The disclosure that an alleged Nazi war criminal sold scripts to Radio Liberty triggered a demand here today that Congress investigate the federally-funded radio station that broadcasts to the Soviet Union. The revelation was made after a deportation notice was served on Vilis Hazners, 71, a prominent Latvian emigre living in upstate New York who is accused of complicity in the killings of several hundred Jews in and around Riga, Latvia during World War II.
Rep. Edward Koch (D.NY), who called for the probe, said that while he supported the objectives of Radio Liberty and its affiliate, Radio Free Europe, “we don’t have to fund them if they are hiring Nazis, regardless of whether or not, in this case, he is guilty of war crimes.”
Hazners served as a major in the Nazi-sponsored Latvian SS Legion. He entered the U.S. from Germany in 1956 in violation of the anti-war criminal proviso of the 1953 Refugee Relief Act, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has charged. The INS opened deportation proceedings against him in Albany this week. A hearing is scheduled to begin June 20.
John S. Hayes, chairman of Radio Liberty-Radio Free Europe (RL-RFE), admitted it had not fully checked Hazners’ background when it bought his scripts because “he does not broadcast, he is not a staff member, he is a free lancer.” RFE-RL was established last year as a government-sponsored non-profit corporation to run the two anti-Communist radio stations which were started by the CIA in the 1950s. RFE broadcasts to the entire East European bloc and Radio Liberty only to the Soviet Union of which Latvia is now a part. The stations will receive more than $52 million from the government in the current fiscal year.
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.
