Documenting the cold war
_ link with Nazi criminals

ne BELARUS SECRET. By John Loftus. New
ae Alfred Knopf, 1982. Cloth, $18.25. Available at
we People’s Co-op Bookstore.
The recent revelation that the U.S. State Depart-
Ment protected the Nazi’s ‘‘Butcher of Lyons,”
. lus Barbie, from extradition to the French
Uuthorities after World War II probably came as lit-
;© Surprise to those who have spent most of their
Ae tracking down Nazi war criminals. But to many
. as and Canadians, the evidence showing
Close link between U.S. agencies and former Nazis
~ Indeed that Barbie had worked with U.S. secret
Services who gave him various identities — has
an a curtain of secrecy that has long shrouded
Us aspect of U.S. foreign policy.
Bohn Loftus has parted that curtain still further
he his book, The Belarus Secret (pronounced
l-a-roos’”) which traces the movements of

| Members of the infamous Belarus Brigade, a SS

ae made up of Byelorussians who collaborated
mith the Nazis. In 161 scrupulously researched
ae he reveals that not one, but several hundred

ch Nazis — some of whom carried out crimes even
More heinous than those of their German mentors
~ Were protected from prosecution and extradition

“@Nd their fascist records ‘‘sanitized’? by U.S.

authorities,
: But it was no mere cover-up. These men were
Muggled into the U.S. by agencies working directly

| @Nd indirectly for the U.S. departments of state and

atfence for the purpose of creating a fanatically
t~-Communist guerrilla force that could be sent in-

| ' operations against the Soviet Union.

F Much of the story involves the creation of the Of-
Icé of Policy Coordination, set up by the U.S.

| 80vernment in 1948 and headed by Frank Wisner, a

Man to whom the essence of all foreign policy was

anti-Communist covert action. But if the OPC had

an innocuous title, its origins were anything but;
Nominally a wing of the CIA, it carried out the policy
Of the state and defence departments.

As Loftus notes, ‘the OPC had access to

) Unlimited funds and the whole world was its area of

Operations. National Security Council directive

10/2, the OPC charter, gave it the widest possible

latitude, which would include the use of clandestine
3 itary organizations, to overthrow governments

garded as unfriendly to the U.S.”
The raw material for the military organizations
Isner sought to create included the former
Members of the Belarus Brigade. Among those
TOught to the U.S. was Emanuel Jasiuk, described
th the police officer in charge of the execution of

© Kletsk Jewish ghetto. :

In one day,”’ says Loftus, ‘‘he murdered the en-

Re Jewish population of the county, conservatively
Stimated at 5,000 people.”’
ee :

Another man was Stanislaw Stankiewich, known
as the “Butcher of Borissow” for his murder of
7,000 men, women and children carried out after he
had been put in charge of the town by the Nazis.

Presumably beyond the scope of Loftus’ book
was a detailed account of the guerrilla operations
of Wisner’s fascist army although he does note that
when they were parachuted into the Soviet Union,
they were swiftly captured, in part because of the ut-
ter lack of support and also because of Soviet
counter-intelligence work by such people as Kim
Philby.

But such was the U.S. obsession with its anti-
Soviet crusade that it responded to defeat with more
appropriations of money and the creation of new
agencies. By 1952, OPC ‘‘was consuming more than
half the CIA’s annual budget.” The same year OPC
and another agency merged to become the Direc-
torate of Plans with renewed emphasis on
clandestine war against the Soviet union. And in
1955, the National Security Council issued a direc-

tive which ‘‘permitted any covert activities ae in
areas dominated or threatened by international
communism.”

Loftus’ credentials in researching his book are
significant. As working under the U.S. justice
department’s office of special investigations, he held
a security clearance ‘‘three levels above top secret”
giving him access to documents well hidden even
from Congressional view.

Without that clearance, The Belarus Secret would
probably have been impossible. For as Loftus notes,
the cover-up continues. When Congress and the
justice department began to investigate, files sud-
denly disappeared or were unavailable. In-
criminating data was removed and even sophisticat-
ed Pentagon computers inoredibly forgot their pro-

grams.

Indeed, the ghost of Frank Wisner, who shot
himself in 1965, still haunts U.S. foreign policy. Lof-
tus notes in his final paragraphs: ‘“Without the as-
sent or knowledge of the present members of Con-
gress, intelligence agencies are believed to be smuggl-
ing a modern band of ‘“‘war criminals” into the
United States. The leader of this group, who was in-
stalled in power in a Middle Eastern country by the
OPC three decades ago and who is alleged to have
persecuted 200,000 innocent civilians, was recently
approved for sanctuary in the U.S. Although the
leader was reported executed before he could escape
to America, it now appears that his followers are

entering this country in significant numbers. Before -

the matter is currently classified, I cannot discuss it
further.

“Still, Congress and the American people must
know this much: the unlocking of the Belarus secret
is not the end of the conspiracy. It is only the beginn-
ing.”’

— Sean Griffin

(ok May 1, the in-
™ ternational hol-
day of the working
Class, | salute the
Courageous men
and women from
Whose struggle for
the eight-hour day

has sprung the
Qreat tradition of
May Day and all the
gains won by work-
Ing people it sym-
bolizes.

My best wishes
to the Pacific
Tribune, the paper
that truly fights for
labor.

JOHN O.
KOVACEVICH

- African Workers
Under Apartheid
Greet International
Labor Movement
on May Day

Southern Africa

Action Coalition
2524 Cypress Street
Vancouver, B.C. V6J 3N2
Phone 734-1712

gooeoococoooooosoooolonlcel[l[l[[l[[[9008 eoece

GREETINGS on MAY DAY

Strengthen the fight
| for jobs and peace

Vancouver Island Regional Committee
COMMUNIST PARTY of CANADA

OOCOOROHOOSOOSSLOOSHOOSOOOOSEOHOOOOOGHOOOHOSSSS

Pace |

Take B.C.

out of the crisis

“Wp
HOUSIS

ae . AFFORDABLE
3 HOUSING

=e ge

Jobs now! People before. profits!

This May there is no greater task then to
ensure the defeat of the Socreds.

WARM MAY DAY GREETINGS
from the Communist Party,
B.C. Provincial Committee

FEDERATION OF
RUSSIAN CANADIANS

extends greetings this May Day

— the day of workers’ unity —

to members, friends, supporters

YOU ARE INVITED

to the Russian Bazaar to be held at
600 Campbell Avenue at 12 noon,
Saturday, April 30. Russian food,
souvenirs, rummage sale, bingo. Rus-
sian dinner will be served from 5 p.m.

MAY DAY GREETINGS

TT

“and an invitation from the

CANADA-USSR
ASSOCIATION

to the premiere of three films

May 7: Byelorussian Station
May 14: White Sun Desert

May 21: Belated Flowers

English sub-titles

Showing time for each film 4 p.m.

RIDGE THEATRE

3131 Arbutus Street

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 29, 1983—Page 17