August
194-7 by three US Army Counter
Intelligence officers e.
They stated that they believe
that Pavelic had close links to the
British, as well as to the Vatican.
The agents said they felt the Unit-
ed States should secretly try to
persuade the Vatican - to expose
the British "protection and coop-
eration" with Pavelic, and in so,
doing, force the British to arrest
him' on their own and extradite
him back to Yugoslavia.
If that plan failed, the agents
said, the Vatican's views should
be "appreciated." They also said
that "no direct police action"
should be taken against Pavelic
"on the part of the American mili-
tary authorities."
By 1948, Pavelic. In possession
of a falsified Spanish passport,
emigrated to Argentina, where he
stayed until he was shot in an as-
sassination attempt in 1959. He
sought medical treatment in
Spain. and died from his wounds.
There are no indications as to who
killed him and why.
. Efforts by the Globe to contact
the Vatican's press office for com-
ment on the Army records were
unsuccessful.
However, Joaquin Navarro
Valls, chief Vatican spokesman,
told. the Religious News Service
that that the "answer would be in
the archives of the Secretariat" of
State, the Vatican's foreign rela-
tions office. "since it is a question
regarding history."
He said, "I don't think anyone
working in the Secretariat of State
was around then."
The head of St. Jerome's Col-
lege said in a telephone interview
from Rome yesterday that he had
STAT
no means by which to judge the p,,L1Qued
accuracy of the documents.
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However, a Jesuit scholar
based in Rome, who is an expert
on postwar Vatican policy mak-
ing, said that while the records
were disturbing, he was not sur-
prised by the disclosures.
"The Vatican was in a very dif-
ficult position at the, time," the
scholar, Rev. Robert Graham, said
on Monday. "They'knew that by
turning these people over to Tito,
It would have certainly resulted in
their extinction, even though the
charges against some of them
were not very well defined." Josip
Broz Tito. the Yugoslav leader,
died in 1980.
But the documents leave little
doubt about Pavelic's crimes. Dur-
ing his reign, it is alleged that as
many as 800,000 Serbs, gypsies
and Jews were killed.
One report described Pavelic as
an "international gangster" who
had plotted the assassination of
King Alexander of Yugoslavia in
1934 as a way of destabilizing the
country, and as "an ardent ex-
tremist of the worst sort."
Within months of his coming
to power in 1941, Pavelic's Cro-
atian nationalists "slaughtered in
a few weeks tens of thousands
Serbians" who had refused to re-
nounce their Orthodox religion,
the report said.
Another scholar of Vatican-Yu-
goslav relations, who teaches at
an ivy League university, said
that the documents allege "the
most serious link ever between the
Vatican and the Nazis. Pavelic
was a known terrorist before he
came to power and a brutal head
of state."
"It's inconceivable that a case
could be made for providing him
sanctuary," said the scholar, who
insisted that he not be identified
further.
Besides Pavelic, according to
the Army documents, those given
sanctuary in the college were
some of the top members of the
?Ustacha party that controlled'Cro-
atia during the war, such as its
armed forces chief, the head of its
propaganda office, the assistant
chief of security, military officers
and police chiefs.
The 500 pages of documents
were released by the Army Tn-
te ence and Security o rud
in Arington, Va., on the basis of a .
ree om of information Request
fled by a Boston lawyer, John J.
Loftus, and the Australian Broad-
,casting o. They were subsequent-
ly made available tote Glob
Loftus, who formerly worked
for the Justice Department in
tracking down World War II war
criminals in the United States.
has been working with the Aus-
traliari media on a series of broad.
casts regarding Nazi collaborator;
who emigrated to Australia after
the war.
Whether Pope Pius XII or mem
bers of his inner circle at the Vati
can directly or indirectly permit.
ted the smuggling network to op?
erate is not clearly shown by the
documents.
One report alleged that St. Jer-
ome's College, one of several insti-
tutions in Rome used for the train-
ing of non-Italian priests, was the
only Catholic college outside-of the
sovereign Vatican state under the
direct control of the Pope.
