[House Hearing, 106 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NAZI WAR CRIMES DISCLOSURE ACT
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 27, 2000
__________
Serial No. 106-227
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
----------
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
72-522 WASHINGTON : 2001
_______________________________________________________________________
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
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Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut ROBERT E. WISE, Jr., West Virginia
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
STEPHEN HORN, California PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
DAVID M. McINTOSH, Indiana ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
MARSHALL ``MARK'' SANFORD, South DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
Carolina ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
BOB BARR, Georgia DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas JIM TURNER, Texas
LEE TERRY, Nebraska THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee
GREG WALDEN, Oregon JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California ------
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho (Independent)
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
David A. Kass, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian
Lisa Smith Arafune, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and Technology
STEPHEN HORN, California, Chairman
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois JIM TURNER, Texas
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
GREG WALDEN, Oregon MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
DOUG OSE, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
J. Russell George, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Heather Bailey, Professional Staff Member
Bryan Sisk, Clerk
Trey Henderson, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on June 27, 2000.................................... 1
Statement of:
Kurtz, Dr. Michael J., Assistant Archivist of the United
States, National Archives and Records Administration;
Elizabeth Holtzman, esq.; Thomas Baer, and Richard Ben-
Veniste, members of the Interagency Working Group; Kenneth
Levit, special counsel, Office of the Executive Director,
Central Intelligence Agency; John Collingwood, Assistant
Director, Office of Congressional and Public Affairs,
Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Colonel Lewis
Thompson, Commander of the 902d Military Intelligence
Group, Intelligence and Security Command, U.S. Army........ 7
Lantos, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California.............................................. 59
Maloney, Hon. Carolyn B., a Representative in Congress from
the State of New York...................................... 48
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Baer, Thomas, member, Interagency Working Group, prepared
statement of............................................... 25
Collingwood, John, Assistant Director, Office of
Congressional and Public Affairs, Federal Bureau of
Investigation, prepared statement of....................... 35
Holtzman, Elizabeth, esq., prepared statement of............. 21
Horn, Hon. Stephen, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California:
Information concerning derogatory information............ 91
Letter dated February 8, 2000............................ 70
Prepared statement of.................................... 3
Kurtz, Dr. Michael J., Assistant Archivist of the United
States, National Archives and Records Administration,
prepared statement of...................................... 9
Lantos, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California, prepared statement of....................... 61
Levit, Kenneth, special counsel, Office of the Executive
Director, Central Intelligence Agency, prepared statement
of......................................................... 30
Maloney, Hon. Carolyn B., a Representative in Congress from
the State of New York, prepared statement of............... 49
Thompson, Colonel Lewis, Commander of the 902d Military
Intelligence Group, Intelligence and Security Command, U.S.
Army, prepared statement of................................ 45
Turner, Hon. Jim, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Texas, prepared statement of............................ 5
THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NAZI WAR CRIMES DISCLOSURE ACT
----------
TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 2000
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Government Management, Information,
and Technology,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2154 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Stephen Horn
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Horn, Biggert, Turner, Maloney,
and Owens.
Staff present: J. Russell George, staff director and chief
counsel; Heather Bailey, professional staff member; Bonnie
Heald, director of communications; Bryan Sisk, clerk; Will
Ackerly, Chris Dollar, and Meg Kinnard, interns; Trey
Henderson, minority counsel; and Jean Gosa, minority clerk.
Mr. Horn. A quorum being present, this hearing of the
Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and
Technology will come to order.
The Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act of 1998 was enacted to
ensure that documents held by the U.S. Government that pertain
to the Holocaust would be declassified and made available to
the public.
In October 1999, the National Archives and Records
Administration and the Interagency Working Group released an
interim report to Congress on the declassification of these
Second World War documents. According to the report, more than
300,000 pages of documents were to have been declassified by
the fall of 1999. But at the time, less than half of that
amount had been declassified.
Since then, most agencies have picked up the pace to
declassify documents of this era. Yesterday, the Interagency
Working Group announced 400,000 pages of newly declassified
documents were released today, mostly from the Office of
Strategic Services, a forerunner of the Central Intelligence
Agency.
By the time this declassification process is completed,
roughly 5 to 8 million pages documenting this horrific period
in history will be available for public scrutiny.
I would especially like to welcome representative Tom
Lantos, my colleague from California, who authored the Nazi War
Crimes Disclosure Act. I welcome all of our witnesses today,
and look forward to their testimony.
And I welcome Mrs. Maloney.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Stephen Horn follows:]
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Mr. Horn. So we have the group before us that has really
done a wonderful job in pressing all of the various points of
the executive branch to make sure that this complete bipartisan
proposal was made several years ago in both the Senate and the
House, and we are glad to have with us today the ones as we
have entitled this, the government compliance on the Nazi War
Crimes Disclosure Act. We look forward to you witnesses, who
have devoted a tremendous amount of your time, and we will give
you a little background.
I think you have all been here before. Since we are an
investigative committee, we do swear in all witnesses. When we
have called upon you in accord with the agenda, the full text
of your written remarks goes automatically into the record. We
don't want you to read your written remarks. We don't have the
time for it.
Take about 5 to 8 minutes for each person. What we want is
a dialog after all of that to see where the loose ends are and
what can be done by you and what can be done by the Congress,
if we need to do it.
For example, Japanese war crimes and other situations like
that, do we need to amend the law? Can we do it under this
authority?
I have a lot of lawyers in front of me with no fees to send
to me, so we would welcome your views, gentlemen.
So stand if you will, and I am going to swear you in and
then Mr. Turner will make an opening statement.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Horn. The clerk will note that all witnesses have said
yes, and I now yield to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Turner,
for an opening statement.
Mr. Turner. Mr. Chairman, I will just file my opening
statement for the record.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Jim Turner follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Mrs. Maloney or Mrs. Biggert.
We will go directly to our guests and again we are
delighted with all of you and your hard work.
We will start with Dr. Michael J Kurtz, Assistant Archivist
of the United States for the National Archives and Records
Administration.
STATEMENTS OF DR. MICHAEL J. KURTZ, ASSISTANT ARCHIVIST OF THE
UNITED STATES, NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION;
ELIZABETH HOLTZMAN, ESQ., THOMAS BAER, AND RICHARD BEN-VENISTE,
MEMBERS OF THE INTERAGENCY WORKING GROUP; KENNETH LEVIT,
SPECIAL COUNSEL, OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CENTRAL
INTELLIGENCE AGENCY; JOHN COLLINGWOOD, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR,
OFFICE OF CONGRESSIONAL AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, FEDERAL BUREAU OF
INVESTIGATION; AND COLONEL LEWIS THOMPSON, COMMANDER OF THE
902d MILITARY INTELLIGENCE GROUP, INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY
COMMAND, U.S. ARMY
Mr. Kurtz. Thank you. I am appearing here in my capacity as
Chair of the Interagency Working Group for implementing the
Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act of 1998. On behalf of the IWG, I
would like to thank you for holding this hearing and for your
ongoing leadership on this matter. And certainly I want to note
the contribution of Congresswoman Maloney in sponsoring the
original legislation and the interest of Congressman Lantos and
Senator DeWine.
I would like to briefly introduce the panel members.
President Clinton appointed three public members to serve on
the Interagency Working Group, and we have all three members--
former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, who has been involved
with these issues for a considerable period of time; Mr. Thomas
Baer, former Assistant U.S. Attorney and businessman who joins
us from Los Angeles, CA; Mr. Richard Ben-Veniste, well known
for his service to Congress and the government in a variety of
capacities.
Next to Mr. Ben-Veniste we have Kenneth Levit, who
represents the Central Intelligence Agency, and John
Collingwood from the FBI and Colonel Thompson, Commander of the
902nd Military Intelligence Group which has jurisdiction over
some of the most important Army records.
I think everyone is well aware of the bill and what we are
charged to do, and I would like to report what we have achieved
since our October interim report and mention several challenges
that lie ahead of us.
The agencies have screened, originally, approximately 600
million pages as potentially relevant to the act, records that
might contain war crimes information. That has been refined to
approximately 90 million pages, and so the search for relevant
documents continues as well as the declassification effort. To
date, we have declassified 1.5 million pages for release. And
we estimate, by the end of the project, we should have 5 to 8
million pages completed after the relevant searches have been
completed and the declassification actions.
The agencies that we have here on the panel are the ones
that have the bulk of the documentation that remains to be
reviewed, and this--the way we organized our work, the
Interagency Working Group first focused on what we called phase
one, which is Germany and the European Theater of Operations;
and we are beginning to focus on phase two, which relates to
Japan and the Far Eastern situation. So we will be dealing with
the totality of war crimes activities, worldwide, as part of
World War II and its aftermath.
There is an extensive amount of work to do. We have a
statutory deadline of January 2002, to complete our work, and
it is a very daunting task. There is a great deal, obviously,
from the brief summary that I have given of how much remains to
be done. In addition, we need to begin the work with the
Japanese records.
I should also note, as far as resources go, we have not
received a direct appropriation to support this effort. But
through the support from the Office of Special Investigations
of the Department of Justice and from the National Archives and
from the Archivist, we have received financial support that has
enabled us to set up a very important infrastructure. By that I
mean, we have two historians who serve as consultants to the
IWG.
The validity of that approach was proven yesterday with the
release of documentation and their ability to put it into
context and not just have a disgorging of a mass of undigested
documentation.
We also have an audit team working for the IWG that works
with the agencies to review their declassification actions, to
raise any issues to our attention and facilitate an early
resolution.
