Both houses of the New York State Legislature have adopted a resolution calling on the United States Congress to investigate “the cover-up of utilization of Nazi war criminals” by U.S. government agencies after World War II and U.S. collaboration in the escape of those Nazis from justice in Europe.
The resolution also urged the government of Chile to immediately expel Walter Rauff, the Nazi war criminal responsible for the mobile gas chambers in which at least a quarter million Jews died, who has lived in Chile since 1958.
The bi-partisan resolution was sponsored in the Senate by Sens. Manfred Ohrenstein and Carol Berman; and in the State Assembly by Alan Hevesi; Dov Hikind; Sheldon Silver; Howard Lasher; and Nettie Mayersohn.
The resolution makes specific reference to “a 1947 report known as the La Vista Report, recently made public in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and other media by Charles R.Allen Jr., an expert on Nazi war criminals, (which) reveals that certain international organizations cooperated with United States intelligence agencies in aiding the escape of Nazi war criminals such as (Klaus) Barbie and Rauff.”
The La Vista report was written by Vincent La Vista, an international lawyer who in 1947 was military attache to the American Embassy in Rome.
Long classified, its existence was first disclosed by Allen in a series of articles published in the JTA Daily News Bulletin in February, 1983.
The New York lawmakers took note in their resolution that U.S. government intelligence agencies “have admitted that they knowingly brought some of these Nazi war criminals into the country to utilize as ‘agents’ and ‘consutants.'”
OSI ASKED TO BROADEN ITS INVESTIGATION
In that connection, the resolution asks that the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) of the U.S. Justice Department broaden its investigation of Nazi war criminals residing in the U.S. to investigate as well the aid rendered by U.S. agencies to facilitate the escape of the war criminals to the U.S. and South America.
It noted that the OSI investigation so far has “proved” that U.S. intelligence agencies not only utilized Barbie but aided him to escape from Europe to Bolivia where he lived until ousted from that country early last year and turned over to French authorities. Barbie, the former gestapo chief in Lyon, is prsently awaiting trial in France for crimes against humanity.
Rauff is the other Nazi war criminal mentioned by name in the resolution. It urges the U.S. government “to use all resources within its power, all avenues of political and diplomatic persuasion, to petition the government of Chile to immediately expel Nazi war criminal Walter Rauff to stand trial in Israel or West Germany.”
The State Legislature resolved that copies of the resolution be transmitted to the President, the Speaker of the House, to each member of the New York State delegation to Congress, to each member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, and to the Permanent Mission of Chile to the United Nations.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
