Senate Passage of Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, S. 1379

June 19, 1998

I am pleased that the Senate today has passed the "Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act," S. 1379. Nazi war crime records that remain classified for more than fifty years since the end of the war should be disclosed. Nazi war criminals should not be protected by government secrecy rules.

This bill is an important step towards ensuring that past wrongs committed by Nazi war criminals are not shielded by government secrecy rules. Rabbi Marvin Hier (the Dean and Founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center), the Jewish Community Relations Council, the AntiDefamation League, the Orthodox Union, the American Jewish Committee, and others, committed to teaching the lessons of the Holocaust have expressed their strong support for full disclosure of Nazi war crime records.

We should never repeat what happened with government records pertaining to Kurt Waldheim. In that instance, the Central Intelligence Agency withheld critical information from researchers about Waldheim's collaboration with the Nazis, even as other government agencies were placing him on the list of individuals forbidden to enter our country because of suspected war crimes. Moreover, an extensive Justice Department report on Waldheim completed in 1987 was then kept secret for six long years, before Attorney General Reno, in response to a FOIA lawsuit, released the document in 1994. The United States government should not be in the business of helping Nazi war criminals keep their past deeds secret.

The bill calls for the President to create a Nazi War Criminal Records Interagency Working Group to collect from federal agencies and make public classified Nazi war crime records within one year. In addition, the bill would give Nazi war crime victims expedited access to these records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). These victims are growing older and we should ensure that if they are interested in seeing these records, their requests should be honored as speedily as possible.

This bill recognizes the extraordinary and unique nature of the Nazi war criminal records. The United States should lead and fully participate in the growing international movement to open to public scrutiny official records on the conduct of particular governments and institutions during World War II.

It has been a pleasure to work with Senator DeWine on this matter in the Judiciary Committee, and with Senator Moynihan and others on reaching a consensus on this important bill. This legislation is long overdue.

[Leahy, the Ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is the leading Democratic sponsor of the revised Nazi War Crimes Disclosure bill passed out of the Judiciary Committee on March 5. Leahy, a long time advocate of more open government and enhanced citizen access to government records, is also the author of the EFOIA law (Electronic Freedom of Information Act).]