I would also note that as we are going through our work we
have ascertained that a great deal of the documentation is in
very poor physical condition requiring some extensive
preservation action which I would be glad to discuss later.
There is also a need for continued staff and enhanced staff
support for the IWG to get through the remaining work related
to Germany as well as dealing in the Far Eastern arena. So I
would like to just conclude my comments and permit time for
others to speak.
Mr. Horn. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Kurtz follows:]
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Mr. Horn. We will now call on Elizabeth Holtzman, former
Member of Congress and a member of the Interagency Working
Group. Welcome.
Ms. Holtzman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to
appear before you. Again I want to join the Chair of the IWG in
acknowledging your leadership and that of Representative
Carolyn Maloney, without whose help we would not be here today.
I will skip most of my prepared remarks to focus on what
the challenges are in the future. The first issue, in my
opinion, has to do with finishing the job of declassification.
I think it is important to note that despite serious and
intensive efforts being made by all of the agencies, only a
fraction of the job of declassification has been completed. I
believe this committee needs to ascertain how the agencies
expect to finish their task within the 3 years of IWG's
existence.
Remember, the process of declassification thus far has been
on a page-by-page, line-by-line method and that going through
millions of pages, page by page, line by line is extremely
time-consuming. I need to point out, too, that even though it
has taken us this long to get this far and we are nowhere near
complete, we have not yet touched the issue of the Japanese war
crimes and that is another huge area. I would ask the committee
to consider whether this can all be accomplished within the
legislative framework, and what the committee can do to help us
speed up this process. And this is not to diminish from the
intensive effort that the agencies are making at that point.
The second issue has to do with the completeness of our
search. As the members of this committee probably know, there
is no magic button that you can push that states Nazi war
criminals and you get all of the files. In fact, most of the
files are organized by name and so you need to know the name of
the Nazi war criminal. You have to know the answer before you
even ask the question.
Part of this problem has been addressed by Eli Rosenbaum
and the Office of Special Investigations, which has compiled a
list of some 57,000 former SS officers. That list has been
enhanced by the U.N. War Crimes Commission list and
supplemented by several hundred other names.
But I think it is fair to say, Mr. Chairman and members of
this committee, that those names are just a fraction of the
universe of war criminals. If we just look for those names, we
will never find the totality of Nazi war criminals, and it is
hard to say what percentage we will have found. I believe we
have to develop new strategies to become more inclusive.
One strategy I suggest is to consider as relevant all files
under programs that we know employed numbers of Nazi war
criminals, such as Operation Rollback, and there may be a
variety of others. If we have to operate only on the basis of
knowing the answer before we ask the question, we will never be
able to get the answers that we need.
The third issue is a familiar one to Members of Congress,
but I also read the front pages of the paper today, so it
should not be quite as difficult as it has been in the past,
and that has to do with resources.
You will be very pleased to note that we have been
extremely economical. We have operated on the thinnest,
narrowest shoestring we have ever seen. We don't have a full-
time staff director; we don't have a staff. We have been
functioning, thanks to Michael Kurtz and the National Archives,
with borrowed resources; and we have done, I think, an amazing
job. But we can't do it anymore on this shoestring because, as
probably you have seen in the Washington Post today--it was a
very important story, indicating the significance of some of
the materials that have just recently been declassified--we
have to hire two historians to accomplish that result; and they
themselves will not be able to go through 8 million pages of
documents and begin to tell the American people what the
significance of the materials is.
Dr. Kurtz pointed to the necessity of preservation of
materials. We have worked with a number of committees, on both
the Senate and the House side, on a bipartisan basis because
this is a bipartisan matter, to get some funding to permit us
to do our job properly; and I would hope that this committee
would assist us in that effort. I believe we have asked for $5
million, and I would hope that we can get your support in that
effort.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee.
Mr. Horn. Thank you. Those are very good challenges and we
need to get a thorough airing of them before we close up the
session this morning.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Holtzman follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Mr. Baer, you are a member of the Interagency
Working Group?
Mr. Baer. Yes, sir.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman for the opportunity to address you
and to comment on our work. I also want to take this
opportunity to thank Michael Kurtz and staff and the other
members of the IWG represented here today. All have made a
sincere commitment to fulfill our mandate. The agency heads and
their representatives have made a concerted effort to
declassify documents 60 years on, but much remains to be done.
Because the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, under which
they are operating, imports the exceptions to declassification
contained in the Defense Act of 1947, such as sources and
methods, the agencies have taken the position that a page-by-
page review, which Ms. Holtzman just referred to, is indicated
as opposed to bulk declassification.
I strongly believe that bulk declassification is
permissible under the statute, but I have not been successful
in persuading the agencies. Without engaging in any extended
analysis, which I will be glad to do, the gist of my argument
is that the statute says that the agency heads may invoke the
exceptions, not that they must do so.
When one measures the time and expense attendant upon page-
by-page review against the possible danger to the security of
the United States arising from bulk declassification of World
War II and cold war documents, it would appear that the
benefits of bulk declassification outweigh the detriments of
revelation of source and method secrets of the 1940's and
1950's. I believe that this analysis would justify agency head
discretion to bulk declassifying for most agencies and most
collections.
The agencies differ. They say that revelation of sources
and methods of the 1940's and 1950's imperils their operations
today. Learned Hand wrote, ``The spirit of liberty is the
spirit that is not too sure it is right.'' Similarly, I confess
that I am not too sure that I am right. On the merits of what
we have released and what we will release in the future, it
will be for historians to judge its significance--an
opportunity, Mr. Chairman, that this overdue and wise
legislation finally affords them.
I will be glad to answer any questions later on. Thank you.
Mr. Horn. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Baer follows:]
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Mr. Horn. We now go to Mr. Ben-Veniste, member of the
Interagency Working Group.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am happy to
report the substantial progress that is reflected in Dr.
Kurtz's statement and the substantial materials which are
appended to his formal statement by way of a report to this
committee.
Yesterday's release of 400,000 pages of OSS documents and
the media coverage that it received, including today's front
page story in the Washington Post, reflects the importance of
the new material which was released. In particular, the
information related to the intercepted and decoded messages
from the Nazi high command, relating to the Nazi's murderous
plan for the Jews of Italy in the fall of 1943, will continue
to stimulate the debate about whether something could have been
done to provide assistance to the Jews of Italy. After all, the
Italian people were unwilling, despite the Axis Alliance to
carry out Hitler's plan for the murder of the Jewish population
of Europe. And yet when these materials were made available and
decoded and available in real time, nothing was done to provide
warning to the Jews of Italy, and that is reflected in the
documents that were released yesterday. And that is a
reflection of the strength of our democracy in being able to
shed light on these materials.
After all, they would not have been made available but for
the fact that the British foreign intelligence services,
together with the CIA and the efforts of Director Tenet and Mr.
Levit here at my left in persuading the British intelligence
services to release this material was responsible for its being
made available yesterday. It could not have been made available
but for these efforts.
The material released also touches on other areas of vital
interest to supplement the historical record. For example, the
Allied treatment of Nazi war criminals during the postwar
period is very much reflected in some of the materials we
received yesterday, and we expect a great deal more information
to be released on that subject. Similarly, business
relationships, including insurance contracts and what happened
with those, are also reflected in these materials.
We are hopeful that the attention received from the
disclosures will stimulate World War cooperation from
governments who still maintain the stamp of secrecy on
documents of important historical value. Our country owes you
and others on this committee, Mrs. Maloney and others, and in
the Senate as well as President Clinton, a debt of gratitude
for putting our country in the forefront of openness and
strength in carrying forth the objectives of this important
legislation. This is, as it should be, in our democracy.
I would like, on a personal note, to express my deep
appreciation for the work of Dr. Kurtz and his staff at the
National Archives. They have worked unfailingly to make the
objectives of this legislation a reality; and of course there
is much, much more work to be done and more to come. Our panel
of experts are also owed a debt of gratitude.
This was a proposal that sort of came about, I think,
stimulated by the public members reflecting on the fact that we
did not have the historical basis within our own resources to
analyze this material, to separate the wheat from the chaff and
the new from the old. And it is our fervent hope that with the
supplemental appropriation, we will be able to provide much
more in the way of resources to analyzing this information and
to explaining it, as was done yesterday with respect to only
400,000 pages of material, only a portion of which our
historical panel had the opportunity to actually review, simply
by reason of resources and no other reason--certainly not from
lack of interest.
I would also like to thank the CIA and the FBI and Director
Tenet and Director Freeh, as well as the Department of the
Army, for their commitment to carry out this--the objectives of
this legislation, again without any direct appropriation to do
so.
The funds that have been requested I think will be very
well spent for the purposes of providing additional resources
in historical analysis, in preserving the documents, many of
which are deteriorating, many of which were on paper that was
used during World War II, where maybe these kinds of materials
was not of the best quality. In fact, they used inferior
quality paper, which is in the process of deteriorating.
Finally, I think these resources, additional resources,
will provide us the opportunity to hold an international
symposium where we can explain the efforts that our government
has made, the challenges which we have faced and--to stimulate
discussion and, hopefully, emulation from other democracies
throughout the world to do what we have attempted to do and are
beginning to do with our own records.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. We thank you for that excellent presentation.
We now have Kenneth Levit, Special Counsel, Office of the
Executive Director to the CIA.
Mr. Levit. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be
here today to report to you about the progress of the Central
Intelligence Agency with regard to the Nazi War Crimes
Disclosure Act. I can report to you that the declassification
effort pursuant to this act is among the largest records
declassification effort in our history. CIA is committed to a
thorough search for all documents that may have anything to do
with Nazi war crimes, so they can be identified and
declassified in an expeditious manner.
