Argentina plans to declassify government documents concerning Nazi fugitives who found sanctuary in the Latin American nation following Germany’s defeat in World War II.
The commitment to transparency was announced on Monday by President Javier Milei’s chief of staff, Guillermo Francos, during an interview with the TV channel DNews. He said the president made the decision after a meeting last month with US Senator Steve Daines, who strongly advocated for the public release of the files.
When Wolff hammered out the secret surrender terms with Dulles, he had in the back of his mind a safe diaspora for his nazi compatriots. This is where the OSS, William Donovan and the sovereign state of the Vatican came in. "Wild Bill" Donovan was top dog in the OSS. Shortly before the Germans overran Europe, Father Felix Morlion, a papal functionary, had set up a Vatican intelligence organization called Pro Deo in Lisbon. When the U.S. entered the war Donovan moved Morlion lock, stock and barrel to New York and opened a sizeable bank account for him to draw on. The priest founded the American Council for International Promotion of Democracy Under God, on 60th Street. In the same building is the office of William Taub, whose name popped up during the Watergate affair. Taub is well-known as a wide-ranging middleman for such powerful figures as Nixon, Howard Hughes, Aristotle Onassis and Jimmy Hoffa, and his behind-the-scenes maneuvers were invaluable to Nixon in his 1960 run at the presidency. Taub was especially close to Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviania of the Holy See, who arranged Mussolini's 1929 "donation" of $89 million to the Vatican to ensure its neutrality with Mussolini and Hitler. The money went into a special fund in the Vatican Bank, and after the war part of it was entrusted to "God's Banker" Michele Sindona for investment. Sindona channeled a good chunk of it to the Nixon campaign. When Rome was liberated in 1944 Morlion and Pro Deo relocated there. In recognition of Donovan's good works on behalf of Pro Deo, Pope Plus XII knighted him with the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Sylvester. And before he flew off to Washington to cut his deal with the CIA, Reinhard Gehlen received the Sovereign Military Order of Malta award from the Pontiff. So did James Jesus Angleton, a Donovan operative in Rome who became the CIA's chief of counterintelligence. For Dulles, Operation Sunset was a personal triumph, one that set in motion his rise to the top of the intelligence heap. In 1963, by virtue of that position, he became the CIA's representative on the Warren Commission.
John J. McCloy and the Chase Manhattan
President Lyndon Johnson asked John J. McCloy to serve on the Warren Commission. No less than nine presidents had called on the Wall Street lawyer for special assignments, yet he was little known to the public. McCloy said he entered the investigation "thinking there was a conspiracy," but left it convinced that Oswald acted alone. "I never saw a case that was more completely proven," he asserted. McCloy had long been involved in the murky world of espionage, intrigue and nazis. He spent the decade of the 1930s working out of Paris. Much of his time was spent on a law case stemming from German sabotage in World War I. His investigation took him to Berlin, where he shared a box with Hitler at the 1936 Olympics. He was in contact with Rudolph Hess before the Nazi leader made a mysterious flight to England in 1941.
Photo by Wide World
Major General Charles A. Willoughby, "Our own Junker general."
When the nazis occupied Europe, the banking exchanges between Britain and the U.S. on the one hand and Germany on the other carried on as usual. In Trading With the Enemy, Charles Higham documents the role of Standard Oil of New Jersey, owned by the Chase Manhattan Bank, and I.G. Farben's Sterling Products with the Bank for International Settlements. Standard Oil tankers plied the sea lanes with fuel for the nazi war machine. Prior to the war McCloy was legal counsel to Farben, the German chemical monopoly. As an assistant secretary in the War Department during the war:
McCloy blocked the executions of nazi war criminals
Forged a pact with the Vichy Regime of pro-nazi Admiral Darlan.
Displaced Japanese-Americans in California to internment camps.
Refused to recommend the bombing of nazi concentration camps to spare the inmates on grounds "the cost would be out of proportion to any possible benefits."
Refused Jewish refugees entry to the U.S.
When the curtain fell on the war, McCloy helped shield Klaus Barbie, the "butcher of Lyons," from the French. Barbie and other vicious dogs from Hitler's kennel were hidden out with the 370th Counter Intelligence Corps at Obergamergau. One of their keepers was Private Henry Kissinger, soon to enter Harvard as a McCloy protege.
