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Update on the Death of Alberto Nisman

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COMMENT: For more than two decades, we have been cov­er­ing the AMIA bomb­ing in Argenti­na. Alber­to Nisman–an Argen­tine pros­e­cu­tor inves­ti­gat­ing the tan­gle of evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries in the bomb­ing died under strange cir­cum­stances.

Key points of inves­tiga­tive inter­est in the case include evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries run­ning in the direc­tion of the Iran-Con­tra scan­dal and drug and weapons deal­er Monz­er Al-Kas­sar and Nazi war crim­i­nals resid­ing in Argenti­na. (The AMIA build­ing had a large archive on Nazi fugi­tives, includ­ing many report­ed to have fled to Argenti­na.)

In addi­tion, Iran­ian offi­cials have been named as sus­pects in the case. (We would note that the issues of pos­si­ble Iran­ian respon­si­bil­i­ty for the crime, the Iran-Con­tra scan­dal and the issue of the Nazi dias­po­ra over­lap, to a con­sid­er­able extent. Monz­er al-Kas­sar used Merex–a firm found­ed by ODESSA king­pin Otto Sko­rzeny and Nazi vet­er­an Ger­hard Mertins–for key weapons deals. Aya­tol­lah Khome­ini’s stay in Paris was financed by Fran­cois Genoud.)

A recent foren­sic exam­i­na­tion of Nis­man­’s death reached a dif­fer­ent con­clu­sion from the dubi­ous “sui­cide” ver­dict ini­tial­ly returned by inves­ti­ga­tors: ” . . . . The lat­est foren­sic inves­ti­ga­tion into Mr. Nisman’s death was car­ried out by a team of 28 experts. Over the course of nine months, they recon­struct­ed the scene where his body was found in his bath­room, with a sin­gle gun­shot wound to the head. They con­clud­ed the pros­e­cu­tor was killed by two peo­ple, accord­ing to the senior judi­cial offi­cial, who has seen the report. The foren­sic experts dis­cov­ered sev­er­al injuries on Mr. Nisman’s body — includ­ing a nasal frac­ture, a hematoma in his kid­ney, lesions on his legs and a wound on the palm of his hand — that they say are con­sis­tent with an attack on the pros­e­cu­tor before he was killed. Accord­ing to the offi­cial, inves­ti­ga­tors also said they found ket­a­mine, an anes­thet­ic, in Mr. Nisman’s blood, which they sus­pect was used to sedate the pros­e­cu­tor before he was shot. No gun­pow­der residue was found on his hands, which they said made the sui­cide the­o­ry implau­si­ble. . . .”

The largest trove of Nazi arti­facts ever uncov­ered in Argenti­na was recent­ly dis­cov­ered in the Buenos Aires sub­urb of Béc­car, near where both Josef Men­gele and Adolf Eich­mann lived. Arti­facts in the trove have accom­pa­ny­ing pho­tos of Adolph Hitler with the same or sim­i­lar arti­facts, which is pre­sumed to add to their com­mer­cial val­ue. And the over­all quan­ti­ty and qual­i­ty has inves­ti­ga­tors con­vinced that this could have only come from high-rank­ing Nazis, rais­ing ques­tions of who else may have slipped into Argenti­na with­out the world’s knowl­edge: “ . . . . They were put on dis­play at the Del­e­ga­tion of Argen­tine Israeli Asso­ci­a­tions in Buenos Aires on Mon­day. Many Nazi high­er-ups fled to Argenti­na in the wan­ing days of the war, and inves­ti­ga­tors believe that offi­cials close to Adolf Hitler brought the arti­facts with them. Many items were accom­pa­nied by pho­tographs, some with Hitler hold­ing them. . . .”

Nis­man­’s wid­ow is the judge pre­sid­ing over the case: . . . . The judge in the case is San­dra Arroyo Sal­ga­do, the wid­ow of pros­e­cu­tor Alber­to Nis­man. Sal­ga­do imposed a gag order on the inves­ti­ga­tion, so no fur­ther details were revealed. . . .”