As you alluded to in your statement, Mr. Chairman,
yesterday CIA and the National Archives released to the public
over 400,000 pages of previously withheld records relating to
the Office of Strategic Services, that deal with World War II
and the European Theater. Much of this material deals directly
on the issue of war crimes, and approximately 6,100 pages of
that collection were released exclusively as a result of CIA's
program to implement the act and reflect our commitment to work
with foreign governments who passed us intelligence, in secret,
related to war crimes.
The vast majority of the 6,100 pages contain information
from original foreign government reports or from foreign
government sources, usually British or French, and consist
primarily of POW interrogation reports, refugee and emigre
debriefings, OSS missions into France and Norway, Operation
Safe Haven, the interagency program to identify and block the
transfer of German assets, as well as British intercepts of
German messages between Rome and Berlin.
I should say that these releases came as a result of the
direct efforts and hard work by Director Tenet to reach out to
his foreign colleagues that run the services, the intelligence
services, of these countries so that these documents could be
released. Director Tenet has taken a personal interest in
ensuring that these records can be opened and as much can be
made known as possible with regard to these war crimes and
their history.
The debriefing reports of refugees and emigres, many of
whom narrowly escaped persecution or death at the hands of the
Nazis, add significant detail to the historical record and to
our understanding of the period of time. CIA has redacted very
little information from the OSS records, and in fact we have
not held--and particularly with regard to the 6,100 pages of
foreign government records, a single page that we have
identified as relevant. And the very few redactions consist of
names and other identifications of British sources and the
names of CIA employees.
I think this speaks well of the way that the legislation
was crafted and, more importantly, the spirit of the
legislation, which CIA and the Intelligence Community on behalf
of the work of Director Tenet is seeking to implement in its
full spirit.
In addition to the first tranche of 6,100 pages, we expect
to release an additional 3,096 pages of OSS material in the
coming weeks, that we feel is directly relevant to the issue of
war crimes.
I would also like to report to you, Mr. Chairman, that our
efforts will not stop at the OSS; rather, our search for
relevant documents will also address the records of the CIA,
including the operational files that are otherwise exempt from
the 25-year declassification program, as well as the Freedom of
Information Act. There is no blanket exemption. Relevant
documents will be identified and, where possible, declassified
to the fullest extent.
A couple of months ago the Interagency Working Group came
to closure on the approach CIA would use to declassify many of
its most sensitive files, and the public can expect significant
releases of CIA material by the end of summer.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, I will only reiterate the
commitment of Director Tenet and of the CIA in this effort. We
hope that we will do all that we can in order to allow as much
relevant material as possible to be fully released. These
documents provide powerful testimony to our generation and to
those of the future. By learning from them, we may hope to be
better equipped to fulfill our common commitment, the
commitment to ``never again.''
Mr. Horn. Thank you. That was a very thorough statement.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Levit follows:]
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Mr. Horn. We now have Mr. John Collingwood, Assistant
Director, Office of Congressional and Public Affairs, FBI.
Mr. Collingwood. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The most important thing that I can communicate to the
committee today is that we in the FBI collectively share the
enthusiasm that your committee has for this project.
Recognizing that the FBI is primarily a domestic agency with
mostly domestic records, already we have physically reviewed
approximately 1.9 million pages and have identified and are
processing for release 166,000 pages relevant under the act.
As Congresswoman Holtzman described, the challenge for the
FBI, as for all agencies, is to locate relevant records within
our central record system, a system of records that has been in
existence since 1921. Arguably, when we finish, we will have
screened approximately 6 billion pages of records. The vast
majority, as you would expect, however, will not be relevant.
They will pertain to traditional FBI-type activities--bank
robberies, organized crime, cybercrime and terrorism--and these
are, as Congresswoman Holtzman described, normally retrievable
through indices searches.
To ensure that we comply with the act, and comply not only
with the letter of the act but with the spirit of the act, we
have worked with the group, the IWG, and Archives to develop
what we describe as a three-pronged approach to resolving this
dilemma.
The first is through the traditional indices search
mechanism. We have conducted approximately 60,000 name searches
against both our automated indices and our manual indices. We
have, as well, identified--working with Archives, identified
nine file series that the FBI maintains that most likely would
contain relevant documents. The file series--and the FBI
maintains its records in file series, such as all bank
robberies are put together and all terrorism cases are put
together--is ongoing; and we have identified nine separate
series that are most likely to contain relevant materials. We
have finished the review of six of those series, and the
remainder are in process.
In addition, we are--as we go through these records, we are
identifying and conducting additional research on our own. We
are searching out records that pertain to names of individuals
and organizations and operations that we find in the records
that are produced. The results, to date, hopefully reflect our
enthusiasm for this project.
Of the 1.9 million actual pages that I identified, 166,000
have been deemed relevant; 149,000 came through indices
searches, and another 11,000 came through the file by file
searches that are ongoing, and additional research has
identified an additional 27,000 pages. We are processing those
pages as resources permit and accessioning them to Archives as
quickly as we can; and consistent with the other agencies'
approach to this, the redactions are minimal, and often
instances of redactions are limited to the simple number of the
source or the like. The primary redactions from the FBI are
those instances of information received from foreign
governments, and we expect that information ultimately to be
disclosed.
In conclusion, I think we are clearly committed to
releasing the maximum volume of records, whether previously
classified or not. The FBI for a long time didn't mark
documents for classification because we maintain all of our
documents as if they were classified. We have spent
approximately $2 million on this effort. We have 31 people
working full time, and we are absolutely committed to finishing
on schedule and know of no reason that we will not.
From a personal standpoint, I would like to mention that it
was not until this project that I personally had an
appreciation for what Archives does for this country. Dr. Kurtz
and all of his staff and everybody at the National Archives
make a contribution to preserving the history of this country
that I never before realized the magnitude and I suspect that
the American people do not realize the importance of. They are
really the unsung heroes when it comes to this type of thing.
Finally, I am not sure, as the legislation was drafted, who
had the idea of adding public members to the IWG, but it was
indeed a brilliant idea. Anyone who suspects in any way, shape
or form that any of the government agencies that are involved
in this effort are going to be less than fully forthcoming with
their documents need only discuss that with our three public
members, who provide us the closest possible oversight.
Thank you.
Mr. Horn. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Collingwood follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Colonel Lewis Thompson is Commander of the 902d
Military Intelligence Group of the Intelligence and Security
Command of the U.S. Army. I was fascinated by your piece here,
because I was in the 458th Strategic Intelligence Unit, and we
had a whole bunch of German-speaking colonels. You could have
used them and put them to work.
Colonel Thompson. Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to represent the
Army and provide testimony on this important subject.
I am Colonel Lewis Thompson, the Commander of the 902d
Military Intelligence Group, U.S. Army Intelligence and
Security Command. My group conducts the Army's strategic
counterintelligence mission. My group also contains the Army's
investigative records repository.
With me today are two substantive experts, Lieutenant
Colonel Jasey Briley, the Commander of the 310th Military
Intelligence Battalion that houses the Investigative Records
Repository; and Mr. Andy Swicegood, from the battalion
operations section.
The Investigative Records Repository is the Army's
repository for some intelligence and all counterintelligence
related investigative files. It contains over 1.9 million pages
of paper and microfilm files, some of which date back to World
War II. These aging files and film have been deteriorating for
many years. Recognizing their historical value, the Army
initiated efforts in 1992 to digitize all of the holdings in
the repository.
In 1995, the President signed Executive Order 12958
requiring the review for declassification determination of all
classified holdings 25 years of age or older, to be completed
not later than April 21, 2000.
In October 1998, the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act was
signed requiring us to review all repository holdings,
declassify to the maximum extent possible related files and
provide those files to the National Archives and Records
Administration.
The digitization of the files in our repository that began
in 1992 is not directly related to the Executive order or
public law, but facilitates our compliance with both. In order
to comply with the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, we must
review over 1.9 million files, subsequently releasing what we
currently estimate to be 15,000 files pertinent to the act.
Without the digitization initiative, we estimate the process
would take more than 181 man-years to complete. With
digitization, we estimate we will be able to complete the task
in about 7 months.
In order to facilitate this effort, the Secretary of the
Army has made $1.3 million available to the U.S. Army
Intelligence and Security Command for the conversion of the
reels of microfilm to optical disk. I currently have over 100
military and civilian employees dedicated to this effort,
working three shifts around the clock 6 days a week, with the
7th day allocated to systems maintenance and backup. We are
working toward a completion date of October 1, 2000.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide this testimony
today. I would be happy to answer any questions you might have.
Mr. Horn. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Colonel Thompson follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Right now we are going to turn to two of our
Members who are very devoted to this issue. We mentioned
earlier Mrs. Maloney, she will be one of them, and the
Honorable Tom Lantos, who has a great perspective of the whole
historical situation.
I believe Mrs. Maloney has some comments and then Mr.
Lantos.
STATEMENT OF HON. CAROLYN B. MALONEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK
Mrs. Maloney. First of all, I would like to congratulate
all of the members of the panel and the members of the public
group that I made sure were part of the legislation--Tom Baer,
Richard Ben-Veniste and my good friend, Liz Holtzman, who has a
long history of accomplishment on this issue.
I must say that this was one of the first bills that I
introduced in 1992, and it was a long, hard effort to get it
passed into law; and I congratulate my dear friend and
colleague, Chairman Horn, for his consistent support. We had
many, many hearings, probably more than he would like, but he
was always there with hearings, with oversight, and in support
of the legislation; and of course Senator DeWine, who carried
it in the Senate.
