10 Times the US Government Worked With War Criminals

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re exploring the notorious times when the United States of America worked, directly or through programs, with those accused or convicted of committing war crimes.

Roberto D'Aubuisson

Before it was renamed from the School of the Americas to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, this US Department of Defense school had D'Aubuisson as a student. After getting his military training, D'Aubuisson would later return to El Salvador, where his alleged crimes took place as he joined death squads to wipe out opposition to the country’s leaders. D'Aubuisson would viciously interrogate political prisoners, earning the nickname “Blowtorch Bob” after his modus operandi. According to the UN’s Truth Commission, Archbishop Óscar Romero, who was known for speaking against the atrocities in the country, was murdered by D'Aubuisson and his team in 1980. However, he was never convicted of the crime, and D'Aubuisson died in 1992.

Jorge Rafael Videla

From 1974 to 1983, Argentina engaged in a state terrorism campaign known as the Dirty War. It was a time when the authorities committed atrocities against anyone they deemed against them. It’s estimated that up to 30,000 people were killed. A key figure in this terror was Videla, who came to power as president in a military coup in 1976. Argentina was a part of Operation Condor, through which the US backed right wing dictatorships in South America. Then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger reportedly met with Argentine military officials to support their Dirty War and advised them to finish before the human rights violations became known to Congress. Kissinger was then involved in several aid deals to Argentina worth millions.

Masanobu Tsuji

Described as a fanatical colonel in the Japanese army during World War II, Tsuji was a key figure in planning several war crimes committed by Japan. After Japan took over Singapore in 1942, he contributed to the massacre known as Sook Ching, where up to 50,000 people were executed. A month later, Tsuji helped organize the Bataan Death March, where up to 18,650 American and Filipino prisoners of war were killed following a forced transfer. After the war, Tsuji escaped prosecution before returning to Japan as a politician. However, he vanished in 1961. According to documents released in 2005 to 2006, Tsuji was recruited by the CIA following Japan’s surrender to spy for the United States during the Cold War.

Operation Gladio

Following World War II, the Western Union, followed by NATO, instigated Operation Gladio, a “stay-behind” project, where operatives were left in Western European countries to act as resistance if required. The CIA, MI6, and other intelligence agencies were said to be involved. It’s alleged that the operation secretly recruited far right extremists to destabilize left wing movements and instigate attacks. In 1990, Italy’s then-prime minister, Giulio Andreotti, confirmed the existence of Operation Gladio. In 1980, the project was linked to the Bologna massacre, where 85 people lost their lives following an attack by neo-fascists. In 2006, the US State Department issued a statement denying the violence allegations, instead stating it was a hoax by the Soviets during the Cold War.

Augusto Pinochet

Even before becoming a member of Operation Condor, Pinochet was involved with the US and, of course, Kissinger again. The country supported Pinochet’s successful 1973 coup in Chile that installed his military junta in power and removed the democratically elected president, Salvador Allende. The CIA and US Military even hired those involved in the dictatorship as contacts, despite accusations that they were involved in human rights violations. Pinochet and his government persecuted anyone with left learning views, causing thousands to be executed and up to 80,000 placed in concentration camps, along with many more horrible crimes. Pinochet passed away in 2006 as he faced hundreds of charges of human rights violations.

Klaus Barbie

Known as the “Butcher of Lyon,” Barbie was the head of the Gestapo in the French city during its occupation by Germany in World War II. He took great pleasure in personally committing atrocities toward prisoners, especially Jews and resistance fighters. Following the war, France sentenced Barbie to death in absentia. However, the European nation discovered that he was working for the US Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps for anti-communist spying. Rather than the States handing him over to France, they helped smuggle Barbie to Bolivia under the name “Klaus Altmann” in 1951. Thanks to the work of Serge and Beate Klarsfeld, who discovered Barbie, he was later extradited and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 before dying four years later.

Saddam Hussein

While an invasion of his country by the US led to Hussein’s arrest and execution in 2006, the two parties were at one point allies. Following the revolution in Iran, the US wasn’t too keen on the country spreading its ideology. So, they offered support to Iraq in several ways before and during the Iran–Iraq War, which began in 1980. As well as supplying intelligence reports on Iran’s forces, some of which Hussein blamed failures on, the US also gave armament and technology to the country. Some of this was reportedly used in Iraq’s chemical weapons. The US also provided Iraq with billions in aid from Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush’s respective administrations.

Gehlen Organization

With the title of “Hitler's Super Spy,” Reinhard Gehlen quickly rose up the ranks to lead Germany’s intelligence gathering during World War II. After Germany’s defeat, Gehlen surrendered to the US Military’s Counter Intelligence Corps, where he offered his expertise in spying on the Soviet Union. This led to the US, especially the CIA, funding the Gehlen Organization, which focused its operations on the Soviet Bloc of countries. Gehlen used his position to hire former colleagues in Germany, including those who allegedly committed war crimes. One alleged hire in The Org, as it was nicknamed, was Alois Brunner, who was heavily involved in extermination policies. Gehlen continued in this position until 1956, when he then headed West Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, or BND.

Unit 731

During World War II, Unit 731 was the Japanese Army’s secret research branch that developed chemical and biological weapons and committed horrific human experiments, mostly on prisoners. Within its facility, an estimated 14,000 people were killed, and up to a further 300,000 more died from the weapons it created. Following the war, the US offered those involved with Unit 731 a deal: immunity from prosecution for an exchange of data. The US then suppressed information about their crimes. One of the biggest names to partake in this deal was Shirō Ishii, who led Unit 731. After getting immunity, he was hired to lecture officers on bioweapons and allegedly helped the US in the Korean War. He was never prosecuted before dying in 1959.

Operation Paperclip

Following World War II, the US instigated Operation Overcast, which later became Operation Paperclip. This secret program involved the government hiring over 1,600 people to work in scientific fields for the US, despite many of the workers being connected to war crimes. Paperclip became heavily involved in the Space Race with the Soviet Union. Wernher von Braun, in particular, helped with the 1969 Moon landing mission and later became the first director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. However, while von Braun escaped direct ties to war crimes, others did not. Walter Schreiber, a physician, and Hubertus Strughold, a medical researcher, were alleged to have taken part in human experimentation during the war. Yet both were involved in Operation Paperclip, and neither faced prosecution.

Was the US justified in aiding these war criminals or did it go too far? Let us know below.