Sus­pects have been iden­ti­fied in the case: ” . . . . One sus­pect iden­ti­fied by the police is not in Argenti­na. There are Argen­tine and non-Argen­tinean sus­pects being inves­ti­gat­ed, but no fur­ther details have been pro­vid­ed. . . .”

“As Argen­tine Elec­tions Approach, Two Dis­turb­ing Mys­ter­ies Loom” by Daniel Poli­ti; The New York Times; 9/30/2017.

Only a few weeks ago, Argentina’s midterm elec­tion was shap­ing up to be a duel over eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy. But in the final weeks before the vote, two nation­al mys­ter­ies have roiled the race. The left­ist for­mer pres­i­dent, Cristi­na Fer­nán­dez de Kirch­n­er, is run­ning for a sen­ate seat, hop­ing to make a polit­i­cal come­back by accus­ing her cen­ter-right suc­ces­sor of undo­ing many of her pop­ulist poli­cies in order to ben­e­fit the country’s elite. But the nation’s focus has already start­ed to shift, start­ing with an explo­sive new twist in the noto­ri­ous 2015 death of a pros­e­cu­tor, Alber­to Nis­man. Mr. Nisman’s body had been found only hours before he was sched­uled to pro­vide damn­ing tes­ti­mo­ny accus­ing Mrs. Kirch­n­er, then the pres­i­dent, of a cov­er-up . . .

. . . . Now, a team of foren­sic experts has issued a report con­clud­ing that Mr. Nis­man had been mur­dered, accord­ing to local news reports and a senior judi­cial offi­cial famil­iar with the inves­ti­ga­tion. That deter­mi­na­tion, like­ly to be made pub­lic in the com­ing days, con­tra­dicts the find­ings of anoth­er team of experts dur­ing Mrs. Kirchner’s tenure that there was no evi­dence any­one else was involved in Mr. Nisman’s death, mean­ing that hehad prob­a­bly killed him­self.

The saga of the pros­e­cu­tor has long con­sumed Argenti­na, for good rea­son. He had been in charge of inves­ti­gat­ing the still-unsolved 1994 bomb­ing of a Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter in Buenos Aires that killed 85 peo­ple. Before his death, he accused Mrs. Kirch­n­er and mem­bers of her gov­ern­ment of try­ing to shield Iran­ian offi­cials sus­pect­ed of play­ing a role in the attack as part of a deal that would sup­ply Iran­ian oil to Argenti­na. Sup­port­ers of Pres­i­dent Mauri­cio Macri, whose minor­i­ty coali­tion in Con­gress is expect­ed to pick up seats in the elec­tion on Oct. 22, say the lat­est report vali­dates their long­time con­tention that Mr. Nis­man was a vic­tim of foul play.

By con­trast, allies of Mrs. Kirch­n­er, who has denied any wrong­do­ing, char­ac­ter­ized the new foren­sic report as an effort by the cur­rent gov­ern­ment to fur­ther under­mine her image. Mrs. Kirch­n­er faces charges in sev­er­al cor­rup­tion inves­ti­ga­tions. But in the run-up to the elec­tion, Mrs. Kirch­n­er has a mys­tery of her own to point to: The dis­ap­pear­ance of San­ti­a­go Mal­don­a­do, an indige­nous rights activist who, sup­port­ers say, van­ished after bor­der guards took him into cus­tody.

The dis­ap­pear­ance has out­raged many Argen­tines, and Mrs. Kirch­n­er con­tends that the gov­ern­ment is sim­ply putting for­ward the new alle­ga­tions about Mr. Nisman’s death in order to dis­tract atten­tion from the case now unfold­ing on its watch. “This is an immense smoke bomb to hide San­ti­a­go Mal­don­a­do,” Mrs. Kirch­n­er said in a radio inter­view. Mr. Maldonado’s fam­i­ly and human rights groups have called for a protest on Sun­day to mark the two-month anniver­sary of his dis­ap­pear­ance. The lat­est foren­sic inves­ti­ga­tion into Mr. Nisman’s death was car­ried out by a team of 28 experts. Over the course of nine months, they recon­struct­ed the scene where his body was found in his bath­room, with a sin­gle gun­shot wound to the head.

