With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Report: Ex-Nazi spies of dubious benefit for U.S.

The U.S. government apparently derived no clear benefit by recruiting ex-Nazis as Cold War spies, but potentially huge gaps remain in the public record of U.S. ties to World War Two war criminals, according to a report issued on Friday.

The report to Congress, by an interagency group that examined the United States' use of German and Japanese war criminals during and after the war, also said the CIA had no set policy for hiring former war criminals to spy on postwar foes including the Soviet Union.

The group, created by the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act of 1998 and Japanese Imperial Government Disclosure Act of 2000, has released more than 8.5 million pages of previously classified government documents dating back to 1933.
Read entire article at Reuters