The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Nazis in America

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. It is now 32 years since the fall of Adolph Hitler`s Third Reich, but although that is now ancient history to a whole generation, the hunting down of Nazi war criminals continues even here in the United States. In January alone, four new cases entered the courtroom phase in this country. They are not on trial for alleged war crimes. Under U.S. law they cannot be tried for that. They can only be charged with breaking the immigration laws and, if convicted, may be stripped of citizenship and deported or extradited. But that`s where the complications set in. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, since the end of World War II, the Justice Department`s Naturalization and Immigration Service has received 213 allegations of Nazis living in the United States. Half of them were adjudged groundless or were against people dead or missing. Of the remaining 106 that were officially investigated the final box score as of now goes like this: one deportation; another ordered deported but held up through legal complications; nine cases for deportation or denaturalization now in the courts, and three more ready for court action. The questions that this record raises and the ones that we consider tonight are whether the U.S. government has done its best to ferret out and prosecute Nazi war criminals, and if not, why not.

A recently published book has brought this entire issue to public scrutiny. It`s called Wanted: The Search For Nazis in America. The author is Howard Blum. Mr. Blum centers much of its attention on three, specific cases: that of Andrija Artukovic, accused of supervising the murder of 30,000 Jews in Yugoslavia. He was the one ordered deported after eight years of trials but then not deported on grounds that he would be politically persecuted by the Yugoslavs. Artukovic is retired from the construction business and currently lives in Surfside, California. Second, the case of Valerian Trifa, accused of being a member of the pro-Nazi Iron Guard in Rumania and supervising the hanging and throat slitting murders of hundreds of Jews. He entered the United States after the war and became a naturalized citizen. Denaturalization proceedings against him have been in the courts since 1975. Trifa lives in Detroit where he is archbishop of the Rumanian Orthodox Episcopat of America. And third, the case of Tscherim Soobzokov on whom we plan to focus in detail tonight.

Mr. Soobzokov lives in Passaic, New Jersey where he is the chief purchasing inspector for Passaic County.

Mr. Blum, first, a general question. Based on your investigation how many Nazi war criminals are living now in the United States?

HOWARD BLUM: I`m prepared to accept the Immigration Service figure that 143, that`s the last figure they have told me, alleged former war criminals are living in this country. But again, as you said before, the most significant figure is the number 1. Only one has ever been deported.

LEHRER: What is your overall conclusion as to why the U.S. government has not done more to find these people and prosecute them or deport them as the case may be?

BLUM: Because I think the U.S. government is not committed to doing anything in these cases. I think there is a well concerted policy, a policy involving the CIA, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, people in Congress and the FBI which has allowed these people to come in and to live in this country, which has allowed America to become as-safe and protective a haven for war criminals as Argentina.

LEHRER: Are you saying there is a conspiracy to do this, or did this just happen?

BLUM: I would say there is a concerted policy, a policy which is pervasive in many agencies in the United States government.

LEHRER: All right. Let`s talk about specifics now in the case of Tscherim Soobzokov, the New Jersey man. What is he accused of doing?

BLUM: According to our Immigration and Naturalization Service, he is a member of the cases that the U.S. Immigration Service is investigating. This fact was published in the New York Times, and it was on CBS TV. The New York Daily News quoted a document from the Berlin Document Center stating that Mr. Soobzokov was on the roster of the Waffen-S.S. According to this Berlin Document Center, he also performed duties with S.S.- Einsatzgruppen. The members of the S.S. were volunteers. No one from the occupied countries was drafted into the S.S. According to witnesses living in Passaic County today, other Ser-Croatians, Mr. Soobzokov was involved in the gathering of civilians by the S.S.

LEHRER: I see. And what is he accused specifically of doing? Gathering civilians and then being involved in what acts after the gathering of the civilians? Where does the accusation end?

BLUM: The accusation ends, according to the people in Passiac County, just at the gathering. But we`re not trying to try Mr. Soobzokov of anything. We`re hoping that he will answer these charges that will come before a court of law, and this will tell whether or not he was evasive at best in telling us about his past when he entered this country. When he came to this country, on his immigration visa he stated that from 1943 to 1945 he moved with the retreating German army until he reached Villach, Austria. If the Berlin Document Center is correct, if these facts are correct, he was at best evasive. He has told the Passaic County paper, the Patterson News, that he was a semi-forced laborer, a transportation worker.

LEHRER: All right. Now, back to the situation in the United States. What does the record reflect in terms of the U.S. government`s actions against Mr. Soobzokov?

