Barbie — the Vatican connection

Press, 2 September 1983, Page 13

Barbie — the Vatican connection

In the light of the American apology recently offered to France, ANDREW WILSON of the “Observer” traces the curious history of the “rat line” and discovers disturbing links between the Papacy and the U.S. Intelligence services.

Of the 70,000 Nazi war criminals who came on to Allied books in 1945, some 50,000 escaped any retribution. The majority found a haven — which in most cases could only have been possible with the help or connivance of Western officials — in Latin America.

The details of one case, that of Klaus Barbie, the “butcher of Lyons,” were dramatically revealed when the United States felt obliged to apologise recently to France for having sheltered Barbie, an ogre who (according to Resistance survivors) interrogated victims with the help of a blowtorch, and for having blocked a French extradition request in 1950. The report on the case that prompted the apology was drawn up by Allan Ryan, an official of the United States Justice Department. It is perhaps the most revealing official document about the dark side of the Western Intelligence world ever published. Even so, it lifts only a corner of the wraps on a gigantic tale of collusion involving the United States Intelligence community, a freemasonry of former S.S. and Gestapo officers, and — to the chagrin of Catholics who know some of the facts — the Vatican.

Barbie’s case was typical of thousands in post-war Germany — a rotten cheese, ripe for penetration by Intelligence operatives of all nationalities, often working, on the Western side, with little or no control by their governments. In the scramble to acquire sources of information against the Russians (and, almost as often, against rival Allied Intelligence organisations) those responsible dismissed any concern with the evil past of those whom they recruited.

One such was Barbie, who was introduced to the United States Counter-Intelligence Corps by a former Abwehr (German military Intelligence) officer called Kurt Merk. In 1946 Barbie was already on the Allies’ “wanted” list of war criminals, though the full enormity of his crimes was not then known to the United States administration. On Merk’s recommendation he was recruited into Regional IV of C.I.C. by the Region’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Dale Garvey, and a subordinate agent called Taylor. Ostensibly he was to be used to “suss out” Soviet agents and other ex-Nazis, but his real function was to recruit and organise sub-agents for penetrating French Intelligence networks which the C.I.C. suspected, in turn, of being penetrated by the Russians. In return, Barbie would be protected from arrest by the French. At one time there were some 50 paid informants in the Merk-Barbie network, all “idealists” of the same ilk. When the recruitment of Barbie, a “wanted” war criminal, became known to C.I.C. headquarters in Germany, there were inquiries and cautions, but — following a plea by Taylor that such a valuable agent must be protected — no action. Despite Taylor’s accolades, much of the intelligence gathered by the Merk-Barbie network was of very low quality. Nevertheless, C.I.C. was fearful that if Barbie defected — not to the Russians, but to the British or French — he could reveal important connections. Over the years he worked for Region IV, from 1947-

50, his increasing inside knowledge of its operations became, in the eyes of C.1.C., an increasing problem. He could not be terminated, it decided, because he would go to the British. Nor could he be arrested, because the French would then demand to interrogate.him. The Ryan report emphasises the fact that the French themselves were slow to demand Barbie’s extradition. (They did so only after Barbie’s existence in the United States Zone of Germany had been confirmed during the trial of a wartime collaborator, Rene Hardy.) But, as the report spells out, this was because C.I.C. deliberately concealed, from both the French and the United States civil authorities, all information about Barbie’s whereabouts. Faced with rising anger in France, the State Department issued statements disclaiming all knowledge of Barbie, which, when the truth finally became known, proved extremely embarrassing. It was at this point that the C.LC. finally admitted to the United States High Commission in Germany that Barbie “had” been in its employ, but at the same time it concealed that he remained so. As a result, the Barbie story took an even more reprehensible turn. Worried by the political furore, the C.LC. now looked for a means of divesting itself of Barbie without losing the confidence of other exNazis in its service. The key-word in what followed was the “rat line.” For several years a C.I.C. unit in

neighbouring Austria, the 430th Detachment, had been involved in a means of “evacuating” defectors or informants who had come into Austria from Soviet-occupied territory. This underground railroad, or “rat line,” ran from Austria to Italy, where it relied on the help of a Croatian priest, Father Krujoslav Dragonovic, who was attached to a Croatian seminary in Rome. From Rome, Dragonovic operated a service for Croatian nationalists fleeing from the Yugoslav authorities, obtaining passports from the Red Cross and visas from various South American countries. Lest this strike the reader as purely “humanitarian,” it should be recalled that Croatian nationalists in their Nazi-backed wartime “Independent Republic” killed not only several hundred thousand Serbs but also some 30,000 Jews, often most brutally. When 430th C.I.C. learned of Dragonovic’s operation, it saw a convenient pipeline out of Austria and Europe for its own ex-Nazi informants. An arrangement was reached whereby C.I.C. agents would escort these people to Italy and for a fee ($lOOO per person, or $l4OO for so-called “VIP treatment”), Dragonovic would ship them to safety. According to the contemporary testimony of a 430th Detachment agent, Paul Lyon, further help was provided by a United States citizen “who was chief of the eligibility office of the 1.R.0. (the International Refugee Organisation) in Rome” in securing additional documentation.

