Editorial

Bush Signs Law on Release of CIA-Nazi Documents

30 minutes ago

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - President Bush signed legislation into law on Friday extending by two years the life of a government panel charged with declassifying CIA documents that detail the spy agency's ties to former Nazis and war criminals.

The legislation, which won final congressional approval earlier this month, clears the way for the release of thousands of documents on former Nazis, including some who assisted in the CIA's Cold War espionage against the former Soviet Union.

The Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group was established by the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act of 1998 and had been set to disband by the end of this month.

The bill approved by Congress would extend the group's life through March 2007.

The Nazi war crimes act requires federal agencies to provide the working group with all documents pertaining to Nazi war criminals for possible declassification and release.

The CIA, which has already turned over an estimated 1.25 million pages of documents, refused to release hundreds of thousands more -- many dealing with its postwar ties to Nazis who have not been accused of war crimes.

The U.S. spy agency relented this month and agreed in principle to release more documents after Republican Sen. Mike DeWine of Ohio, a prominent backer of the legislation, demanded CIA Director Porter Goss explain the CIA's position at a public hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The working group includes officials from the National Archives, the CIA, FBI, Pentagon and other agencies.