America's Nazi Secret: An Insider's History (50 page)

¹²⁰
CIC file on Arendt Wagenaar.

¹²¹
Ibid

¹²²
The Kasmowich incident is described in a confidential memo from the American consulate general in Munich, Germany (January 19, 1955). Following his arrest, Kasmowich was not only released but was later returned to the U.S. zone and given a job with the U.S. Army as an accountant. As of 1966, he was still living in Germany.

¹²³
Letter from Weckerling to Hoover. Copy in the AFOSI file for Emanuel Jasiuk, Bolling AFB, Washington, D.C.

¹²⁴
INS files, OUN/SB.

Chapter Eight

¹²⁵
Smith’s term as DCI is discussed in Select Committee Report, op. cit., pp. 36-38; also Corson, op. cit., pp. 323-26.

¹²⁶
On Dulles and Wisner, see Mosley, op. cit., pp. 272-73.

¹²⁷
In 1967 Stanislaw Stankievich wrote a monograph entitled “Byelorussian Literature Under the Soviets.” Stankievich’s immigration file stated that he served as chairman of the “Institute for the Study of the USSR” in Munich, Germany, from July 1954 to June 1962.

¹²⁸
AMCOMLIB’S activities were hardly a major secret. See
New York Times
, August 12, 1951, p. 17 (“Five Major Refugee Organizations Map Plans to Set Up Subversive Activities Center in Munich Financed by the American Liberation of Peoples of Russia Committee”).

¹²⁹
The American Committee for Liberation was founded in 1950 and its first broadcast went on the air March 1, 1953. According to their brochure, Radio Liberation was a completely independent venture from the older Free Europe Committee which sponsored Radio Free Europe. According to the letterhead of the American Committee for Liberation, 6 East 45th Street, New York 17, N.Y. (supporting the Institute for the Study of the U.S.S.R.), the Board of Trustees included Mrs. Oscar Ahlgran, John R. Burton, William Henry Chamberlain, Charles Edison, J. Peter Grace, Jr., Allan Grover, H. J. Heinz 11, Isaac Don Levine, Eugene Lyons, Howland H. Sargent, Leslie C. Stevens, Dr. John W. Studebaker, Reginald T. Townsend, William L. White, and Philip H. Willkie.

¹³⁰
Appended to the “Conference on the 450th Anniversary of the Statute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, sponsored by the Belorussian Institutes of Arts and Sciences and in Cooperation with the Ethnic Heritage Studies, Cleveland State University, August 31, 1980,” is a complete list of all the conventions held by the Byelorussians in the United States. It is worthy of note that several of the speakers were persons who were accused by the Soviet Union of having committed war crimes and atrocities, including Stanislaw Stankievich.

In discussing the recent wave of immigrants from Byelorussia who came to the Cleveland area in 1949-51, one commentator noted, “the progress of the more recent immigrants was quite impressive.” The children attended college, and the immigrants themselves had a very high percentage of professional members. Unlike most refugees, the new Byelorussian immigrants were mostly registered as Republican. Michael S. Papp, monograph,
The Ethnic Communities of Cleveland
(1973).

¹³¹
FBI File NY97-1251 (1952) describes some of the front groups formed by members of the Byelorussian Central Council “which governed Byelorussia under German occupation from 1944 to 1945.” The FBI report also notes that “all of its officers are now in the U.S.”

¹³²
At that time, the Argentine headquarters of the Belarus network was called the “Zhurtavnie Belorusau U-Argentinie” and was located at Calle Itapariu 2681 V. Alcina, Buenos Aires.

¹³³
Jasiuk‘s participation in the Ukrainian American Congress is described in FBI File NY97-1251. In the same file appears the notation that “another governmental intelligence agency, in report of September 19, 1950, advised that Jasiuk in 1942, when White Russia was occupied by the Germans, allegedly worked in one of the departments of the Security Police at Baronovichy, Poland, and allegedly submitted a list of Polish residents to the German Secret Service which resulted in some of the people listed being shot.” The FBI subsequently reported to the Immigration Service that Jasiuk was “trustworthy” and a good anticommunist.

¹³⁴
Byelorussian Independence Day, BAA
(New York, 1958), contains photographs of ex-Nazis with prominent American politicians.

¹³⁵
Philby, op. cit. p. 202.

¹³⁶
The extent of Soviet infiltration of the various ex-Nazi émigré organizations is described in Cookridge, op. cit., pp. 254-55.

¹³⁷
Sobolewsky’s letter to the Assistant Attorney General is contained in Department of Justice File 149-06-2-12, Section 4, May 19, 1952.

¹³⁸
By memorandum of July 17, 1952, James M. McInerney, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., advised the FBI that the facts submitted on the Byelorussian Central Administration (also known as the Byelorussian Central Representation) did not constitute them as an agent of a foreign principal as defined by Section 20(a) of the Internal Security Act of 1950. The FBI was advised that the Justice Department had decided to conduct a further investigation of the Byelorussians under the Foreign Registration Act of 1938 (FBI File NY97-1251). By memorandum of September 9, 1952, Charles B. Murray of the Criminal Division, United States Department of Justice, subsequently advised the FBI that he had received a letter from Jury Sobolewsky submitting additional information on the organization. On the basis of Sobolewsky’s statement, the Justice Department concluded that the Byelorussians were not agents of a foreign principal within the meaning of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938.

¹³⁹
Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks,
The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence
(Alfred A. Knopf, 1974).

¹⁴⁰
The Doolittle Committee’s “Anti-Communist Manifesto” is in Select Committee Report, op. cit., pp. 52-53 n.