They con­clud­ed the pros­e­cu­tor was killed by two peo­ple, accord­ing to the senior judi­cial offi­cial, who has seen the report. The foren­sic experts dis­cov­ered sev­er­al injuries on Mr. Nisman’s body — includ­ing a nasal frac­ture, a hematoma in his kid­ney, lesions on his legs and a wound on the palm of his hand — that they say are con­sis­tent with an attack on the pros­e­cu­tor before he was killed.

Accord­ing to the offi­cial, inves­ti­ga­tors also said they found ket­a­mine, an anes­thet­ic, in Mr. Nisman’s blood, which they sus­pect was used to sedate the pros­e­cu­tor before he was shot. No gun­pow­der residue was found on his hands, which they said made the sui­cide the­o­ry implau­si­ble. Two teams of foren­sic experts, includ­ing a pres­ti­gious unit that oper­ates under the purview of the Supreme Court, had pre­vi­ous­ly said that there was no evi­dence that any­one else was in Mr. Nisman’s bath­room when he died. Mr. Nisman’s for­mer wife, Fed­er­al Judge San­dra Arroyo Sal­ga­do, has long said that she believes he was mur­dered. Mrs. Kirch­n­er at first sug­gest­ed Mr. Nis­man had com­mit­ted sui­cide, but she lat­er back­tracked, say­ing she was con­vinced he was killed to tar­nish her gov­ern­ment. Julio Raf­fo, an oppo­si­tion law­mak­er who is not allied with Mrs. Kirch­n­er, said in an inter­view that a group of expe­ri­enced for­eign foren­sic experts should be empan­eled to exam­ine all the reports and make a rul­ing that is not polit­i­cal­ly sus­pect. “This is very alarm­ing; every­thing relat­ed to this case is strange,” said Mr. Raf­fo, who has long been con­vinced Mr. Nis­man was mur­dered, and has called on a judge to inves­ti­gate whether pre­vi­ous foren­sic exam­in­ers cov­ered up evi­dence.

Diego Lago­marsi­no, a com­put­er tech­ni­cian who worked with Mr. Nis­man, is so far the only per­son charged in the case, for giv­ing the pros­e­cu­tor the gun with which he was shot. A team of foren­sic experts and lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Mr. Lago­marsi­no have chal­lenged the mur­der the­o­ry, argu­ing that sui­cide remains the most like­ly sce­nario. The pros­e­cu­tor in charge of the case, Eduar­do Taiano, must now review all the evi­dence to decide whether to rec­om­mend label­ing Mr. Nisman’s death a mur­der rather than a “sus­pi­cious death.” The gov­ern­ment is urg­ing cau­tion. “We have to be super pru­dent with this,” the head of the president’s cab­i­net, Mar­cos Peña, told reporters in late Sep­tem­ber. “We have to wait for the courts to rule.”

While allies of Mr. Macri are focus­ing on the lat­est devel­op­ments involv­ing Mr. Nis­man, sup­port­ers of Mrs. Kirch­n­er have turned the appar­ent dis­ap­pear­ance of Mr. Mal­don­a­do, 28, into a ral­ly­ing cry. The case has rever­ber­at­ed across much of the coun­try, reviv­ing mem­o­ries of the mass dis­ap­pear­ances and killings that took place dur­ing the bru­tal 1976–1983 dic­ta­tor­ship. Tens of thou­sands of peo­ple took part in a demon­stra­tion over the dis­ap­pear­ance on Sept. 1, which end­ed in vio­lent clash­es between demon­stra­tors and the police.

Human rights activists have crit­i­cized Mr. Macri’s admin­is­tra­tion for quick­ly com­ing to the defense of the bor­der guards who evict­ed the indige­nous rights pro­test­ers in Patag­o­nia. Mr. Mal­don­a­do had tak­en part in the protest. Gov­ern­ment offi­cials insist that the search for him con­tin­ues. “I just don’t know what to believe any­more,” said Ana Patri­cia Bal­iño, a 38-yearold accoun­tant in Buenos Aires. “Every­one seems to be lying.