Congressman Lantos is an incredibly important Member of
Congress on many fronts. He also brings a deep understanding,
as the only Holocaust survivor to be elected to Congress, and
he is certainly a moral mentor to me and to all of our
colleagues.
I would like to put my comments in the record, but I would
like to respond with a few questions to the people who are here
today; and you are just in time, because the supplemental
budget may be on the floor this week, and as you said, we need
to get our $5 million, or extra, resources in.
I am glad it was enacted into law, but I am very concerned
about certain foreign nations that are not cooperating with us
in the release of documents. It is very, very important, and it
is incredibly important that we complete the work, including
Japan--a complete analysis of what happened in Japan. And many
of the people here have said that you expect that you will be
able to complete the work by October 2001, and I believe that
would include the Japanese aspect also.
All I can say is that it is incredibly important. These
documents will increase all our understanding of what happened,
when it was known, what efforts were there to protect Nazi war
criminals after the war, why those efforts were there; and I
have a series of questions, and then I hope my colleagues on
this panel will join me in working to make sure that the moneys
are part of the supplemental that come up today.
But I think you've started an important journey, but we
must complete it with all of the aspects, including Japan.
I yield back the balance of my time.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney
follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Now with the next witness, both a member and a
colleague, we are delighted to have Mr. Lantos here, the
gentleman from California, who probably knows more on this
subject than the rest of us put together.
STATEMENT OF HON. TOM LANTOS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM
THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. Lantos. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to associate
myself with the laudatory comments of my friend, Congresswoman
Maloney, with respect to the group before us and the ones who
may not be here.
Mr. Chairman, I have a comprehensive statement I would like
to place in the record.
Mr. Horn. We will put it in the record as read.
Mr. Lantos. First, I want to thank you for your unwavering
support and strong and deep personal commitment to bring to
justice Nazi war criminals through the full declassification of
documents in possession of the National Archives. I also want
to thank my good friend, Jim Turner, the ranking member, for
his invaluable work. And I would be derelict in my
responsibilities if I did not pay tribute to the former ranking
member, Dennis Kucinich, for his strong commitment to
declassification issues in the pursuit of Nazi war criminals
and human rights offenders around the world.
I want to single out Congresswoman Maloney, who introduced
this legislation and shepherded it through, and who has a
passionate and deep personal commitment to bring justice and
closure to this issue and all other issues; and I publicly want
to thank her for this.
I also want to recognize the contribution of my friend,
Senator Mike DeWine.
Mr. Chairman, the goal of the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure
Act is to declassify and make public any remaining documents in
U.S. possession concerning Nazi crimes, criminals, and looted
property. At the same time, this right to know must be balanced
against legitimate reasons to continue to withhold certain
documents. Since we are dealing with documents that are half a
century old, clearly the bias should be in favor of
declassification.
President Clinton created the IWG. It is composed of a
group of most distinguished individuals, and they have done an
outstanding job in fulfilling this mandate. Some million and a
half pages have been released, 400,000 pages were released just
yesterday with some startling consequences. These documents are
now available to the public, to scholars at the National
Archives.
I regret, Mr. Chairman, that we in Congress have failed to
provide the funds needed for the work of declassification, but
fortunately, the National Archives and the Office of Special
Investigations provided some funding to assist in the project.
We in Congress should do more to fund this important task.
I would like to say a word about the Japanese issue, Mr.
Chairman. While the original legislation does include language
that permits declassification of records relating to war crimes
created under the Imperial Japanese Government, there are some
areas where additional legislation is necessary. I am currently
completing draft legislation which my staff has discussed with
officials of the National Archives. My written statement
includes considerable detail on this legislation; I expect to
introduce it within the next few days. Among the most important
provisions of my legislation will be to extend the life of
declassification for 1 more year.
A great deal has been accomplished, but much remains to be
done and this additional year is essential for the work to be
completed.
I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I hope the
subcommittee will consider my legislation expeditiously.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Tom Lantos follows:]
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Mr. Horn. As you know, the subcommittee has always moved
very rapidly on most of these things.
I want to go back to some fundamentals here so we get it
out on the table. One of the ways of getting at this is file by
file and name. Another is bulk. I would just like to go down
the line and say--and get from each of you, since you are all
experts, what is the problem there and what can we do to
resolve it?
Mr. Kurtz. My agency colleagues, I am sure, can amplify,
Mr. Chairman, but from my perspective, I think there are three
problems.
First, sources and methods: I think that is a particular
issue for both the CIA records, for the Army's records, and I
think also, to some extent, for the FBI records; and all of
them also share--perhaps the CIA to the greatest extent--
foreign government issues. It is very significant that Director
Tenet and Ken Levit have worked so assiduously on the foreign
government issue, because much of what was released yesterday,
that had a rather startling impact, would not be possible
without their cooperation.
But I am concerned over the time limits. Even if we get an
additional year, we still have all of the Japanese issues to
deal with, which in some ways are more complicated from a
records point of view than the German records issue; and a
file-by-file through everything is very--very time-consuming. I
would hope that we would be able to work out with the agencies
some sort of triage.
Not everything needs to go through a page-by-page or a
line-by-line. I think we might agree certain categories of
information do, and if we can refine this and get a more
targeted strategy so we can get through more rapidly those
records that permit that, we would have time to deal with the
issues that are most knotty.
Mr. Horn. We obviously have a lot of Holocaust scholars in
this country, and we can turn them loose once you have a series
of files there. Is that the plus of the bulk approach, get them
into the situation where scholars can say, I would like to see
X number of files, even if they don't have a name?
Mr. Kurtz. Well, my experience with bulk declassification
goes back to the President's Executive order in 1994 on World
War II records, and the National Archives very much supports an
approach, whether bulk or survey--whatever term might be used--
to avoid to the greatest extent possible line-by-line, and
there are many advantages. One, it gets into the hands of those
who want and need them in a more expeditious fashion; it is
more economical from the point of view of resources; and it
enables the government to focus on those areas where there
might be some sensitivity.
Mr. Horn. Now, have you in your role with this Interagency
Working Group been able to obtain various documents
internationally from, say, Russia and Japan; or is that
something that you are considering in the future?
Mr. Kurtz. Well, let me address Japan.
I had a meeting with the archivist from Japan several
months ago, and we discussed trying to get documentation or a
report from them to detail where the records are now that were
captured by the United States, brought to the United States and
then returned to Japan in 1958. There are serious questions
about their availability and access.
Mr. Horn. Before we returned them, did anybody have the
sense to make microfilm out of those records?
Mr. Kurtz. The government did not follow the same policy
with the Japanese documents as with the German Government
before they were returned.
Mr. Horn. What was the difference?
Mr. Kurtz. It was 1958, and I am not sure. I was alive,
yes, definitely. But anyway, we are going back and forth with
the archivist of Japan to get a useful report, where these
records are and are they available; and so far, not a great
deal of success.
Mr. Horn. How about the Russian records?
Mr. Kurtz. We have not started dealing with the Russians.
Mr. Horn. Isn't that a likely possibility to see what they
knew at what point in time?
Mr. Kurtz. Yes.
Mr. Horn. Because I know that we have a few Russian
generals who came from their equivalent of OSS.
Mr. Kurtz. That is a good point.
Mr. Horn. We will just go down the line.
Ms. Holtzman.
Ms. Holtzman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I think it is not names versus--well, it may be. It is bulk
versus line-by-line, and if we are going line-by-line, then the
question is, are there strategies that can help us in terms of
the names issue. Even if we do bulk declassification, what are
we going to declassify?
Obviously, agencies like the CIA and the Army have very
deep concerns about protecting what needs to be protected. But
I would say, Mr. Chairman, it may well be that we can take the
position with regard to documents of World War II that we can
just bulk declassify those, unless, of course, there are any
documents that we know of that have formulas for atomic weapons
or poison gas or something like that.
But aside from that, it is hard to understand why--aside
from the principle of preserving the secrecy of foreign
information or the principle of preserving sources. We are
talking about matters that are over 53 years old, 54, 55 years
old; yesterday some of the documents were 57 years old. So I
would say, there are some approaches like that.
But we can take some timeline, the end of World War II--
obviously, the more recent, the more reason there may be not to
disclose. Privacy concerns, as well, may come up. I would say
that is one area that this committee could give us guidance.
My own personal view is, if we could do bulk
declassification within some kind of timeframe, that would save
time and money.
Second, if we don't know the names, how are we going to get
the information? I would hope that the agencies would agree,
and we could work out, with the help of the Archives and their
excellent staff, a method of agreeing that all documents within
certain programs would be relevant; whether they then would be
declassifiable would be another subject.
But I think the other thing that it just raises with regard
to the issue of Japan, I don't even know, Mr. Chairman, if we
returned those documents to the Japanese, that we will be given
access to those documents, but it would be quite extraordinary
for us to have returned the documents and not be permitted to
see them.
Mr. Horn. Do we know who was in charge? Was it the State
Department or the Army or what? We ought to write the
appropriate people and ask them to give us whatever
historically happened there. We do know that Secretary Dulles
was very anxious to get a peace treaty with Japan, and we know
a lot of things, but the question is, who had the control of
them?
Mr. Kurtz. I would recommend, Mr. Chairman, checking with
the Department of State, because they handled all of the
negotiations on treaties, records, claims. So if there was any
requirement written into any agreements about providing access,
it should be known to the Department of State.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. I think this would be appropriate for us
to make inquiries and report back to this subcommittee what we
have found about the historical record relating to the return
of those documents, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Baer.
