Discussion: Report: CIA Protected 1,000 Ex-Nazis It Hired As Cold War Spies

TPM Article Topics
1

Discussion for article #229334

2

Okay…Time for the authoritarian CIA apologists to try to spin this information. Explain how hiring and protecting ex-Nazis was a good idea. Explain how making Social Security payments to ex-Nazis who are expelled from the States makes sense. Waiting…

1 Like
3

Thanks, Obama!

1 Like
4

Actually, there was an episode of Foyle’s War dedicated to this theme, involving a former SS officer hired and protected by MI5 to provide intelligence on the Soviets.

http://www.radiotimes.com/episode/v2mw4/foyles-war--series-8---3-sunflower

An interesting study in situational morality.

5

It’s a disgusting obscenity that this was done, but it is not earth-shattering news–it’s been known for decades. Soviets did the same thing. Governments are not, by definition, ethical–especially when they’re the winners.

1 Like
6

Here’s a musical comment from '67:

3 Likes
7

This is not news.

2 Likes
8

Yes, it’s the old story, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. I actually don’t object to the sheer practicality of it. My objection is to the hypocrisy of pretending that we are more moral because our motives are supposedly purer.

1 Like
9

Sometimes The Times decides that something is news because The Times is writing about it. “New details emerge” about something because of the “forthcoming new book.” And if you want a laugh google “Jack Shafer New York Times bogus trend stories.” They had something a few months ago or so about how there’s a trend of stylish women riding bicycles. Swear to God. Some reporter there, bedazzled with his or her own status, sees something twice in a week and decides it’s a trend.

3 Likes
10

This is basically Operation Paperclip, but with intelligence assets. Really not remotely news. As to why we paid a bunch of elderly accused former Nazis to go away…

  1. They’re elderly. Likely they’re going to die fairly soon anyway.
  2. They’re accused. As accused people, they have the right to adjudicate their deportation. This takes significant time and money.
    John Demjanjuk took 8 years to be deported to Israel to stand trial. After he was acquitted there, he came back to the United States and was eventually deported to Ukraine in 2006. Ultimately he was convicted in a German court, appealed and died before the appeal could be heard, so by German law, the verdict was overturned. So it took 30+ years and lord knows how much money, to ultimately no effect. It would have been easier and simpler if he just agreed to leave and take his social security payments with him.
1 Like
11

read the tag at the end of the article… eric lichtblau has a book coming out.
otoh, isn’t it way past time to defund this utterly incompetent, corrupt, anti-democratic agency. from the nazi-love to missing the collapse of the soviet union, czech-spring, the blowback from the assorted assassinations/governments overthrown… and so much more we don’t even have a clue about… they are hardly the awesome, freedumb-spreading agency we’ve been sold.

2 Likes
12

The book may be new, but the story is decades old. Operation Paper Clip was only one of several Alan Dulles projects designed to repurpose Old Nazis into New Cold Warriors.

1 Like
13

value… outweighed what one official called “moral lapses”

I think this inclusion of select Nazis into the American intelligence and scientific (and thereby corporate) worlds is what shifted traditional domestic values in the post war period and brought us to the dysfunctional point we inhabit today.

“Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.” Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God–I say this to your shame.”
1 Corinthians 15:33 and 34

14

This is why war is hell. You need the help/information of the other side to win. And an stomach churning as it is, the higher-up the informant and the more likely they were to be part of horrific war crimes, the more they know and the MORE you need them.

It’s no different than offering immunity to one criminal to have them roll over on the rest of the gang. No one wants them to walk away clean, but you need them more than they need you so you give them what they want.

The information these 10000 informants gave us probably ended the war years sooner and saved millions of Allied lives. And the fact that they are Nazis and killed babies in concentration camps doesn’t change that.

War is hell because there is no absolute moral stand you can make and still win. Even for the perpetrators of the Holocaust, we needed some of them. So we made a deal with the devil, actually 1000 devils, mostly low to medium level, some of them high, but we did it and it saved Allied lives.It is unfortunately the horrific reality of all out world war.

The reason we still pay the Social Security to them is because we have to honor those deals so that the next generation of informants believe our offers during the next war. What, you don’t think we gave a Taliban guard money and protect after he helps us kill Bin Laden… You don’t think a few of those people have US citizenship and are receiving money from the government right now, after they helped save 30 soldiers?

Let’s not forget the loudest refrain shouted over and over again during Iraq : “Support the Troops”. Well, now you are starting to realize the brutal side of what that statement actually means.

15

Yeah, I saw that and nodded my head—it just gave somebody at the paper an excuse to write an easy story. “New details” are likely to “emerge” any time somebody writes a history book, if the author has done any research at all. As for the CIA, I think for a long time it’s been a rogue organization answerable to nobody and willing to retaliate against presidents or anyone else who pushes it too hard.

1 Like
16

Yup, if we just didn’t let those Nazis in, women would still be at home all day making us sammiches, gays would still be in institutions, those blacks would know their place (if you know what I mean, boy…), and none of this funny talk of college rape culture would exist because those whores would know not to wear tight clothing if they didn’t want someone to notice, right. Not to mention all this garbage of back alley abortions being bad, and let’s not forget that HIV wouldn’t exist.

Yup, I’m always glad when someone with a biblical quote really reminds us what ‘traditional values’ really are, and whose fault it was.

17

The Commies were going to eat your children, take your woman, and steal your Chevy. It’s pretty simple.

1 Like
18

Rob, Thanks for a great example of the smug, non factual, emotionalism that error-prone imaginary Alphas like you, the CIA, big media, the Christian right or even school yard bullies always use to suppress and control.
And, since the Bible seems to sting you like Holy Water or garlic, here’s another quote:

“And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”
Revelation 12:9

19

Monumental baloney. These were ex-Nazis whose actual war crimes were ignored after WW2 for dubious results. This had nothing to do with ending the war sooner. Unless you can provide some factual evidence that there was actual actionable information derived from them during the Cold War that could not have been obtained any other way, your statement of their value is simply an apology for another CIA program which we have to take on trust as useful.

Funny how you are willing to expect us honor deals made with Nazis, but are not outraged when the deals that we make with our own veterans are ignored by the VA. We have a funny way of showing how honorable we are. The idea that “the next generation of informants” base their actions on whether we pay Social Security to Nazis after expelling them is laughable. I wondered how long it would take for an authoritarian apologist to appear. Thanks for playing.

2 Likes
20

More American Exceptionalism…