A summary of Pavelic's back-
ground, written in August 1947
,by three Army counter intelli-
gence agents, said Pavelic "is
known to be in contact with the
Vatican which sees in him the
militant Catholic who yesterday
fought the Orthodox Church and
today is fighting Communist athe-
ism."
Another of the documents
made public is a note handwritten
in Italian. The note alleges that
while at St. Jerome's. Pavelic had
,"frequent contact" with Msgr.
Giovanni Battista Montini, the as-
sistant secretary of state for the
Vatican who later became Pope
.Paul VI.
In that position, Msgr. Montini
oversaw the operations of the var-
ious colleges for non-Italians, in-
cluding St. Jerome's'
Another document stated that
Msgr. Montini was one of several
Vatican officials after the war
who supported the hopes of the
Ustachi and other Catholic groups
to overthrow Tito and reestablish
an independent state inside Yu-
goslavia where the church could
thrive.
Included in the documents re-
leased to Loftus was a cable from
the US Embassy in Rome. The ca-
ble stated the Vatican's secretar-
iat of state for Pope Pius XII had
attested to the good character of
c7.
several Croatian government offi-
cials then being held by the Allies.
The embassy said the secretar-
iat, then the direct responsibility
of Msgr. Montini, was urging that
the officials not be returned for tri-
al to Yugoslavia.
But Father Graham, the Jesuit
scholar, pointed out that it was a
historical fact that Msgr. Montini
was an ardent opponent of the
Mussolini government in Italy and
of all forms of fascism. "To accuse
him of being involved in the har-
boring of war criminals is prepos-
terous," Graham said.
How, then, could Pavelic and
his Croatian colleagues have
gained access to St. Jerome and
the falsified documents to escape
Allied-occupied Italy?
The documents allege the key
figure was Rev. Draganovic, the
Croatian Catholic priest who was
a close friend of Pavelic's and who
during World War II provided the .
link between the Vatican and the
Ustachi-controlled Croatian gov-
ernment.
As secretary of St. Jerome's
College. Rev. Draganovic headed
the refugee commission estab-
lished in Italy after the war for
Croatians fleeing Tito's commu-
nist Yugoslavia.
Interviewed by Army Intelli-
gence officers about his activities
with Croatian re uge ss Dragano-
vie denied that he was involved in
the illegal smuggling o .suspected
war crimina s. But a search of his
files, which were procured by the
Army in em r 1947. indicat-
e otherwise, according
to the re-
2221 s.
An Army report stated that
Draganovic's files "indicate clear-
ly his involvement in aiding and
abetting" Ustachi members to es-
cape to South America. The files
included the names of 20 "Ustachi
war criminals." including Pavelic,
who was then being housed in St.
Jerome's, as well as the names of
115 other Croatian nationals who
had expressed a desire to emigrate
to Argentina.
continued
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oJ.
It is very possible that this list
of individuals have already
shipped to ta Argentine and It.
ipust be assumed that in the ma-
tority they are ... Ustachi person-
alities with aliases," wrote a
Counter Intelligence special agent,
Robert C. Mudd, in September
1947.
The records also show the ex-
traordinary steps taken inside one
of the buildings at St. Jerome's
College to keep Pavelic hidden
from the Allies.
One document, based on infor-
mation that a Vatican source pro-
vided the Army. said that Pavelic,
disguised as a former Hungarian
general, was hiding out during the
summer of 1947 in a maze of
rooms on the second floor of the ,
building at 17C Via Giacomo Ve-
netian, which was described as
church property.
"if you knock once or twice at
door No. 3 an unimportant person
will come out." the report states.
"But if you knock three times at
door No. 3, door No. 2 will open. It
leads to the room where Pavelic
lives. together with the famous
Bulgarian terrorist Vancia Mikoi-
loff and two other persons.
"When Pavelic, leaves the
building, the report added, "he
uses a car with a Vatican number
plate."
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