Mr. Baer. Thank you for asking about this subject. Briefly,
the legislation contemplates this vital issue and is a major
question, bulk versus line-by-line or bulk versus a search.
Mr. Chairman, in the Congressional Record of 1998, August
6, you said, ``Much of the government information on alleged
Nazi war criminals has remained secret even though researchers
have filed Freedom of Information Act requests to secure copies
of the records. Federal agencies have routinely denied these
requests, citing exemptions for national defense, foreign
relations and intelligence. More than half a century after the
Second World War, it is time,'' you said, ``to end the sweeping
equity exemptions that have shielded Nazi war criminals from
full public disclosure.''
Now, the legislation imports two points of view, reflecting
the committee and Congress' desire to change the method of
releasing this. No. 1, unlike Freedom of Information Act
requests where people have to be making requests, the burden
here is placed upon the government agency to make revelations.
And the revelations do require exemptions for sources and
methods, but the legislation says they can't be blanket, they
can't be general, there has to be a specification of injury to
the United States made by the agency head. So the legislation
changes the Freedom of Information Act from initiated by a
person seeking information to initiated by an agency.
The second element of the legislation which speaks to bulk
declassification is the necessity of speed, because time is
running out. In that connection, Representative Maloney, in the
debate, said, ``It is our intention that affected agencies
should declassify all documents recommended by the Interagency
Working Group as quickly as possible. It is our expectation
that all such documents become public as soon as possible,
preferably within the first year and most certainly by the end
of the 3-year period during which the IWG is in existence.'' So
that the scheme is agency action rather than request, speed
rather than delay.
Fortunately, I have looked into this, to try to fulfill my
obligations as a member by asking for some advice, and I went
to a place I know quite well called the Yale Law School, and I
asked them to look into this; and they provided me with a
letter of opinion, which I furnished to the staff and which I
am sure you have.
Mr. Horn. And I would like to put it in the record at this
point if there is no objection. It is by Robert A. Burt, a
professor of law at the Yale Law School; and this is
correspondence to Mr. Thomas H. Baer as of February 8, 2000.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Baer. That's correct. Just to complete this, the issue
here is a complicated issue with certain collections and
certain protections of national security. The release of
sources and methods of the 1940's and 1950's, it is argued by
the agencies, with those agencies imperils current intelligence
because individuals who are spies or otherwise covert
operatives for the United States in 2000 do not want to
continue their activity if they are in peril of ever having
their names released or their activities disclosed by the fact
of release later on; and I recognize that.
But Ms. Holtzman, I think, and Dr. Kurtz, in his typical
effective way, have put their fingers on it. There has to be
some method of wedding this protection with bulk
declassification; and guidance is important. For example, if
the committee were to say, look, find a method of inclining
your way toward bulk while preserving this; that is what we
want you to do--I think that kind of guidance would be
important.
Finally, I am not a historian, but it is the position of
the historian community that bulk declassification is the most
effective method because the integrity of the documents, their
placement, one to the other, in and of itself gives great help
to the historian in making the record.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. Thank you.
Mr. Ben-Veniste.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think John Collingwood of the FBI put it very gently in
terms of the debate which we have had internally, within the
Interagency Working Group, about the speed and the methodology
of the declassification effort. To a large extent, with respect
to the European Theater records, I think we may be at a point
where this is mooted out. It is our understanding that the
Army, who has the largest repository of relevant records, will
release all of its relevant records in October.
Without getting into some of the internal discussions we
had, we have seen various representatives come and go before
our Interagency Working Group until we had received assurances
that we are now basing our report to you on. But should those
assurances not hold to be true, you can be guaranteed of our
return quickly before this subcommittee to explore whether
something went wrong and what the nature of the representations
made to us were and on what basis they were made.
But at this point Secretary Caldera has assured us that the
records not just at Fort Meade, but if I am not incorrect, all
of the records within the possession of the U.S. Army, which of
course had the lead in terms of the wartime and postwar
intelligence-gathering effort and dealing with the former Nazis
and the de-Nazification program and whatever exceptions were
made to that--those records, which we feel are very important
in illuminating the historical record, are due to be released
in October.
With respect to Japan, which we have not even begun to deal
with, the question of bulk declassification becomes far more
relevant from a practical standpoint, because we are nowhere
with respect to those materials; and I think we should give
very important consideration to the issue of bulk
declassification there, again, with the caveat that things
involving our nuclear secrets, things involving the potential
for information of some potential danger to our society to fall
into the wrong hands through this release of information should
continue to be something of concern.
But by the same token, we've learned that this material has
been available through other sources for quite some time. So
although theoretically we are concerned about its dissemination
from a practical standpoint I think there needs to be some rule
of reason applied.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Levit.
Mr. Levit. Thank you. I don't think it will come as a big
shock to the committee that, as a CIA representative, we have a
hard time with the idea of bulk declassification. A couple of
problems for starters: The National Security Act, in 1947,
charges the Director to protect sources and methods. If
material is shipped out without being reviewed, that is a hard
mandate to live up to.
The second issue is the Kyl amendment that poses questions
for review on a page-by-page theory of materials for
declassification, for review of restricted data information. So
it is a question that I think we need to address whether or not
bulk declassification is even possible in light of that
legislation.
That said, I don't think this issue is quite as binary as
it is sometimes presented. There are classes of documents--
let's go back to the World War II era records and separate out
from those those that are not foreign government information. I
can tell you that at the CIA we have a pretty efficient, fast,
systematic method of declassifying records; we call it the
``declassification factory.'' We have been at this under the
Executive order for some time, and they are declassifying
millions of pages a year.
Most of the 400,000 pages that came out yesterday were
mainly a product of the 25-year program, although they were
rereviewed under the guidelines for this statute to make sure
that we weren't redacting more than we should.
But I think that there are classes of documents that can
get a level of review that is different than other classes.
When we go to our operational files, for instance, we will have
to give a line-by-line review of those records. There is no
other way in order to protect sources and methods because they
are chock full. But on some of these older records, things that
are not foreign government information, we can move this
quickly. It is not bulk, but it is fast.
One footnote: We have released in the last 20-25 years
World War II era--or OSS information, more specifically over 14
million pages--so this 400,000 pages that was released
yesterday is just another chapter of that release; and I think
we are approaching the very near end of all of those records.
Thank you.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Collingwood.
Mr. Collingwood. It is a larger process issue, and for the
FBI, it really does not come down necessarily to a
classification issue. For example, in all of the records that
the FBI, to date, has accessioned to Archives, 367 pages have
been withheld because they maintain classification. Of those
367, none remain classified because of U.S. or FBI information,
all remain classified because of foreign government interests
and because they were collected from foreign governments under
long-standing agreements with foreign government organizations.
We would expect all 367 pages to be declassified in whole or in
part when we get permission from those governments.
But the protection of foreign government information to law
enforcement is critical, particularly now; it has become more
critical than at any time in our history as we deal with
international organized crime, terrorism, cybercrimes and
others. The interaction between foreign law enforcement
agencies and domestic law enforcement agencies has become so
commonplace, and these agreements have become so important,
that they are critical.
But bulk declassification does not address that, and there
is really no way to get around that because of the existing
agreements.
I agree with what Ken is saying. Like the CIA, we have a
process for declassifying this stuff, and we would describe it
as an incredibly fast pace, but because of the way that the
documents are created and maintained, it is nearly impossible
just to give wholesale, bulk declassification of the documents.
Mr. Horn. Colonel Thompson.
Colonel Thompson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Department of Defense is on record as opposed to bulk
declassification, sir. I will add that we will meet our
requirements without the need for bulk declassification.
As for our process, we faced three challenges at the outset
of this task, first, the sheer volume of material. I mentioned
earlier that we have 1.9 million files; 1.2 million of those
are contained on microfilm, which complicates the task. So the
challenge in the volume was to figure out how to reduce the
volume that would enable us to meet our objectives.
The second challenge is the age of the film. It is very
brittle. It breaks, and it is not as simple as having one file
located on one roll. Sometimes they are located on multiple
rolls, and you have to find them.
The third challenge was resourcing. We had to triple the
work force in our repository to undertake this task. We also
had to--in addition to building and training the team, we had
to develop a process that enabled us to get our hands around
the magnitude of this task and pare down the volume of
material.
We put together a state-of-the-art, cutting-edge process.
We think that it is the most advanced of its kind in the
country using sophisticated search engines. We are currently
processing 60,000 to 70,000 files or about 1 million images per
week on the microfilm. To date, of the 11,500 reels of
microfilm, we have already digitized over 8,000 or about
960,000 files. Out of those, our search engine has identified
7,539 files as possibly relevant. Further inspection of those
files has given us an indication that at least 4,064 are
definitely relevant; that is, approximately 40,000 pages.
Thank you.
Mr. Horn. Thank you. I now yield to the gentleman from
Texas, Mr. Turner, for questioning.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As I listen to you, it certainly causes me to want to thank
each of you who have served on this Interagency Working Group,
particularly the public members who have devoted so much time
and energy and effort to this endeavor. I cannot help but be
impressed once again, as I listen to you, regarding the
importance of peeling back the layers of secrecy, one document
at a time, of the darkest chapter in the history of modern man.
And I can't help but feel a recommitment to being sure that
this work is continued, irrespective of how tedious,
irrespective of how legally challenging it may be to determine
the proper way to accomplish the task.
And I particularly want to thank Mrs. Maloney, whose 6-year
crusade led us to the point of the creation of this effort, and
who brings a great deal of insight in terms of the progress
that has been made.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield all of the time that I
have for questioning to Mrs. Maloney and let her pursue that
inquiry.
Mr. Horn. Let us pursue it for about 10 minutes.