BLUM: Well, the case is still active now. According to witnesses . . .

LEHRER: Active in what way? As an investigation, or is it before the courts, or where?

BLUM: It`s active with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. They have said that the case is active. According to people in the Passaic County area, people who want to testify -- they at one time approached the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and their testimony was not taken. It was abruptly terminated.

LEHRER: What do you attribute that to?

BLUM: I don`t know. It is something I would hope Congress would look into.

LEHRER: Do you feel that the government has moved properly and swiftly against Mr. Soobzokov?

BLUM: No, I don`t. If Mr. Soobzokov`s past is as he maintains, if he was a semi-forced laborer, a transportation worker, I`d like to see those charges resolved one way or another. It should not remain allegations one way or another about Mr. Soobzokov`s past. Those should be resolved.

LEHRER: All right. Mr. Blum, thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: The case of Tscherim Soobzokov remains active according to the Immigration Service but won`t be prosecuted unless further evidence turns up. Mr. Soobzokov and his attorney, Michael Dennis, are with us tonight.

Mr. Soobzokov, how do you respond to charges against you that are raised in Mr. Blum`s book?

TSCHERIM SOOBZOKOV: Absolutely false. All his statements and the contents of that book. Absolutely all of them are false. I can say it openly and irrevocably. There is nothing true, and the twisted truths pertaining not to war crimes but to others twisted. But generally, 95% of that book is absolutely false.

MacNEIL: According to the Berlin Document Center which Mr. Blum has repeated, you were an oberstrumfuehrer or a second lieutenant in the Waffen-S.S. Is that not true?

SOOBZOKOV: Let me put this way. I wore that uniform, but I never was any official. I never was in any service by the so-called Waffen-S.S., and if we had time I could explain, but to make shorter -- unless you provide us time -- I never executed any orders. I never belonged to any Einsatz group as he said just now. I never participated in any form or shape with the S.S.

MacNEIL: But you did wear the uniform you say?

SOOBZOKOV: Yes, I did.

MacNEIL : Why was, that?

SOOBZOKOV: In order to save myself and to save about 35 to 40 people of refugees who were hiding from the Germans and the advancing Soviet troops.

MacNEIL: Yes. Were you employed by the CIA after the war?

SOOBZOKOV: No sir.

MacNEIL: You were not.

SOOBZOKOV: No, Sir.

MacNEIL: Were you employed by the OSS?

SOOBZOKOV: What is that?

MacNEIL: That was the Office of Strategic Services that proceeded the CIA.

SOOBZOKOV: No. I never heard of them existing ever.

MacNEIL: Did you work for the United States government? After the war?

SOOBZOKOV: No.

MacNEIL: You did not.

SOOBZOKOV: No.

MacNEIL: In other words, you deny everything that is mentioned that would implicate you in any way with having served in the German armed forces, having served in the Russian front with the German forces, having rounded up peoples in Rumania?

SOOBZOKOV: First, let me say one thing. In that book I had to laugh when I saw that special, one sentence. I supposedly was rounding up the communists and the Jews. For the information of that young man who wrote that book, in our territory there was no Jews whatsoever. We had a Jewish colony, about.300 kilometers, who were living with our people where I never went there at that time or after or before. They were saved like as in heaven. Our Serbo Croatian people, neither I, neither anyone of my ethnic group ever had anything to do with the Jewish people for the reason that they never were our enemies.

MacNEIL: Well, let`s discuss that with Mr. Blum. Mr. Blum, what is your reaction to Mr. Soobzokov`s denial of all this?

BLUM: I think tonight is the first time that I`ve ever heard tar. Soobzokov say that he was in an S.S. uniform, that he even wore it. What I`ve read in the papers, and what he told me when

I interviewed him, he confirmed the report that he was a semi forced laborer, a transportation worker.

MICHAEL DENNIS: May I, uh ?

MacNEIL: Mr. Dennis, yes.

DENNIS: I don`t believe Mr. Blum ever tried speaking to Mr. Soobzokov on the point, and I think it would be very interesting to find out whether Mr. Blum ever checked with Simon Wiesenthal in Vienna at the Documentation Center for Nazi war criminals. We did, and Mr. Soozokov was given a clean bill of health. It`s also very interesting that Mr. Blum never checked with the B`nai B`rith Anti-Defamation League, War Criminals Section which we did. He was given a clean bill of health. It`s also interesting to find out that Mr. Blum is not aware that the Mayor of Edepsukay #1 gave a statement to the Immigration-Naturalization Service stating first, that Mr. Soobzokov was never near the place where the three individuals were executed. Second, the Mayor said they were not executed by the Germans but were executed by their own people for excesses committed by them under Soviet rule.