Many share her skep­ti­cism. A recent poll by Man­age­ment & Fit, a con­sul­tan­cy, found that three out of every four Argen­tines said they had lit­tle or no con­fi­dence in the country’s judi­cia­ry. Around 40 per­cent of Argen­tines believe that Mr. Mal­don­a­do will nev­er be found, accord­ing to a poll by Gia­cobbe & Aso­ci­a­dos in ear­ly Sep­tem­ber. Short­ly after Mr. Nisman’s death, 59 per­cent of Argen­tines said the truth of what hap­pened to him would nev­er be known. “The gen­er­al pub­lic is dis­gust­ed by the way in which politi­cians fight among each oth­er to win points with com­pli­cat­ed cas­es, rather than focus­ing on fig­ur­ing out what hap­pened,” said Jorge Gia­cobbe, a pub­lic opin­ion ana­lyst.

2. “Behind a book­case, a secret pas­sage­way leads to a trove of Nazi arti­facts in Argenti­na” by Max Bear­ak; The Wash­ing­ton Post; 06/20/2017

The inter­na­tion­al police agency Inter­pol dis­cov­ered one of the largest and most dis­turb­ing sets of Nazi arti­facts this month in a north­ern sub­urb of the Argen­tine cap­i­tal, Buenos Aires.

Agents became aware of a col­lec­tor of his­tor­i­cal arti­facts who they say had pro­cured items “under UNESCO’s red alert,” refer­ring to the Unit­ed Nations orga­ni­za­tion tasked with cul­tur­al preser­va­tion. This month, with the pow­er of a judi­cial order, they raid­ed the collector’s house, accord­ing to Clarín, an Argen­tine news­pa­per. Behind a book­case, a secret pas­sage­way led to a room where they found the biggest trove of orig­i­nal World War II-era arti­facts in Argentina’s his­to­ry.

They were put on dis­play at the Del­e­ga­tion of Argen­tine Israeli Asso­ci­a­tions in Buenos Aires on Mon­day. Many Nazi high­er-ups fled to Argenti­na in the wan­ing days of the war, and inves­ti­ga­tors believe that offi­cials close to Adolf Hitler brought the arti­facts with them. Many items were accom­pa­nied by pho­tographs, some with Hitler hold­ing them.

“This is a way to com­mer­cial­ize them, show­ing that they were used by the hor­ror, by the Fuhrer. There are pho­tos of him with the objects,” Argen­tine Secu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Patri­cia Bull­rich told the Asso­ci­at­ed Press.

The trove also includes a bust relief of Hitler, mag­ni­fy­ing glass­es embossed with swastikas (as well as a pho­to of Hitler hold­ing the same or a sim­i­lar instru­ment), a large stat­ue of an eagle above a swasti­ka, sil­ver­ware, binoc­u­lars, a trum­pet and a mas­sive swasti­ka-stud­ded hour­glass.

Mas­ter­minds of the Nazis’ Holo­caust Josef Men­gele and Adolf Eich­mann both fled to Argenti­na as their coun­ter­parts were put on tri­al for war crimes in Ger­many. Both lived in hous­es near Béc­car, the sub­urb where the new trove was found.

The 75 arti­facts found in this pas­sage­way pro­vide more evi­dence of sim­i­lar crimes. Police are now inves­ti­gat­ing how exact­ly the arti­facts made it into Argenti­na, think­ing, per­haps, about which oth­er Nazi lead­ers may have entered the coun­try unbe­known to the world.

3. “Tools used in Nazi med­ical exper­i­ments uncov­ered in Argenti­na” by JTA; Jew­ish Tele­graph­ic Agency; 06/14/2017.

Police in Argenti­na dis­cov­ered orig­i­nal Nazi objects from World War II, includ­ing tools for Nazi med­ical exper­i­ments, at a house in Buenos Aires.

