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February 11, 2005/Adar 12 5765, Volume 57, No. 24
CIA to release more Nazi documents
CHANAN TIGAY
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - The CIA's decision to interpret a law requiring national agencies to divulge information about Nazis more broadly has raised hopes that a more accurate picture of American dealings with Nazi war criminals may be around the corner.
"This is a major development, one that could finally fully open the book on our government's close ties to Nazis," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), who sponsored the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, in the House of Representatives.
Members of the Nazi War Crimes Interagency Working Group, U.S. legislators and Jewish officials expressed outrage last week at the CIA's refusal in recent years to declassify what could amount to hundreds of thousands of pages of information on Nazi war criminals.
But the intelligence agency made an about-face late last week, sending a letter to the chairman of the working group essentially acceding to its demands for a more liberal reading of the Disclosure Act and a more extensive declassification.
"Our goal is to be as flexible and as forward-leaning as possible in the review and declassification of these documents," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano told JTA.
"The question we ask ourselves in dealing with issues of review and declassification is not what can we withhold, but what can we release."
The 1998 legislation requires the CIA and other national agencies to release classified information about Nazi war criminals to the working group, which publicizes the information in reports and at the National Archives.
The CIA already has disclosed some 1.2 million pages of documents under the law.
On Feb. 7, members of the working group met with the CIA in Langley, Va., a meeting that Elizabeth Holtzman, one of the working group's three civilian members, said was "a sign of cooperativeness and professionalism instead of obstructionism and bureaucratic nay saying" on the CIA's part.
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