LEHRER: Mr. Blum.

BLUM: I would just like to say that Simon Wiesenthal was contacted this week-end, and this very week-end he seemed to deny that. He said Mr. Soobzokov should be investigated. And, I don`t think now is the proper time to engage in a trial whether the people who talked to me in Patterson were correct or whether the Mayor was correct. What I would like to do is see the investigation proceed by the people who are qualified in the government agencies and have it resolved there.

LEHRER: There`s one thing, Robin. I think we should point out that our reporter, Jim Wesley, did contact Mr. Wiesenthal, and he said, Mr. Dennis, that his organization had never cleared Mr. Soobzokov, that they don`t clear people one way or another, and they had never done that. Just to throw it into the hopper.

DENNIS: I have a letter here from Mr. Wiesenthal, dated December 4th, 1974 in response to-an inquiry by a Mr. Rusak in New Jersey who is a friend of Mr. Soobzokov. He sent a letter on July 30, `74 to Mr. Wiesenthal. Mr. Wiesenthal, on December 4th, said he acknowledges receipt of the letter. He says the matter of Soobzokov is just being-examined by the Immigration Naturalization of New York. He-said the question is whether declarations he made when asking the permission to immigrate to the U.S. had been true. Then he says, "That`s all I can say about him. We too want no more than the truth.

MacNEIL: Tell me, Mr. Dennis and Mr. Soobzokov, yourself, how are you going to get your name cleared?

DENNIS: It`s very simple. Tonight we have started a law suit against Mr. Blum, Mr. DeVito, the publishers and the distributors for ten million dollars. We are providing the court room for Mr. Blum to prove the truth of his charges. We have done that earlier with the network that Mr. Blum mentioned, the CBS-TV network. We started a law suit a year ago in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and that is pending, and will be ready for trial in a very short time. So we will give Mr. Blum a full opportunity to prove the, truth of his charges.

MacNEIL: Do you have any further response now, Mr. Blum?

BLUM: I look forward to it. I hope that justice will be done.

MacNEIL: Right. Well, that is just one of these very complicated cases. Certainly the most dramatic question to Americans, perhaps, is whether or not the Immigration Service actively obstructed investigation and prosecution of such cases. Was there a cover-up and conspiracy in the U.S. government. One man who says yes is the man Mr. Dennis just mentioned, Tony DeVito. Mr. DeVito is a former criminal investigator for the Immigration Service. He resigned in 1973 and has completed a manuscript of his own about the hunt for Nazis in America, and he also figures very prominently in Mr. Blum`s book.

Mr. DeVito, you appear from Mr. Blum`s book to believe there is an active cover-up by agencies of the U.S. government which prevents prosecution of these cases. Is that so?

TONY DeVITO: That is my opinion. I stand by that opinion, yes.

MacNEIL: What evidence do you have of that?

DeVITO: Well, I didn`t realize that a cover-up was taking place until 1972 when Vince was working the Ryan case, and I got assigned to assist him in the matter.

MacNEIL: That is the case of Hermine Braunsteiner Ryan who is the only deportee of these cases.

DeVITO: That`s the only one, yes. During the course of that case, while reading the file -- I merely want to bring these factors in line. During the course of that case, especially at the beginning, I read a strange memo right from the outset, stemming from Washington. To break it down from bureaucratic jargon to simple terms, it meant roughly Mrs. Ryan has suffered enough. She is married to a citizen. You haven`t got the evidence, why try? Words to that effect. That`s a strange communication because throughout my career I never saw anything like it. However, that is not conclusive. During the course of the Ryan case, we were interviewing witnesses, and I was making a record of these interviews. Vince would review them periodically to see which ones he would desire for recall at a later date for the deportation hearing. I had accumulated about 12 of these 13 when an overnight break-in had occurred. I stored them in the Ryan file- cabinet, and I noticed the following morning about seven or eight of these statements had disappeared from the Ryan file.

MacNEIL: Mr. DeVito, what motive would anybody have in the Immigration Department or anywhere else for removing files or for trying to slow down the investigation?

DeVITO: What motive would there be. Well, I can only tell you this. Based on my experience at the New York office, these people took orders from Washington. Now, the motive if there is to be found one, you must start from Washington on. But in any event, I merely bring out the strange disappearance of the Ryan file cabinet documents. In addition to that, we had another strange event. I felt as if some secret documents, classified material, had leaked out to unauthorized sources, and when I called for an investigation I was told, and Vince was present, there would be no investigation.

