Cold (War) Morality

Documents show post-war CIA covered up Nazi war crimes

By Shmuel Rosner, Haaretz Correspondent

The United States was aware that West Germany held information on the whereabouts of Adolf Eichmann in the 1950s, but chose to keep the matter secret, fearing that the arrest of the Nazi fugitive might lead to embarrassing revelations about links between senior German officials and other Nazis.

This information, as well as the pressure that West Germany applied on the Central Intelligence Agency in order to prevent the leak of this sensitive information, is detailed in hundreds of newly declassified documents released by the U.S. government Tuesday.

Timothy Naftali, a historian from Virginia University and author of a paper summarizing the material in the released documents, wrote that they contribute significant details to information previously known.

The new material, he said, provides information suggesting that West German intelligence could have arrested fugitive war criminal Adolf Eichmann during the 1950s, but was wary of the effect that such an action could have on then minister Dr. Hans Globke, director of the Federal Chancellery.

According to the declassified documents, a German intelligence officer reported to the CIA in March 1958 that Germany had known since 1952 that Eichmann lived in Argentina under the pseudonym "Clemens." The information was not entirely accurate, as the name Eichmann used at the time was "Clement."

However, the CIA chose not to make use of the information.

Israeli intelligence officers who have published their memoirs have written that Israel knew that Eichmann lived in Argentina by 1957, but lacked any information regarding his pseudonym.