¹⁴¹
The Harvard Russian Research Center’s program for interviewing exiles is discussed in an interview with Dr. Robert A. Bauer in the
New York Times
, September 5, 1951, p. 11.

¹⁴²
FBI files (citation deleted).

¹⁴³
Interview with Security Office, Radio Liberty, 1980.

¹⁴⁴
Stankievich was issued Certificate of Naturalization No. 9198868.

¹⁴⁵
Interview with former Security Officer, Radio Liberty, 1980.

¹⁴⁶
Interviews with DDP officers, Langley, Virginia, 1980-81.

¹⁴⁷
A copy of FBI File NY97-1251 containing the June 5, 1954, interview with Kushel was never placed in his immigration folder. Rather, a copy was sent to the central office of the Immigration Service under the title “““Byelorussian Democratic Republic, Central Council, USA.” The reason for the omission was significant. Within a year after his FBI interview, Kushel gave contradictory information on his application for citizenship. For example, in his FBI interview he admitted that he had become a colonel in the Byelorussian Land Defense for Police organized by the Germans. Kushel also admitted that by the time the Byelorussians fled to Germany in 1944, he was in command of several battalions of Byelorussians and he retreated with the German army.

¹⁴⁸
INS Memo for record, February 8, 1963 (Kushel).

¹⁴⁹
Immigration and Naturalization Service, File No. C75 14221 (Kushel).

¹⁵⁰
FBI files on Emanuel Jasiuk, quoted by INS.

¹⁵¹
Immigration files on Emanuel Jasiuk.

¹⁵²
Ibid.

¹⁵³
On May 12, 1949, Emanuel Jasiuk was issued Immigration Visa No. 5828/54 by the American vice consul at Stuttgart, Germany. On November 16, 1956, Jasiuk was issued Certificate of Naturalization No. 748 1379 by the Bergen County Court of Bergen County of Hackensack, New Jersey.

¹⁵⁴
FBI File No. 105-40098 is a 63-page book entitled
Byelorussian Activities in the New York Division
. The report is a summary of many previous FBI reports on Byelorussian activities dating back to 1951. According to this report, the FBI knew that “the Byelorussian Central Council (BCR) based its claim to leadership upon the fact that it was established at the Second Byelorussian Congress held at Minsk in 1944 under the German occupation” (p. 23). “In July, 1945, when the Soviets were threatening the Minsk area, the Germans evacuated Ostrovsky, Sobolevsky, and many other functionaries to Germany” (p. 24). “Sobolevsky stated that a German S.S. General, Gottenberg, [sic] who was the nominal head of the German forces of occupation, allowed the Byelorussian Central Administration to set up its own government” (pp. 25-26). “Under the German occupation of Western Poland, [Sobolevsky] was appointed Mayor of Baronovichy, and later was responsible for acts of brutality against the people of that city. In 1943, a German S.S. General, Gottsberg, [sic] named Sobolevsky chief of the ‘Zentral Rada’ of Byelorussia” (p. 57). “Sobolevsky in 1942-1943 was chief of the White Ruthenian Self-Aid Committee in the Minsk area” (p. 60). “Sobolesky said that it was true that the organization and he himself cooperated with the German forces in World War II” (p. 62). “The BAA (Byelorussian American Associates) as of May, 1955 had about 1,000 members including the families of members. It had 12 branches throughout the U.S. with the majority of membership residing in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Ninety per cent of the membership were new immigrants” (p. 35). “In September, 1945, Eshersbacken, Germany, there was a meeting of the members of Byelorussian Central Council and a new organization called the Byelorussian National Center was formed with Ostrowsky as its leader. The new organization was so-named so the members could avoid being called war criminals during the time of crisis in Germany” (p. 28). A copy of this book was also found in the classified file section of the Central Office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Washington, D.C.

¹⁵⁵
Letter of November 30, 1956, from Charles G. Dunn, Colonel, GS Chief Collection Division, ACSIKDOO. In their request for CIA information, the Army reported that:

Under the auspices of the German Wehrmacht, Kushel was placed in command of Belorussian brigade which subsequently was expanded into a division. Kushel was made division commander (two-star general) and fought until the end of the war. He surrendered to the Germans in what became the French zone of Germany. From there, he immigrated to the United States and is presently residing in the New York area.

¹⁵⁶
Interviews with Marc Masurovsky, 1980-81.

Chapter Nine

¹⁵⁷
The text of NSC 5412/1 is in Select Committee Report, Book 1, p. 51.

¹⁵⁸
OPC had previously floated several trial balloons in the American press. See for example the article of June 4,1953, in the
New York Times
:

A group of refugee East European politicians have proposed to their western colleagues the recruitment of a volunteer “liberation army” of half a million Russian refugees to form part of a unified American-West European force, according to an Austrian editor who acted during the war as a German army expert on Russia.

The editor, Dr. H. A. Kraus, has outlined the plan in [the] Salzburg organ of the Austrian Institute for Economic and Political Research. After pointing out that the United States is faced by the dilemma whether to try to defend Western Europe or let it go and trust air attacks to defeat Russia in the long run, Dr. Kraus observes that in the present stage of public opinion it would be impossible for Washington to send enough troops to Europe to match the Soviet army. But with the aid of refugees from Communism, who must be supported in any case as displaced persons, this could be accomplished, it is argued.

“The chief task of this ‘national liberation army,’ ” Dr. Kraus writes, “would be to strike the Soviet Union at its weakest point – that is, to mobilize resistance to Soviet domination of the Russian hinterland, to transform the eventual war from an imperialistic war to a fight for freedom ….”