Dear Mr. President:
We would like to commend you on establishing the Interagency Working Group on Nazi Assets. We hope it will be successful in uncovering all the information and documents that agencies of the United States government have about assets lost or stolen during the Holocaust.
We are writing to ask that you take another crucial step in uncovering records and secret documents that our government has had under wraps since World War II. These documents would be instrumental in finally bringing to justice the Nazi War Criminals who committed these atrocities. As you know, our government continues to hide from public view information that researchers could find invaluable in tracking those who committed War crimes. We now know that our government had in its possession information and documents on Kurt Waldheim, Klaus Barbie, and Alois Brunner, among others. There is no more onerous example of the harm these hidden files can cause than the fact that Kurt Waldheim was elected Secretary-General of the United Nations while the Central Intelligence Agency concealed his wartime past. We know that you share our concern about the question that remains: what other information is in file drawers or warehouses today that could be used to bring these individuals implicated in the commission of war crimes to justice?
We respectfully urge you to fully implement the War Crimes Disclosure Act, which passed the House and Senate unanimously and which you signed into law last year. You can do this by issuing an executive order calling for the bill's implementation as reported in its original form by the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, thus declassifying information pertaining to Nazi War Criminals. The War Crimes Disclosure Act, if fully implemented, would close a tremendous loophole in current law that allows government agencies to block the release of valuable information on Nazi War Criminals using outdated "national security" arguments. We do not believe that researchers investigating Nazi War Criminals should continue to be denied information that is sitting in U.S. government files.
It appears that your Administration is moving in the right direction with respect to identifying and reclaiming lost assets. However, when it comes to Nazi war crimes files, we can and should move more swiftly. With the passage of time, all we have left in many cases is the documentation that could bring these criminals to justice.
The Second World War ended more than fifty years ago. It's time for the entire story of this horrible era in the history of man's inhumanity to man to emerge. We respectfully urge you to fully implement the War Crimes Disclosure Act by issuing an executive order calling for the release of information pertaining to Nazi War Criminals.
Sincerely,
CAROLYN B. MALONEY
Member
of Congress
TOM LANTOS
Member of Congress
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON
Member of Congress
STEPHEN HORN
Member of Congress
JIM SAXTON
Member of Congress
SUE W. KELLY
Member of Congress
ZOE LOFGREN
Member of Congress
JAMES P. McGOVERN
Member of Congress
FORTNEY PETE STARK
Member of Congress
MARTIN T. MEEHAN
Member of Congress
LORETTA SANCHEZ
Member of Congress
HOWARD L. BERMAN
Member of Congress
BOB FILNER
Member of Congress
CLIFF STEARNS
Member of Congress
ELIOT L. ENGEL
Member of Congress
JOHN W. OLVER
Member of Congress
FRANK A. LoBIONDO
Member of Congress
J.C. WATTS, Jr.
Member of Congress
CAROLYN McCARTHY
Member of Congress
GARY L. ACKERMAN
Member of Congress
CARRIE P. MEEK
Member of Congress
NITA M. LOWEY
Member of Congress
JAMES E. CLYBURN
Member of Congress
HENRY B. GONZALEZ
Member of Congress
BOB FRANKS
Member of Congress
THOMAS J. MANTON
Member of Congress
STEVEN SCHIFF
Member of Congress
JAMES L. OBERSTAR
Member of Congress
JERROLD NADLER
Member of Congress
SANDER M. LEVIN
Member of Congress
JOHN EDWARD PORTER
Member of Congress
STEVEM R. ROTHMAN
Member of Congress
WALTER H. CAPPS
Member of Congress
SIDNEY R. YATES
Member of Congress
PETER T. KING
Member of Congress
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN
Member of Congress
JOHN F. TIERNEY
Member of Congress
MARK FOLEY
Member of Congress
FRANK R. WOLF
Member of Congress
FLOYD H. FLAKE
Member of Congress
THOMAS M. DAVIS
Member of Congress
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA
Member of Congress
MICHAEL R. MCNULTY
Member of Congress
WILLIAM O. LIPINSKI
Member of Congress
SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr.
Member of Congress
RICK LAZIO
Member of Congress
MARTIN FROST
Member of Congress
LLOYD DOGGETT
Member of Congress
DANNY K. DAVIS
Member of Congress
THOMAS M. BARRETT
Member of Congress
MELVIN L. WATT
Member of Congress
DIANA DeGETTE
Member of Congress
FRANK PALLONE, Jr.
Member of Congress
JOHN M. McHUGH
Member of Congress
BARNEY FRANK
Member of Congress
SAM GEJDENSON
Member of Congress
LYNN N. RIVERS
Member of Congress
ROBERT E. (BUD) CRAMER, Jr.
Member of Congress
JAMES T. WALSH
Member of Congress
PETER DEUTSCH
Member of Congress