Despite Law, CIA Keeps Some Nazi Ties Secret

From a New York Times article Sunday:

The Central Intelligence Agency is refusing to provide hundreds of thousands of pages of documents sought by a government working group under a 1998 law that requires full disclosure of classified records related to Nazi war criminals, say Congressional officials from both parties. […]

These officials say the agency has sometimes agreed to provide information about former Nazis, but not about the extent of the agency's dealings with them after World War II. In other cases, it has refused to provide information about individuals and their conduct during the war unless the working group can first provide evidence that they were complicit in war crimes.

Whole thing here. Link via Secrecy News, which adds:

The dispute is an important test for CIA secret-keepers. If they can withhold highly-charged records of Nazi war crimes in defiance of a statutory obligation to disclose, then there is nothing that can ever force them to release more mundane documents. They will be a law unto themselves.

Comments

[Gary Gunnels]

What's the CIA's rationale (aside from their crimped intepretation of the law) for bucking their release? Afraid of embarressment?

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

What's the CIA's rationale (aside from their crimped intepretation of the law) for bucking their release? Afraid of embarressment?

There are some things that are just too dangerous for the public to know.

[norbizness]

I think the stated rationale by the CIA was: "Separation of powers, schmeperation of powers"

If only people knew that The Boys From Brazil was a documentary, filmed in real time!

[Matthew]

"A law unto themselves" --Ummm . . . I believe that is already the case. The very nature of a secret spy agency is that it is, well, secret and essentially not accountable to the public or public officials. I am not sure you can get around that and still have it be effective as a spy agency.

As for the Nazi stuff, I thought it was common knowledge that they employed many high ranking Nazis to help set up their spy networks in E. Europe and the Soviet Union after WWII. I can't imagine any further revelations from this evidence that is still being withheld.

[gaius marius]

I can't imagine any further revelations from this evidence that is still being withheld.

which is what makes it juicy, mr matthew. what are they hiding?

but i must agree -- the folks at cia, not to mention DoD -- really the administration in its entirety -- are already a law unto themselves. if bush wants to go to iran, who believes congress could stop him? hell, he's already there! i think they're unwilling to try to really oppose the presidency on something it really wants, frankly, because they understand that the confrontation could be the end of even feigned constitutionality.

[zeroentitlement]

Get the CIA, worrying about image problems. ROFL. Like what are we going to do, boycott them and use Brand X Espionage instead?

[joe]

Gaius, you out to do a riff sometime comparing 9/11 and the War on Terror to Hannibal's invasion of Italy and the end of the Republic.

[thoreau]

i think they're unwilling to try to really oppose the presidency on something it really wants, frankly, because they understand that the confrontation could be the end of even feigned constitutionality.

On this I think you make a very good point.

Although an alternative explanation is that they pass "authorizations for use of force" rather than "declarations of war" because the former passes responsibility to somebody else (technically), while the later is an affirmative decision on a definite course of action. Running the world is tricky stuff, so if something goes wrong it's better to be able to say "Well, we gave the President the option of invading < insert country here > if necessary. The fact that things worked out so poorly when he did it proves that he has bad judgement."

(Don't ask the esteemed Senator or Representative why he gave a blank check to somebody with such bad judgement.)

Of course, if things go well, then the members of Congress can take full credit.

[Doc]

$10 says Prescott Bush's name is on the documents.

[clowny]

$20 says Ayn Rand's is.

[Mark Draughn]

The problem is that every once in a while the espionage folks really do have a few secrets worth keeping.

Most famously, the Allies cracked the German Enigma encryption system during World War II, but didn't reveal this until the 1970s. Many other nations continued to use Enigma after the war, often using captured German machines provided by the Allies, presumably allowing the U.S. and U.K. to continue to read their intercepts. This was a secret best kept as long as possible.

It is fascinating to consider that perhaps the Nazi war criminals working as spies for the CIA set up networks that remain active to this day, and which could be compromised if their founder was revealed as a spy. Or perhaps their families would be punished, making it harder to recruit spies in the future.

The problem is that we can't tell without releasing the information, so we have to trust someone with the secret-keeping decision.

[Gary Gunnels]

Mark Draughn,

Which in this instance would be a "government working group." Let's note from the blurb that it doesn't appear that these documents are due for any sort of "automatic" public dissemination.

[Kenneth Jordi]

Perhaps it's a matter of principle?

Just an idea, of course, but couldn't the exposure of former Nazis and the extent of the agency's dealings with them after WWII have negative consequences for the agency's current activities? It might have something of a chilling effect on the cooperativeness of, for instance, a member of the Iranian secret police when he knows that at some time in the future his dealings with the CIA will be uncovered at the will of a bunch of bumptious bureaucrats? Or some FOIA-waving hacks?

And, aside from that, isn't it remarkable that neither the Brits nor the French nor the Russians show any inclination to reveal the previous activities of their intelligence-gathering services? If there is any reason for Americans to be more Catholic than the Pope I'm not aware of it.

[Gary Gunnels]

Kenneth Jordi,

In the 1990s there were revelations about what the French security services did in Algeria; it was a major scandal. You might see something similar in this case I suppose.