The objects were found Fri­day in a hid­den room of the house in the north­ern part of the city. They are in the cus­tody of the jus­tice who is tasked with inves­ti­gat­ing the find.

“We are too shocked, too touched by the impres­sive find­ing, but also hap­py” to have made this dis­cov­ery, Argen­tine Secu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Patri­cia Bull­rich said Tues­day in a state­ment accom­pa­ny­ing a video pub­lished on her You Tube chan­nel to show the objects. Bull­rich called it “the biggest seizure of archae­o­log­i­cal objects and Nazi pieces of our his­to­ry.”

The judge in the case is San­dra Arroyo Sal­ga­do, the wid­ow of pros­e­cu­tor Alber­to Nis­man. Sal­ga­do imposed a gag order on the inves­ti­ga­tion, so no fur­ther details were revealed. But Bull­rich said she will ask the judge to have the objects donat­ed to the Holo­caust Muse­um of Buenos Aires.

The Argen­tine Jew­ish polit­i­cal umbrel­la DAIA will hold a cer­e­mo­ny next Mon­day to hon­or the Secu­ri­ty Min­istry and the fed­er­al police divi­sion that under­took the inves­ti­ga­tion. The min­istry also tweet­ed pho­tos from the cache on its offi­cial Twit­ter account, includ­ing pho­tos of the Nazi objects as well as Asian his­tor­i­cal objects.

A través de @PFAOficial incau­ta­mos obje­tos históri­cos de ori­gen asiáti­co y piezas con sim­bología nazi des­ti­nadas al mer­ca­do negro. pic.twitter.com/CO6lyTTFc8— Min­is­te­rio Seguri­dad (@MinSeg) June 9, 2017

“The main hypoth­e­sis is that some­one who was part of the regime entered into Argenti­na because the amount of objects of the same style is dif­fi­cult to find in pri­vate col­lec­tions that can have one or two objects, but not of this amount and of this qual­i­ty,” a police offi­cer who was part of the nine-month inves­ti­ga­tion told Argen­tine tele­vi­sion.

The police offi­cer said that some of the objects “were used by the Nazis to check racial puri­ty.”

Nazi puz­zles for kids also were dis­cov­ered in the cache.

One sus­pect iden­ti­fied by the police is not in Argenti­na. There are Argen­tine and non-Argen­tinean sus­pects being inves­ti­gat­ed, but no fur­ther details have been pro­vid­ed.

In June 2016, a col­lec­tor from Argenti­na paid $680,000 for Nazi under­pants and oth­er mem­o­ra­bil­ia.

Argenti­na was a refuge for Nazis after World War II. Adolf Eich­mann was cap­tured in the north­ern area of Buenos Aires in 1960. Nazi war crim­i­nals Joseph Men­gele and Erich Priebke also chose Argenti­na as a refuge. . . .

 

 

 

 

 

Discussion

One comment for “Update on the Death of Alberto Nisman”

  1. Did Hitler sur­vive WWII in South Amer­i­ca? That was the tan­ta­liz­ing tip a CIA agent, code-named “CIMELODY‑3”, sent back to his high­er-ups in 1955. It’s also one of the gems in the recent­ly released JFK files. Accord­ing to the doc­u­ments, COMELODY‑3 was con­tact­ed by a trust­ed friend who told the agent that a for­mer Ger­man SS troop­er, Phillip Cit­roen, told him that Hitler was still alive, had been liv­ing in Tun­ga, Colom­bia, and even pro­vid­ed a pho­to of the alleged liv­ing Hitler. The SS troop­er told CIMELODY-3’s friend that Hitler moved to Argenti­na around Jan­u­ary 1955.

    A sec­ond memo from 1955 was also about this same SS troop­er about Hitler’s pres­ence in the area. So, at a min­i­mum, it’s pret­ty clear that this for­mer SS troop­er want­ed to give the CIA the impres­sion that Hitler was still alive:

    Mia­mi Her­ald

    Hitler may have escaped Ger­many for South Amer­i­ca, say CIA mem­os from the JFK files

    By Josh Mag­ness
    Octo­ber 31, 2017 12:09 PM

    It’s regard­ed as a his­tor­i­cal fact that Adolf Hitler killed him­self on April 30, 1945, when it became increas­ing­ly clear that Nazi Ger­many would fall to Allied forces.