But, says the Ryan report, there was apparently more to the rat line than a convenient means of disposal for C.1.C.-sponsored defectors. “The C.LC. may have been involved in — at least it contemplated the possibility of — assisting Dragonovic with the escape of Croatian war criminals.”

It quotes a 1948 memo by Lyon to the effect that “through the Vatican connection of Father Dragonovic ... a tentative agreement was reached to assist in (the rat line’s) operation.” According to the memo, C.LC. agents were to “assist persons of interest to Father Dragonovic to leave Germany, and, in return, Father Dragonovic will assist these agents in obtaining the necessary visas to Argentina . . . for persons of interest to the Command,” i.e., the United States military occupation authority in Germany. In December 1950, 66th C.LC., the detachment “running” Barbie, learned about 430th’s rat line and a Lieutenant John Hobbins set up a meeting in Salzburg. As a result 430th C.LC. undertook that if C.LC. headquarters would provide the funds, and the individual in question would agree to emigrate to any available Latin American country, it would assume responsibility for transferring whomsoever the 66th wished to Italy and arranging his emigration. Following embarkation, 430th was to notify the State Department of the emigrant’s real and assumed names, and State would in turn notify the United States embassies or consulates abroad that the immigrant was “formerly of interest to American intelligence.” In December 1950, while arrangements with the 66th were being worked out, the problem of Barbie was jointly considered by C.LC. headquarters and Region XII (the new designation of Region IV). That C.I.C. knew the truth about Barbie is shown by internal C.LC. memos. Nevertheless, in January 1951, C.I.C. asked E.U.C.O.M. (the United States military occupation authority in Europe) for permission to place Barbie in the rat line. Documents are mysteriously missing from the files made available to Ryan, but on February 12, the name “Klaus Altmann” — Barbie’s notorious pseudonym — appears in correspondence, indicating that permission was granted. E.U.C.O.M. passed word to the United States occupation authority in Austria, which in turn gave the green light to the 430th. Temporary travel documents were provided by C.LC. in Munich, and on March 9, two C.LC. agents escorted Barbie, his wife and two children from Augsburg (where he was hiding) to Salzburg. Two days later they continued to Genoa, where Dragonovic took them over, providing them with a Bolivian immigrant visa and a travel permit (substitute passport) from the International Committee of the Red Cross. On March 23, Barbie and his family left Genoa abroad the Italian ship, Corrientes. Eleven days later 66th C.I.C. reported the case closed by Intelligence Division, E.U.C.0.M., and complimented all concerned on the “extremely efficient manner” in which "the final disposal of an extremely sensitive individual has been handled.” Were this all, we would be left with a stark, if still restricted, insight into the methods of the

United States post-war Intelligence operation — an operation, almost breathtaking in its professional cynicism and political naivety. But

it is not all. There is still the Vatican connection.

Although the Ryan report is discreet to the point of apparent self-censorship on this, Barbie can be only one of many hundreds of his kind who passed down the Dragonovic and other “rat lines.” The official documents, indeed, speak of rat lines in the plural at some points. Nor is it conceivable that Dragonovic’s operation was unknown to senior Vatican officials through the active Vatican Intelligence organisation, known as “Pro Deo,” set up shortly before the war by a Father Felix Morlion, a papal functionary and soon close associate of “Wild” Bill Donovan, head of the United States wartime Intelligence organisation O.S.S. (Office of Strategic Services). In 1940, when the Germans overran Western Europe, Donovan helped Morlion move his base of operations, then in Lisbon, to New York, and henceforth supplied it with funds. His motive was simple — the Vatican connections, both in occupied Europe and, presently, the Far East, could provide important strategic intelligence. When, in 1944, Rome was liberated, Morlion moved his base there. Donovan followed as a visitor and received from Pope Pius XII one of the highest papal honours, the Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Sylvester. Prompted by what they see as the present Pope’s abandonment (outside Poland) of liberation theology, and the reversal of the policies of John XXIII, American critics are now investigating United States-Vatican relations during and after the war for evidence of a United States Intelligence “penetration” of the Vatican hierarchy.

Last month the old-established (and quaintly named) radical monthly “Mother Jones” published a lengthy dossier, said to be based on 12 months research of O.S.S. and C.I.A. connections with the Holy See.

Among other recipients of high papal honours the magazine cites the former German (and ex-Nazi) Intelligence chief, Reinhard Gehlen, and James Jesus Angleton, a high C.I.A. operative and wartime head of the O.S.S. station in Rome. (Angleton told “Mother Jones” that the award was for “counter-intelligence services.”) The magazine further accuses a prestigious Vatican order, the Knights of Malta (whose current members include prominent American political and Intelligence personalities) of having furnished help to ex-Nazis through its postwar charitable activities. Whatever response the Vatican may make to these allegations, the role of the C.LC. and Father Dragonovic in organising Barbie’s escape is unlikely to be forgiven by the relatives of his victims — among them an Englishwoman, Mrs Evelyn Le Chene. Last month she recalled to the “Observer” how Barbie had given his henchmen detailed instructions for the torture of her husband Pierre, an S.O.E. radio-operator. “First they broke his feet,” she said, “toe by toe in a vice. Then they pulled his finger-nails out. Then they broke his nose and jaw. Then they sent him to Mauthausen.”