Mrs. Maloney. I thank Mr. Turner for yielding to me and,
again, the chairman.
I would like to get back to the time question. One of you
mentioned that only a third of the job is done. Will we be able
to complete it by the timeframe that we have before us? I
include Japanese records. That was our intent, and it was
mentioned in the legislation.
Mr. Kurtz. I would say, picking up what Mr. Ben-Veniste was
talking about, the extra challenges, I don't think by January
2002 we will be able to complete the totality of the European
and Pacific Theaters. So when Congressman Lantos was discussing
the need for an additional year, I think that would be a year
well used.
Mrs. Maloney. Do you think that you could complete it in an
additional year?
Mr. Kurtz. Yes, I do.
Mrs. Maloney. Would other members of the panel like to
comment on the timeframe and what is needed with regard to
Japanese war criminals and the funding and everything else to
complete the job?
Ms. Holtzman. Congresswoman Maloney, I just want to say
that I have some questions as to whether we will complete the
European Theater within the timeframe. I know that we have made
terrific progress, and I really take my hat off to every one of
the agencies involved. You can see, just from the statements of
Colonel Thompson, the kind of effort that the Army is making;
and you can see from the statements of both representatives--
very able representatives of the CIA and the FBI what kind of
efforts they are making, but you have to note, for example,
with regard to the CIA the release yesterday was of OSS
materials.
This is pre the end of World War II. We have many years
after the end of World War II that have to be looked at. Can
that process be completed? I don't mean that with any
criticism.
So I would say that I think it is good to keep the pressure
on. So if we give the IWG an extra year to focus on the
Japanese materials--but that is one of the reasons that I
raised the question about the timeframe. Perhaps the agencies
could give you a sense of whether they will complete--in their
own mind, whether they can complete the assigned task, putting
Japan aside, within the time allotted.
Mr. Baer. Representative Maloney, the agencies are putting
on a Herculean effort; there is no question. Their cooperation
has been outstanding for the most part. But I would have to
agree with Ms. Holtzman, perhaps for a slightly different
reason.
With the current resources of the IWG, which is a loan from
this one and a loan from that one, it is almost impossible to
complete the task, particularly the public information
function, the outreach to historians, the educational function,
within that timeframe. Although they will come up with as much
as they can, Dr. Kurtz and the members of his staff are not
really sufficient, and I think they would agree with this, to
complete it without separate resources.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. Let me focus on another issue.
We have received status reports from the relevant agencies,
which all indicate completion of their task within the European
Theater within the statutory period. However, from my point of
view, which is something that we have recurrently discussed,
the process of identifying the relevant records is to some
extent an interactive process.
There will be materials which will be reviewed and which
will then stimulate the request for other records in other
files. This, in turn, implicates the sources for reviewing
these materials by experts in the period, who will then be able
to identify other things which may have been overlooked.
So the process in its first iteration may well be completed
within time, and we are entirely hopeful and very thankful for
the dedication that you have heard expressed here today from
the relevant agencies; but in practical terms, I don't think
there is anyone here who can give the assurance that the task,
as I have outlined it, could be completed within that time
period on the basis of the resources presently available.
And that excepts the Japanese question from our analysis.
We have not even begun to get our arms around the Japanese
document issue.
We have not seen Congressman Lantos' legislation. We are
very interested in seeing it, but we can certainly give no
assurance, Congresswoman Maloney, at this point--at least I
cannot--about the conclusion of the effort.
Mrs. Maloney. How much time do you think would be needed to
review the Japanese documents also?
Mr. Ben-Veniste. Certainly the additional year is very well
advised. But until we really have the opportunity to get our
arms around the challenge, which is the way we began
functioning with respect to the Nazi documents--it took us a
substantial amount of time to identify who had the records,
where they were and what the processes would be for reviewing
them.
Obviously we have learned a lot, and those lessons will be
applied to the issue of the Japanese documents. And by the same
token, suggestions--the potential for bulk declassification
would be most useful in that regard to the extent we get our
arms around the issue quickly, and it would appear more
feasible.
But at this point, perhaps Dr. Kurtz could be more
informative with respect to the Japanese issue.
Mr. Kurtz. I would like to discuss how we are going to
begin our efforts with the Japanese documents. We meet monthly.
Our July meeting is focused on various search strategies for
the Japanese records. We are not going to have available to us
the wonderful tool that the Office of Special Investigations
was able to put together; but there are a variety of search
strategies, and we are going to be presenting them to the IWG
to get their input and feedback to see if we can craft an
effective strategy.
I would also like to comment on former Congresswoman
Holtzman's idea or suggestion about how to ensure kind of a
more complete search, so that there is a higher level of
reliability possible. I agree with her. I think we can work out
using various program and operational names, putting out a
requirement that all records that fall within those operations
and programs be deemed relevant. I think we can really raise
the reliability and effort level, and I am confident that this
is something that we can work out with all of the members of
the IWG.
I think the other issue I would just want to reiterate--and
Congresswoman Maloney is well aware of it as the author of the
legislation--is that we feel fully confident, under the terms
of the existing legislation, to move and to deal with the
Japanese records; and that a second or supplemental IWG is not
something that would be required in order to do our work.
Mrs. Maloney. OK. Anyone else?
Mr. Collingwood. Our projections of completing what is on
the table right now are based primarily on an identified
universe of documents. We know what the parameters are that we
have to deal with, and we know the resources that are being
applied to it.
Mr. Ben-Veniste is exactly correct: In the process of
producing documents, we have identified several thousand
additional names that we have searched. We have reviewed 27,000
additional pages and identified 6,000 additional relevant
pages. So given that the task at hand can grow to some unknown
degree during this process, but not speaking for the other
agencies, but confident that they will give you the same
response, we are of course willing to produce whatever
additional resources we need to complete the task at hand
within the time we are required to do so.
Mrs. Maloney. Do you think that we can complete the
Japanese section too within the time designated in the bill?
Mr. Collingwood. No. The projections that we have now are
based on the European Theater.
Mrs. Maloney. The Japanese, do you have any sense for that?
Mr. Collingwood. We have not yet surveyed our own records
to know what the possible parameters would be.
Mrs. Maloney. Earlier you mentioned, and Mr. Levit
mentioned, some documents were not released because of foreign
government objections. Can you mention which foreign government
and the impact of the foreign government objection?
Mr. Levit. I am happy to handle that question,
Congresswoman. Thus far, we have only received the fullest
cooperation from all of the foreign governments that we have
approached. We have not crossed the barrier where a foreign
government has asked us to withhold a document that we believed
was relevant. They have sought to review documents. They have
sought to make sure that their other government agencies were
aware of the record at issue, but we have not received a
denial.
So I am thankful that I am able to report to you that at
this point we are getting the fullest level of cooperation. I
will use this point to dovetail for a moment into the time
question.
Our plan, our intent, our projection, is to conclude within
the 3-year window, and again I am referring to the European
Theater. The wild card, in my view, is the universe of
documents which is foreign government information. When you
consult with foreign governments, when they take possession of
copies of documents and ask to consult with their government
agencies which have equities in a certain foreign government
document, you are in their hands to allow some time to pass. So
thus far, the review by foreign governments has been
extraordinarily expeditious, but I think we have to be
concerned about those records that may take more time.
Mrs. Maloney. Yet you testified earlier that some documents
were being kept classified because of foreign government
concerns, I thought. Didn't you say that?
Mr. Collingwood. I mentioned we have 367 documents, but we
have every expectation that those will be declassified and
released consistent with what Ken is saying. It is just a
matter of going through the process.
So from our perspective, while it is an unknown, it does
not appear at this point to be a substantial unknown for us.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you. My time is up. Back to the
chairman.
Mr. Horn. I thank the gentlewoman from New York, and I now
yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Kurtz, I believe you mentioned at some point about the
condition of some of the documents that you have that are on
microfilm. And then I think you mentioned about some of the
Japanese documents that have been returned without any record
of them or without copying them.
Why were they returned?
Mr. Kurtz. Well, let me deal with the preservation
question, and then I will go into the Japanese records issue.
These World War II documents--and they are paper and
microfilm--they were created on very poor paper, and so many of
the files being transferred to us from other agencies are
crumbling. You pick them up and they are falling apart. Our
concern as an IWG, our concern as the National Archives, we are
not going to fulfill the mandate to make records available if
they are falling apart. So we have begun at the National
Archives to put together a preservation strategy to identify
the records that are most at risk, and if we are able to get
the resources required, we are going to start an extensive
preservation effort.
On the Japanese records, I received some information from
my staff regarding your original questioning, Mr. Chairman.
Apparently when the State Department negotiated with Japan the
return of the records, there was no provision for access. That
was not included in the agreement.
I would have to speculate, as far as the situation was
different with Japanese records from German records, I think
there was more extensive interest in the captured German
records. There was much more vigorous war crimes and trial
efforts in Germany in comparison to the Far East, and the
American Historical Association in the mid-50's was very
interested in these captured German records and put a great
deal of pressure to ensure that there would be copies of these
records here in the United States. So the government developed
a film and restitute program.
There was not similar interest with Japanese records at
that time.
Mrs. Biggert. Maybe I should ask the question of Colonel
Thompson and Mr. Collingwood and Mr. Levit, if the records
pertaining to Japan were returned with any conditions. In other
words, does the United States have any right of review of those
records that were returned?
Mrs. Biggert. Mr. Ben-Veniste.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. Perhaps I can at least raise the question
that we don't have a conclusive answer to, and that was the
fact that apparently the historical record reveals that within
our government there was discussion and, indeed, there seems to
have been agreement that a condition should have been placed,
or would be placed, on the return of the Japanese documents
providing for access by appropriate American Government
officials to those materials, on request.
