Ryan, Allan A., Jr. Quiet Neighbors: Prosecuting Nazi War Criminals in America. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984. 386 pages.

When Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman took over the chair of the Immigration subcommittee in January 1979, she was also an emerging power on the full Judiciary committee. Attorney General Griffin Bell had to toss her a bone, so later that year the jurisdiction over Nazi prosecutions was passed from the INS to the newly-formed Office of Special Investigations.

The first three chapters offer some background, from the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 through the 30 years of INS inaction, on to the Moscow Agreement of 1980 that gave OSI access to documents and witnesses. Other chapters treat case histories. OSI director Ryan's major success story is John Demjanjuk, who was finally deported in 1986. (As this is being written in late 1992, this case has been reopened. Former OSI prosecutor George Parker has testified that his superiors weren't interested in evidence of possible mistaken identity, and he subsequently quit the agency in disgust.) There is also a chapter on Klaus Barbie. The dust jacket describes Ryan's report on Barbie's connections to U.S. intelligence as one "which received international acclaim for its thoroughness and honesty." (Actually, most historians feel that Ryan's 200-page 1983 report was a whitewash -- see, for example, "Blowback" by Christopher Simpson.) Still, Ryan's book is valuable as a primary source for the record.
ISBN 0-15-175823-9

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