MacNEIL: Sorry to hurry you along, but you also strongly imply in the book, or you are quoted as implying that this is the work of the secret neo-Nazi organization, Odessa. Is that what you are claiming? Is that what you mean?

DeVITO: Yes. Let`s put things in proper perspective. When I mention Odessa, you are mentioning a small organization within a large organization. What I really meant is a Nazi inter national, in effect, which has been accepted by appropriate authorities in the field. Now when I say Odessa, it is a term, it is a small term specifically for people who do not understand what I am talking about. But insofar as a cover-up is concerned, I believe that there has been a cover-up in the immigration Service and where it stems from remains to be seen. The only way we`re going to find out is if a thorough investigation takes place.

MacNEIL: Okay. Thank you. Mr. DeVito`s superior in the Immigration Service whom he has referred to a couple of times in the last few minutes, during the deportation trial of Hermine Braunsteiner Ryan, the only former Nazi to be deported, was Vincent Schiano. Mr. Schiano was the Immigration`s chief trial attorney in New York, but he resigned too and now has a private law practice.

Mr. Schiano, do you believe there is a conspiracy in the U.S. government to cover up these cases?

VINCENT SCHIANO: In this regard I do not believe there is a present conspiracy. I wish to make certain corrections. Number 1: Hermine Braunsteiner Ryan was not deported. There is no Nazi deportee.

MacNEIL: Extradited. I beg your pardon.

SCHIANO: She was extradited. During the deportation proceedings that extradition request came from the German government. Number 2: I do object to the use of my name in that book in such a fashion as to be deemed supportive of the observations of either Mr. Blum or Mr. DeVito concerning certain things. That does not mean I did not strongly advocate a pursuit of Nazis in the United States. However, observing proper and precise legal procedures with due regard to the rights of individuals. I do believe that we were obstructed in the Ryan case. There were no files missing. There were certain notes missing. There were certain, mysterious events, and I did not receive perhaps the support I should have received.

MacNEIL: How do you explain that?

SCHIANO: There may be many explanations not necessarily amounting to a conspiracy. it might be inefficiency. It might have been personally against me for other reasons. I believe

Mr. DeVito retired rather than resigned in 1973. I resigned. Now, concerning the other aspects of the Ryan case, perhaps we did not receive the full cooperation as compared to other cases I prosecuted. The other Nazi cases, I had advocated that there be an organized task force which eventually did come about after we perhaps went to Congresswoman Holtzman to support this proposition. However, at the present time in the Immigration Service I am more than satisfied with the integrity of the people conducting the investigations of these persons with they obtain, and they should be commended concerning results in the last three years. I know the people in charge of some of these investigations and have a high regard for them. What happened previous to 1973 perhaps dating with the Ryan case backwards, I think I would probably be disappointing and may merit or warrant a certain inquiry by a proper, impartial committee.

MacNEIL: Can I ask you this: overall, how would you rate the accuracy of Mr. Blum`s book?

SCHIANO: I do not subscribe to the observations and allegations. I do not subscribe to the idea of an Odessa infiltration of the government. We sought. Our search both for Mr. DeVito and myself I thought was to be a proper search for alleged Nazis in this country, not a search for sensationalism. I think that would be an obscenity upon the victims of the holocaust. I think we are looking for American justice, not sensationalism.

MacNEIL: How do you respond to Mr. Schiano, Mr. DeVito?

DeVITO: This is the first time I have heard Mr. Schiano speak along these lines. I`m really surprised and shocked. Now, I can say some things to indicate some foul play within government. I don`t know just how far I can go, but you must understand one thing. During the Ryan case, Ryan witnesses were threatened. My wife. They started to work on my wife. And I can tell you another incident where they worked on another witness in another matter, discouraging him from going to Germany. And I can tell you other factors which I had better not. They`d better remain within law enforcement. Perhaps we can get at the bottom of this thing. But the fact that I`m hearing a different tune tonight -- you have heard it; this is the first time I`ve heard it. However, since 1973, since Mrs. Ryan left, since then, how many Nazi`s have been removed from the United States, or alleged Nazi`s? None. And it doesn`t take no four years to move these people. It takes a hell of a lot less time.

SCLIIANO: I disagree with that. First of all, Tony DeVito was a great help to me during the Ryan case. I think he may be carried away by certain things. The Ryan case was started in 1964, denaturalization. And that is a complicated procedure. The American justice system works on the basis of evidence, not allegation, strong evidence to strip someone of their United Sates citizenship. Thereafter consideration must be given to a deportation process if that process is available based on the evidence and the law existing at that time. In the Ryan case there was a memorandum which might have suggested that perhaps our case of bars. Ryan should not be pursued that vigorously. it was a legal question.

