UPI BIDDER FACES QUESTIONS ABOUT INTELLIGENCE SERVICE, SOUTH AFRICAN TIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000201120001-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 30, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT, Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/23: CIA-RDP90-00806R000201120001-4
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
31 November 1985
UPI BIDDER FACES QUESTIONS ABOUT INTELLIGENCE SERVICE, SOUTH AFRICAN TIES
BY GREGORY GORDON
WASHINGTON
If his investor group succeeds in buying United Press International, Indiana
industrialist Beurt SerVaas may have to explain to the news industry his World
War II intelligence service or allegations he had ties to South Africa.
SerVaas, a conservative Republican who with his wife Cory-Jane revived the
Saturday Evening Post, also has been criticized by some former employees for
paying low wages and for keeping a tight rein on editorial content.
His company, the Curtis Publishing Co., mainly consisting of manufacturing
concerns, has been a defendant in numerous suits aimed at collecting unpaid
bills, according to Securities and Exchange Commission records.
SerVaas, who does not disguise his anger at the criticisms, says he left the
CIA nearly 40 years ago. He dismisses as lacking ''any evidence, any proof,
any corroboration'' published reports that he invested in a South African
newspaper operating as a government front, but acknowledges he considered it.
SerVaas boasts that he has withstood years of public scrutiny as president of
the Indianapolis city-county council and chairman of the state's commission for
higher education.
"I have had to live a crystal-clear life for all my life,'' he said in a
series of interviews. "People have always been curious about every facet of my
life. Everything I have is a public record. They've (newspaper reporters)
investigated me within an inch of my life.''
However, he declined to answer in detail some questions about his background.
SerVaas is president of UPI Acquisition Group, Inc., which recently offered
$21 million cash to buy the 78-year-old wire service from Chapter 11 bankruptcy
protection. He has not identified his partner or partners and says he will only
if the bid, which also includes a pledge of $20 million in.working capital over
five years, is selected.
Sources familiar with UPI's sale process said SerVaas's group is a leading
contender to buy the company.
SerVaas, 66, said he has been haunted by unfair allegations and "innuendos"
of CIA ties. During World War II he was a naval officer with the American
Intelligence Command, later renamed the Office of Strategic Services and,
ultimately, the CIA.
He said that when it became the CIA he was in China, assisting Gen. George
Marshall in negotiating an agreement with the communists and nationalists.
''When I came back (to the United States), there was little sentiment and no
money for intelligence activities,'' SerVaas said. ''I left the agency, and never
went back."
Continued
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/23: CIA-RDP90-00806R000201120001-4