    But a hand­ful of recent­ly-declas­si­fied CIA doc­u­ments, unveiled with the high­ly antic­i­pat­ed JFK files last week, show that the Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Agency was inves­ti­gat­ing whether Hitler escaped from Europe and was hid­ing in Colom­bia in 1954.

    The first doc­u­ment, dat­ed Oct. 3, 1955, says that an unnamed CIA agent referred to as “CIMELODY‑3” was con­tact­ed by “a trust­ed friend who served under his com­mand in Europe and who is present­ly resid­ing in Mara­cai­bo (Venezuela).”

    That friend, who also remained anony­mous, told the CIA agent that a for­mer Ger­man SS troop­er named Phillip Cit­roen told him that Hitler was actu­al­ly still alive — and that the for­mer dic­ta­tor could no longer be pros­e­cut­ed as a crim­i­nal of war because it had been over 10 years since the end of World War II.

    Cit­roen, accord­ing to the doc­u­ment, said he had been talk­ing to Hitler “about once a month” dur­ing a busi­ness trip that took him to Colom­bia, where he said Hitler was hid­ing.

    The for­mer Ger­man SS troop­er also told CIMELODY‑3’s friend that he posed with the alleged Hitler for a pho­to­graph, which was includ­ed in the CIA memo.

    Cit­roen said he is on the left side of the image, while the man he claims to be Hitler is on the right. The back of the image said “Adolf Shrit­tel­may­or, Tun­ga, Colom­bia, 1954.”

    Cit­roen also told CIMELODY‑3’s friend that Hitler moved to Argenti­na around Jan. 1955, the memo details.

    Anoth­er doc­u­ment, this one dat­ed Oct. 17, 1955, pro­vid­ed more infor­ma­tion, cit­ing “an undat­ed mem­o­ran­dum, believed to have been writ­ten in about mid Feb­ru­ary 1954.”

    Accord­ing to that CIA memo, Cit­roen told a for­mer mem­ber of the CIA base in Mara­cai­bo that he met a per­son “who strong­ly resem­bled and claimed to be” Hitler in “Res­i­den­cias Colo­niales,” which was locat­ed in Tun­ja, Colom­bia. The doc­u­ment says that Cit­roen claimed many for­mer Nazis were liv­ing in that area — and that they held the alleged Hitler in high esteem, “address­ing him as ‘der Fuhrer’ and afford­ing him the Nazi salute and storm-troop­er adu­la­tion.”

    But the CIA remained skep­ti­cal — in a let­ter dat­ed Nov. 4, 1955, high­er-ups cast­ed doubt on the reports.

    “It is felt that enor­mous efforts (spent try­ing to con­firm the rumors) could be expand­ed on this mat­ter with remote pos­si­bil­i­ties of estab­lish­ing any­thing con­crete,” the let­ter said. “There­fore, we sug­gest that this mat­ter be dropped.”

    That appears to be the final doc­u­ment released with the JFK files about Hitler poten­tial­ly hid­ing in South Amer­i­ca.

    Even though seem­ing­ly noth­ing came from the reports, a source at the Depart­ment of Defense told NationalInterest.org that it’s still inter­est­ing some­one at the CIA spent any time on the case at all.

    “The source thought it wor­thy of send­ing up to HQ which is notable,” the source said. “Even at the time, those guys had to do a lot of sep­a­rat­ing the wheat from the chaff.”

    ...

    Abel Basti, an Argen­tine jour­nal­ist, wrote a book titled “Tras los pasos de Hitler” that tracked the alleged move­ments of Hitler through­out South Amer­i­ca and, more specif­i­cal­ly, Colom­bia, accord­ing to Colom­bia Reports.