That does not appear to have been reflected in the treaty
agreement itself, I am advised; but as I indicated to Chairman
Horn earlier, I think it is appropriate for us to undertake the
research with respect to that question--it is a very important,
perhaps critical, question with respect to these documents--and
report back to this subcommittee what we have found.
Mr. Kurtz. The IWG----
Mrs. Biggert. Mr. Levit or Mr. Collingwood or Colonel
Thompson, do you have any information as to whether there were
any conditions placed on the return of the documents?
Mr. Levit. I am simply not in a position to comment upon
it. I don't know.
Mr. Collingwood. The same would hold true for me. Our task,
when we turn to that, will be producing those documents which
remain in our possession, which we will be glad to do.
Colonel Thompson. I have no knowledge, ma'am.
Mrs. Biggert. Mr. Baer.
Mr. Baer. One of the things about the three of us is, we
are not in the government, so we are allowed to take a
nonbureaucratic approach. Assuming for purposes of argument
that they were imprudently returned without any right of
review, the ordinary person's suggestion would be that someone
should talk to them and ask them to please make them available.
I suppose that it would be very useful for the Congress, for
this committee, to advise us in writing that we should take
this up with the Department of State to have a bilateral
discussion for purposes of achieving what it is your question
suggests.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you.
Dr. Kurtz, have you had any discussions with the Japanese
Government regarding the return or review of these documents?
Mr. Kurtz. The conversation that I have had was with the
archivist of Japan, and our focus in the discussion was to get
a report from him to describe where these records went, what
repository in Japan has them, and what are the conditions for
access.
I agree very much with Mr. Ben-Veniste's comment about
doing some research on this issue and getting back to the
committee. We certainly--the IWG staff will do that first of
all for the IWG, and we certainly will respond to the
subcommittee.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. There is an obvious practical question
that is raised by the review of a large repository of Japanese
records, and that is that these records will be in Japanese. It
also calls into question the issue of resources to be able to
review such materials. So, seriatim, things lead back to the
same issue of resources available to us to do the kind of
effective job in implementing this important legislation that I
know that the Congress and the administration expect.
Mrs. Biggert. How many of the documents that--well, with
the documents that are in German with the Nazi documents--I
would assume that most all of them are, unless they have been
translated.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. A large number decoded were translated,
but we have already released a cache of captured German
documents which were in the original language; and perhaps Dr.
Kurtz can expand on that.
Mr. Kurtz. The bulk of the documentation released to date
is in English. As Mr. Ben-Veniste noted, the decodes that were
released yesterday had already been translated, and it was a
relatively small cache of German records that are now available
but not translated. The bulk of the documents released so far
are in English.
Ms. Holtzman. Most will be in English because it deals with
contact between American agencies and various foreign--and
Americans on the issue of Nazi war criminals.
With regard to the issue of Japan, I think once we get a
better handle on exactly what happened here, whether it was the
intention of our government and the Japanese Government to
allow, for example, access, and they just forgot to write it
in; or whether it was the intention not to. I think you need to
know that before you can take appropriate action, and we need
to know that before we can take appropriate action. Once the
facts are known, this committee can act.
I would hope that the Japanese Government would understand
that this material should be open in the interest of justice
and truth. After all, we gave the documents back, and they
should be open to American scholars and Japanese scholars. I
think there is a great deal of interest in Japan about this
subject, as well, as there will be here undoubtedly, too.
Mrs. Biggert. Are there other foreign countries or allies
who may still have some of the documentation that they might
have acquired that we would be seeking also under this
legislation?
Mr. Kurtz. We have discussed at the IWG trying to utilize
what resources we have, and I think that is where Mr. Ben-
Veniste's point--and also raised by Congresswoman Holtzman and
Mr. Baer about resources. With additional resources, we want to
contact the British and other governments to ascertain what
they are releasing, so we can create a unified pool of
knowledge, what they and we are all making available, and see
where there are gaps in information and documentation, where
there is overlap and where there is complement.
Mr. Baer. Mrs. Biggert, you should also know that we are
planning a major international conference with, I believe--Dr.
Kurtz, there are going to be 30 countries that have these
historical commissions?
Mr. Kurtz. Right.
Mr. Baer. Thirty countries that have historical commissions
that are somewhat similar to what we are doing. And so we would
intend that there be an international movement.
Also recently, in Stockholm, you may recall that there was
a meeting in which the foreign minister of Sweden spoke out in
favor of the sorts of things that this Congress has done,
namely revelation finally of these secrets worldwide. So the
point is extremely well taken.
Mrs. Biggert. Could the IWG advise this committee when it
determines the status of the Japanese records and whether we
should pursue a formal request, or not, if that is not
possible?
Mr. Kurtz. Certainly. We will make a report when the facts
are known and analyzed.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. Before I turn to Major Owens, I want to clear the
record here on the Japanese situation.
Mr. Bilbray has put in, with Mr. Lipinski, the following
bill, H.R. 3561, on February 1, 2000; and the essence of it
gets down to the records of the Japanese Imperial Army in a
manner that does not impair any investigation or prosecution
conducted by the Department of Justice for certain intelligence
matters and for other purposes.
Do you think that that bill is too limited in terms of the
Japanese Imperial Army, or how should Mr. Lantos draft it? What
do we know about the number of records that will not come under
the Japanese Imperial Army?
Mr. Kurtz. Mr. Chairman, I would think that using the
framework that Congresswoman Maloney and others who crafted the
original Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act would be perhaps more
useful. In other words, any bill that is just restricted to the
Japanese Imperial Army, does not get at foreign ministry
records, navy records or intelligence records.
So something crafted, which was very broad in the Nazi War
Crimes Disclosure Act, with the appropriate date span that
would have to be worked out for the Japanese records, I think
that--I would be concerned if anything is just restricted to
the Imperial Army.
Mr. Horn. I would be interested in another aspect of this.
Ever since I came here in 1992, along with Mrs. Maloney, I have
been worried about the so-called ``comfort woman'' situation.
Do you consider that under your jurisdiction in terms of the
exploitation of these women by the Japanese Imperial Army?
Mr. Kurtz. I would, yes.
Mr. Horn. My reaction is, we don't ever seem to get a
reaction from the Japanese Government. They just deny it--
sorry, denied.
I suspect that we will have problems with this, and what we
need is a Freedom of Information welfare group in Japan to say,
we would like to see the government's various documents. Maybe
that is the way that you do it.
Now, I am delighted to yield to my colleague from New York,
Major Owens.
Mr. Owens. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to welcome
Liz Holtzman, a former Member of Congress.
I would like not to be redundant. However, I had ``comfort
woman'' in my notes here also. Let me just try to summarize my
notes and ask a broad question here.
Are we dealing with a situation which has been caused by
official apathy, that nobody really cares about these records;
bureaucratic sluggishness, somebody does care, but we will get
around to it sooner or later? Are we dealing with a mystique
which surrounds this whole classification phenomenon?
I have gone to many classified hearings and been upset that
information we get, 90 percent is already in the New York
Times. There is a lot of tendency to classify and hold on to
things that don't need to be classified.
Are we dealing with a situation where something of great
value is being--a number of things of great value are being
held back? Is there some Rosetta Stone among all of these
documents that will lead to the discovery of some other
startling and unusual facts? It was a Swiss Guard, I believe,
who blew the whistle on some burning of records from Swiss
banks several years ago; and he set in motion a whole series of
events which led to billions of dollars being put up by the
Swiss banks and Swiss Government.
And also a fallout from that was the situation in Germany
where billions of dollars are being set forth for the forced
labor workers who were forced to work in German industry. So
there is a lot at stake in some of these records.
Is there some kind of conspiracy behind the scenes that
keeps them from being expedited with a great sense of urgency?
It has been over 50 years, and we hear about current
intelligence being imperiled by records that are 50 years old.
Statutes of limitations are involved, and some things you might
discover there is no way to prosecute certain kinds of crimes.
The Japanese have sort of acknowledged the ``comfort
women'' situation, but refused to apologize. That is a minor
matter compared to deliberately fostering epidemics and
infecting populations.
These are events which are pivotal in the 20th century and
in the history of the world in terms of the kinds of things
that have happened as a result of it. So I would just like to
have a response.
And let me start with you, Ms. Holtzman, in terms of what
is at stake here.
Ms. Holtzman. It makes a difference on a lot of levels.
There are some people today who deny the Holocaust. Just in the
materials that were opened yesterday, it turns out that British
intelligence was overhearing and listening in on conversations
among German prisoners of war; and they had captured generals,
and the generals were discussing a specific atrocity that took
place in one of the Baltic countries in extreme detail.
Well, someone could say, what does he know and maybe he
made it up. It turns out that there is one video that was taken
by the Germans of these kinds of atrocities where Jews were
taken, they had to dig the ditches and then were shot to death.
Hundreds of Jews, one on top of each other. The one single
video that the German army made is of exactly this description
of the incident that was given by the German general. That
provides stark and important evidence, a small piece of
evidence, that the atrocities took place.
What else was at stake? These documents also raise
questions, very important questions, that we as a Nation,
Britain as a nation, have to look at. I don't know if the
Japanese want to confront these issues yet, but the issues--
what was disclosed yesterday, did we do enough during World War
II to prevent the atrocities, or were the atrocities committed
against Jews something that is not even a footnote--that is
important to know about ourselves. Maybe this will never happen
again.
