New Records Now Available as a Result of IWG Extension - CIA Agrees to Disclose Operational Materials
Press Release · Tuesday, June 6, 2006

Press Release
June 6, 2006

New Records Now Available as a Result of IWG Extension
CIA Agrees to Disclose Operational Materials

Washington, DC…The Central Intelligence Agency has withdrawn its prior objections and has declassified 174 additional CIA Name and Subject files relating to Nazi and Japanese Imperial Government war crimes. The Interagency Working Group (IWG), tasked by Congress with opening U.S. government records related to Nazi and Japanese Imperial Government war crimes, announced that roughly 27,000 pages have been declassified and are available for research at the National Archives facility in College Park, Maryland. The release adds to the 60,000 pages of CIA records previously opened by the IWG and is a direct result of the March 2005 extension of the IWG by Congress. It reflects the Central Intelligence Agency’s broader, more inclusive disclosure of relevant records and a willingness to disclose relevant records under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act and the Japanese Imperial Government Disclosure Act.

Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein said, "More than eight million pages of records have been declassified as a result of the IWG. I commend the hard work of the federal agencies, the IWG, and National Archives staff. I especially want to thank Senator Mike DeWine, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, and Senator Dianne Feinstein for their continued support. The documents that are being released will make a lasting contribution to our knowledge of the war crimes committed in Europe and the Far East and to our understanding of the shift in intelligence goals taking place after WWII during the Cold War."

The name and subject files of this release include everyday reports, correspondence, memorandums, and translations created and collected by the CIA. They include the following highlights:

• New records of the CIA provide a clearer outline of Tscherim Soobzokov’s involvement with the CIA as an agent in Jordan, and they show how the Agency in the mid-1970s misled INS about its suspicions concerning possible Soobzokov involvement in war crimes.
• CIA reports related to Heinz Felfe, a former SS intelligence officer who served in the Gehlen Organization, indicate to a greater extent than ever before the level at which former SS officials were hired and exploited on both sides of the Cold War Divide.
• The CIA organized stay-behind networks of German agents in the American zone of Germany, one of which involved at least 2 former members of the SS. Also the files show that West German intelligence had the information needed to capture fugitive war criminal Adolf Eichmann in the 1950s but feared the consequences of what he might say about State Secretary Dr. Hans Globke, a highly-placed former Nazi in the Adenauer government.
• The CIA files provide new information about Dr. Gustav Hilger, a figure with a high-level wartime German past who nonetheless was considered a valuable contribution by some in American intelligence about the postwar Soviet Union.
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Additional descriptions of the files, including a name and subject listing, can be accessed through the IWG webpage at: http://www.archives.gov/iwg/ and by clicking on the CIA link.

Since 1999, the IWG has overseen the identification, declassification, and release of roughly 8 million pages of U.S. Government records related to war criminals and crimes committed by the Nazi and Japanese Imperial Governments during World War II. The IWG is composed of representatives from eight federal agencies and three public members. In April 2004 the group published U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis, a collection of studies based on newly released documentation. Two additional volumes, Researching Japanese War Crimes: Introductory Essays and an accompanying electronic Guide to Japanese War Crimes Records are forthcoming. The IWG web site is: http://www.archives.gov/iwg/.

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For more information, contact Giuliana Bullard at 703-532-1477 or duetto@verizon.net

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