CIC File: "Hands Off"
From the US Army File on Ante Pavelic: This the "smoking gun," the most important document we've yet uncovered from a file that sources indicate was picked clean, filled with disinformation and still only released begrudgingly. Mark Aarons and John Loftus note in Unholy Trinity that "Eventually the operation [to arrest Pavelic] was allowed to quietly die. The apparent determination to arrest this notorious Nazi mass murderer disappeared, just as Pavelic himself had seemingly done in May 1945... Senior US officials were then developing their own network of ex-Nazis, and were beginning to co-ordinate activities with both the Vatican and London... No one cared about Nazis as long as they were anti-Communist." (p 82-83). "GM" is Gono Morena, Agent William Gowen's supervisor in Rome, who was apparently told verbally by Grennan to forget this order and made a note of it to pass on to his subordinates - and to history.

 

SUBJECT: Pavelic, Anton

TO: Supervising Agent, CIC, Zone FIVE, APO 528, U.S. Army.

   1. Reference is made to SOI No. 5109, your office, dated 9 June 1947, which indicates information to the effect that Subject is reported living in Rome on the second floor of the Via Giacomo Veneziano, 17, stairway "C".

   2. Request advice as to results of your investigation at above address.

   3. The Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, MTOUSA, desires that Subject be taken into custody on sight and that this office be notified immediately when such apprehension is made.

 

BERNARD J. GRENNAN,
Special Agent, CIC,
Chief of Operations.

 

 

          New instructions: "Hands Off",
          Source Mr. Grennan & Lt. Col Hartman
          14 July 1947

               GM.

 

:: filing information ::
Title: CIC File: "Hands Off"
Source: US Army, declassified.
Date: July 7-14, 1947 Added: October 2002