The other question that was raised pursuant to just
yesterday's revelation, a top aide to Hitler who was sent
directly to Italy to oversee the annihilation of Italy was
given a free pass for 15 years at the end of World War II. He
should have been tried in Nuremberg. Why wasn't he? Was he
given a free pass because he may have helped in the surrender
of the German armies in northern Italy? That is raised by these
materials.
Other questions raise other questions about the U.S.
conduct and the conduct of our allies, and Mr. Ben-Veniste
mentioned it, it is one of the great tests of a democracy, the
willingness to look in a mirror and learn what happened and
learn from our mistakes. Of course, there are other practical
consequences here, too, sure. Will some of this material be
available for survivors seeking assets? That's possible. There
may be some information with respect to the collaboration of
German industries; that may be here, too.
Who knows what we will find in the Japanese documents if we
ever get access to them, the atrocities that nobody knows of
yet that have not hit the front pages--``comfort women,''
countries have denied that they have engaged in certain conduct
and they can be proven.
For example, one of the claims that the Germans have made
is that their army wasn't involved in atrocities, it was only
the SS, it was only that evil group of people. Well, these
documents prove differently. There are some people who argue
that the German people were totally unified in their support of
Hitler and their hatred of the Jews and yet if you read these
documents, there was tremendous disgust among some of the
generals and their discussions of what had been done and
disdain for Hitler and condemnation of him.
These are things that we can all learn from, and I think
that the work of this--and who can say now all of the lessons
that can be drawn from these materials? But these secrets must
be made public, and we can learn a lot about our country and I
hope prevent what happened in the past, at least that, from
what is undertaken here.
Mr. Baer. I just want to respond to one part of your
question which is the issue of delaying or a culture of secrecy
continuing or some kind of foot-dragging that your question
suggested that you wanted to know about.
That culture has dramatically changed in the agencies
before you today. The three of us, the three public members,
along with Mr. Kurtz and the National Security Council, have
met with Director Freeh personally and with Director Tenet
personally; and I think it is fair to say--and the others can
speak for themselves--we were extraordinarily impressed by
their intention to put it out from the top of these agencies,
that these secrets were not going to be kept any longer, and
that the legislation was going to be enforced and then, from
the very top, the word was going to go forth.
This stuff is going to be revealed, so there--this has
changed. In fact, Director Tenet and Mr. Levit here today are
to be commended for the work they did in getting out the
material that we have got.
As to what is at stake, it is simply a matter of the record
of American history. We cannot make that conclusion, the
historians will have to do so, but the fact is that the America
of today, the America of today, Mr. Owens, is the America that
the world admires principally because of its efforts to defeat
the forces of evil during World War II. And secret from this
reputation and revealed to some degree has been a somewhat
checkered record with respect to what happened and what
knowledge was available.
Today's Washington Post says it quite very eloquently on
the page 1 story by Michael Dobbs. So continuation of this
effort is vital to liberty and democracy because it makes
available to us, our children and grandchildren, what the real
truth is and makes it known to people in government today that
you can't turn to somebody and say, quote, no one will ever
know.
Mr. Owens. In terms of resources, if the private sector
foundations were to offer enormous sums of money to help get
the resources that you need and the bodies you need to do the
declassification--and I am a former librarian, you need some
former librarians--would that be acceptable and speed the
process? If foundations were to offer----
Mr. Baer. We tried it. When we met in January 1999, with
Dr. Kurtz and all of us together, we didn't have any money, and
we don't have any money today. The first thing that we tried to
do was raise money, I know that I did, from a lot of people. I
went to some of the places that you would think that I would
go.
Mr. Owens. No positive response?
Mr. Baer. No.
Mr. Owens. Would you have accepted it if you had gotten a
positive response?
Mr. Baer. Of course.
Mr. Owens. The Army would accept it?
Mr. Baer. We are talking about the Interagency Working
Group, this level. The Army would have to speak for themselves.
But we actually entered into an effort to try to raise money
from foundations for the group that has been created by the
legislation. But we were unable to do so; I was unable to do
so.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. I think this was a very personal and
desultory effort to raise the funds, but we think the
appropriate place to receive funds for this public group is
from the Congress appropriating them. We have scrounged around,
and have depended on the kindness of the National Archives and
the Department of Justice for the limited funds we have
received.
Mr. Owens. We have a $200 billion surplus anticipated this
year, and we will keep adding money over the next 10 years. It
is a matter of how important is this to our decisionmakers.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. We think that it is important not only to
supplement the historical record, but also to demonstrate the
strength of our democracy.
As my two colleagues, Ms. Holtzman and Mr. Baer have very
eloquently stated, we have the strength in this country to look
at ourselves in the mirror and recognize that where we have
made mistakes, we can shine the light on those as well and
learn from them. This legislation is a very important
manifestation of the strength of our democracy, and it shows
the world that we are willing to look at these issues.
In terms of the culture of secrecy, yes, these records have
been kept secret, and I don't believe we have seen anything at
this point to indicate that it is the result of some conspiracy
or dark motive, but rather these agencies exist for the purpose
of maintaining the important secrets of our country in
connection with national security; and this material has been
lumped in with that generalization. We are dealing with an
appropriate culture of secrecy for the CIA and, to some lesser
extent, the FBI as well and the Army; but with respect to these
records, we can all say with a reasonable degree of common
sense, there isn't any reason to have maintained their secrecy
this long other than the inertial forces that continue.
This was kind of like turning an aircraft carrier in the
opposite direction. We are dealing with agencies that are based
on a culture of secrecy, and we have seen very significant
cooperation and personal dedication efforts which are
manifested in the resources that have been applied to making
this statute work and to provide the public with the
information that is contained in these records.
Let me say that one of the areas that I feel will be very
important from a historical perspective, in addition to
everything we have heard about, is the question of the postwar
utilization of certain tainted individuals, tainted by war
crimes, by our intelligence services. I think the exposition of
this information will stimulate an appropriate debate which
will be useful for us going forward in the future as to the
role of expediency; and when the analysis is made of the
postwar, cold war period, whether the expedient use of
individuals who had tainted histories was in fact, in the final
analysis, a disservice rather than a service to our country.
Only when these materials are released and historians have
them available to them for this discussion can those
conclusions be accurately reached on the basis of vigorous
debate.
Mr. Owens. I think my time is up, but the situation is
galloping into greater complexity that you have just outlined.
Right now, there is a new movement in Germany, stating that the
Holocaust helped to stop communism. I worry about the capacity
to retrieve these records having decreased. They are
deteriorating and decaying, and there are a lot of things that
you will never get after 50 years.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. The category of Holocaust deniers, it is
my view that they are in the same category as people who
believe that the world is flat. I doubt that this information
will change many minds in that category, nor do I care. I think
what is important is that the historical record is supplemented
so that people of integrity and intelligence can look at this
material and learn from it.
Mr. Horn. I have to conclude this hearing. We want to send
you a few questions, but it will go too long now and we have
problems on the floor and so forth. But I would like to ask Dr.
Colonel Thompson the exhibits you gave us, is that appropriate
if we add that to the record?
Colonel Thompson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Horn. Without objection, that will be put in the
record.
Mrs. Maloney. My office has been calling your office, Dr.
Kurtz. Are the documents up on the Internet now?
Mr. Kurtz. They are at the National Archives in College
Park, and I will make sure that one of my staff members calls
your office and assists with any access issues.
Mrs. Maloney. Great. We have not been able to secure them
yet, and we have been calling.
Mr. Kurtz. We will take care of that.
Mr. Horn. My one last question will be, will you review
these documents that might have been produced by occupied
countries--for example, Poland, Ukraine, the USSR, we talked
about earlier, and Austria which was occupied by Russia, at
least in the postwar period. Has there been any thought of
trying to--we mentioned Russia, so apparently they aren't in
the ball game, but what about Austria?
Mr. Kurtz. We really have not had an opportunity. We have
been focused on the task at hand. As we look toward trying to
have completion in the European phase of the operation, we need
to consider any other contacts with nations that we need to
make.
Mr. Horn. Well, thank you. I thank each of you because you
have done a marvelous job, and I wish you would let us know on
the monetary side. We can go and try to beg the cardinals that
run various and sundry things. It happens to be, if you are
under the Department of Justice, we just missed the vote; that
passed last night. If you are under the Archives, I think you
have got a fund there where you can solve some of those
problems.
Since I spent yesterday at your Suitland facility----
Mr. Kurtz. I understand that it was time well spent, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Horn. It was.
Mr. Kurtz. IWG funding would be under the Treasury, Postal
bill for the National Archives.
Mr. Horn. So, Mr. Kolbe. I will be with him in a few
minutes.
Mr. Kurtz. Mr. Chairman, I have some documents from
yesterday's release, some copies that you might find of
interest, perhaps using them with Mr. Kolbe. I will be happy to
make them available to you.
Mr. Horn. Without objection, they will be put in the
hearing record at this point.
I welcome--Dr. Kurtz, I would welcome a budget of sorts as
to what is needed.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2522.055
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2522.056
Mr. Kurtz. Yes. We will be glad to provide that, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Horn. Thank you all. With that, we have a staff that we
thank; and that is Russell George back there, chief counsel,
staff director; Heather Bailey, professional staff member with
this hearing; Bonnie Heald, director of communications; Bryan
Sisk, clerk; Bill Ackerly, intern; Chris Dollar, intern; Meg
Kinnard, intern.
And the minority staff, Trey Henderson as counsel and Jean
Gosa is the minority clerk. And we thank the Official Reporter
of Debates, Doreen Dotzler.
With that, we thank you all.
[Whereupon, at 12:02 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned,
subject to the call of the Chair.]