CIA says Nazi general was intelligence
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Wednesday, 20 September 2000
20:28 (ET)
CIA says Nazi general was intelligence source
COLLEGE PARK, Md., Sept. 20 (UPI) -- The Central Intelligence Agency has
for the first time confirmed that a high-ranking Nazi general placed his
anti-Soviet spy ring at the disposal of the United States during the early
days of the Cold War.
The National Archives said in a release Wednesday that the CIA had filed
an affidavit in U.S. District Court "acknowledging an intelligence
relationship with German General Reinhard Gehlen that it has kept secret for
50 years."
"The CIA's announcement marks the first acknowledgement by that agency
that it had any relationship with Gehlen and opens the way for
declassification of records about the relationship," the National Archives
said.
Gehlen was Hitler's senior intelligence officer on the Eastern Front
during the war and transferred his expertise and contacts to the U.S. as
World War II reached its climax. While Gehlen's relationship with U.S.
intelligence during the 1940s and 1950s has been the topic of some five
books over the years, the eventual release of CIA documents pertaining to
the development of his European spy ring could shed new light on the origins
of the Cold War and early U.S. espionage efforts against Moscow.
Gehlen's network of agents in Europe - including many with Nazi
backgrounds who were bailed out of prisoner of war camps by U.S.
intelligence officers - was known as the Gehlen Organization and received
millions of dollars in funding from the U.S. until 1956.
The CIA's acknowledgement of its dealings with Gehlen came in a response
to an appeal of a Freedom of Information Act request by researcher Carl
Oglesby, the National Archives said. The agency pledged to release its
records on the general in accordance with the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure
Act.
The Act established the Nazi War Criminal Records Interagency Working
Group (IWG), which for more than two years has been declassifying documents
related to World War II war crimes and releasing them through the National
Archives.
"This shows that the law is working," said former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman,
a member of the IWG. "We now must work closely with the Agency to follow
through with the release of these records."
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Copyright 2000 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
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