MacNEIL: Can I just ask you briefly, both of you. Do you believe there should be an investigation of these matters? An official investigation of the alleged cover-up.

SCHIANO: Oh yes. I think that investigation should be conducted, and it should be focused probably on prior to 1972.

MacNEIL: Mr. DeVito, you evidently think there should be an investigation.

DeVITO: I think there should be an investigation. You`re talking about a list of Nazis that came into my possession which only was surfaced, right, not through me, through a dead man, Robert Morse, who called for an investigation back in `73.

MacNEIL: Okay. I think we`ll leave that there. You both think there should be a further investigation. Jim?

LEHRER: Yes, Robin. First thing I would like to say to Mr. Dennis in New York is I`ve been corrected. Our reporter Jim Wesley did not talk personally to Mr. Wiesenthal, but that came through a third party.

DENNIS: Thank you.

LEHRER: All right! The question of official indifference and corruption has concerned the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship for the past two and a half years, the subject that Mr. DeVito acid Mr. Schiano have just been talking about. On January 13, its chairman, Congressman Joshua Eilberg, a Pennsylvania Democrat, asked the General Accounting office to look into the matter. In his letter to the GAO, Eilberg wrote he was particularly interested in finding out if immigration had "deliberately obstructed active prosecution of these cases or engaged in a conspiracy to withhold or quash information." First of all, Congressman Eilberg, how do you read the record of the U.S. government in prosecuting war criminals in a general way?

JOSHUA EILBERG: In a general way I feel that we have had a continued neglect for some 30 odd years. I became Chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee a few years ago, and in connection with our oversight authority, that is to see that the Immigration Service and the State Department do their job insofar as the immigration laws are concerned. It became our duty then to look into the subject, and I found great indifference and feel that if our subcommittee had not acted when it did that the recent cases that have been brought to prosecution would never have been brought to prosecution.

LEHREZ: Do you think they came about solely as the result of pressure that your committee`s work put on?

EILBERG: I would say that our subcommittee was the major force in bringing these cases to this point. And I would say that this was the result of constant prodding over the past three years of the agencies involved: the Immigration Service, the Justice Department, the State Department. And I mean just hard plugging.

LEHRER: Congressman, you used the word "indifference;" you did not use the word "conspiracy." Do you feel, based on what you know now that this is the result of just indifference? And if so, what has caused the indifference?

EILBERG: It`s hard for me to answer that question precisely. I do not know yet whether there was a conspiracy. We have, as you said at the outset, started a Congressional investigation by the investigating arm of the Congress. I feel it extraordinary that over a 30 year period no prosecution has been brought. I intend to find out why. I know that over the past 2`h to three years that it`s been like pulling teeth to get these various agencies to work, and I`d like to know why it`s taken so long to move the cases that are presently being prosecuted.

LEHRER: What do they tell you, Congressman, when you ask them, when you ask someone in the Justice Department or the Immigration and Naturalization Service why it`s taken so long?

EILBERG: Well, we are told that they will -then do something else. Now, at the time that our attention was focused on this, there was one man investigating in New York this entire Nazi war criminal proposition for the entire Immigration Service of the United States. As a result of our initial efforts, going back a couple of years now, the Immigration Service assigned one man to each active case. They came back to us only after continued prodding to say that there were no eyewitnesses present in the continental United States against alleged Nazi war criminal living in the United States. It then became incumbent upon me and my staff and my subcommittee to visit behind the Iron Curtain, to visit Israel to find people in authority, whether in the Russian government or in the Israeli government, who told us that there were witnesses and that those governments were willing to cooperate. We then came back and put the pressure on the State Department, on the Immigration Service on the Attorney General, and it was only then, after these eyewitness accounts that we brought back of conversations with our governmental counterparts, that our government began to move, and we intend to remain with this until these cases are marked closed.

LEHRER: You`re going to go all the way. You`re going to get the GAO report, and if that requires further action from your committee you`re going to pursue it, is that right?

EILBERG: That`s right, and we`ll follow the GAO investigation very closely, you may be sure of that.

LEH EER: All right. Congressman, thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Thank you all in Washington, and gentlemen, thank you here. Obviously that raises a great many question marks. Perhaps we will have some answers in the future. Jim Lehrer and I will be back tomorrow night. I`m Robert MacNeil. Good night.