    “I have a CIA doc­u­ment that says that Hitler was in Colom­bia, also a CIA pho­to of Hitler in the town of Tun­ja where he met with anoth­er Nazi named Phillipe Cit­roën in 1954,” he said, accord­ing to Colom­bia Reports.

    There was addi­tion­al con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing Hitler’s death in 2009, when U.S. researchers say they con­duct­ed a DNA test for an hour on what the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment claimed was a skull frag­ment from the Ger­man dic­ta­tor.

    The researchers found it belonged to “a woman between the ages of 20 and 40,” Nick Bel­lan­toni, from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut, told ABC News.

    ———-

    “Hitler may have escaped Ger­many for South Amer­i­ca, say CIA mem­os from the JFK files” by Josh Mag­ness; Mia­mi Her­ald; 10/31/2017

    “The for­mer Ger­man SS troop­er also told CIMELODY‑3’s friend that he posed with the alleged Hitler for a pho­to­graph, which was includ­ed in the CIA memo.”

    It was­n’t just a rumor. There was a pic­ture of “Adolf Shrit­tel­may­or” pro­vid­ed by this for­mer SS troop­er. But that did­n’t tempt the CIA into invest­ing resources into solv­ing one of the great­est mys­ter­ies of the 20th cen­tu­ry:

    ...
    But the CIA remained skep­ti­cal — in a let­ter dat­ed Nov. 4, 1955, high­er-ups cast­ed doubt on the reports.

    “It is felt that enor­mous efforts (spent try­ing to con­firm the rumors) could be expand­ed on this mat­ter with remote pos­si­bil­i­ties of estab­lish­ing any­thing con­crete,” the let­ter said. “There­fore, we sug­gest that this mat­ter be dropped.”

    That appears to be the final doc­u­ment released with the JFK files about Hitler poten­tial­ly hid­ing in South Amer­i­ca
    ...

    And it’s true that enor­mous efforts might be required to find Hitler since this SS troop­er Cit­roen told his con­tacts that Hitler had already left Colom­bia for Argenti­na in ear­ly 1955. But it seems like a stretch to argue that enor­mous efforts would be required to con­firm the rumors. After all, they had reports on where Hitler was stay­ing and even a pho­to. And appar­ent­ly a bunch of Nazis has been liv­ing there and treat­ing him with rev­er­ence:

    ...
    Anoth­er doc­u­ment, this one dat­ed Oct. 17, 1955, pro­vid­ed more infor­ma­tion, cit­ing “an undat­ed mem­o­ran­dum, believed to have been writ­ten in about mid Feb­ru­ary 1954.”

    Accord­ing to that CIA memo, Cit­roen told a for­mer mem­ber of the CIA base in Mara­cai­bo that he met a per­son “who strong­ly resem­bled and claimed to be” Hitler in “Res­i­den­cias Colo­niales,” which was locat­ed in Tun­ja, Colom­bia. The doc­u­ment says that Cit­roen claimed many for­mer Nazis were liv­ing in that area — and that they held the alleged Hitler in high esteem, “address­ing him as ‘der Fuhrer’ and afford­ing him the Nazi salute and storm-troop­er adu­la­tion.”
    ...

    Would it require an “enor­mous effort” to con­firm that there were a bunch of Nazis liv­ing in “Res­i­den­cias Colo­niales” and some­one that looked like the Hitler guy in the pic­ture had been liv­ing down there? Accord­ing to the CIA high­er-ups, yes, that would just require too many resources.

    And that’s part of what makes this memo, and the stun­ning lack of inter­est, so con­spic­u­ous: when you con­sid­er the kind of threat a liv­ing Hitler oper­at­ing in South Amer­i­ca would poten­tial­ly cre­ate for US inter­ests com­bined with the fact that this was the peri­od when Allen Dulles — some­one with an track record of work­ing with Nazis before, dur­ing, and after WWII — was head­ing up the agency and the US was mak­ing exten­sive use of ‘ex’-Nazis, the CIA high­er-ups’ com­plete­ly lack of inter­est in this mat­ter is pret­ty inter­est­ing.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | November 7, 2017, 4:21 pm

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