CIA made Sweden act for Wallenberg: report

The American intelligence service CIA prompted an investigation by Sweden into the Wallenberg case in the 1970s, using false witness statements from a Hungarian couple resident in the US, according to a new book by Swedish author Ingrid Carlberg.

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“It was supposed to look like a grass root campaign, but President Carter’s closest advisor, Stuart Eizenstat, was friends with the couple and he has confirmed to me that it was the American government that was behind these attempts of making Sweden act,” Carlberg told DN.

Despite his efforts on behalf of Hungary's Jews, the fate of diplomat Wallenberg, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday in August, is still shrouded in mystery.

Wallenberg was detained by Soviet forces in 1945 and later disappeared. In 1957, the Soviet's issued a statement saying that Wallenberg died of a heart attack in 1947, but the exact circumstances of his death remain a mystery.

A recent book by Swedish historian Bengt Jangfeldt has suggested that one cause of Wallenberg's arrest by the Soviets and Sweden's reluctance to act on his behalf, was a hidden gold treasure in the car he was travelling in.

According to Carlberg’s book ”Det står ett rum här och väntar på dig... ” (“There’s a room here waiting for you…”) which spans from his childhood and into present day, Sweden had been passive in the Wallenberg investigation since the 1960s and only new facts would convince them to act in order to get clarity in the Wallenberg disappearance.

“But during the last few years of the 1970s there was a sudden interest raised in the US, and I was curious as to why that was,” she said to Dagens Nyheter (DN).

To Carter, Carlberg writes, “Raoul Wallenberg was the ultimate example of the evil in the Soviet system. He wasn’t just wrongfully imprisoned by communists. He was also the hero from the Budapest of WWII that many American Jews had to thank for their lives.”

The Hungarian couple was called Lantos, and they have subsequently admitted to their role in the campaign acted as grass roots and Raoul Wallenberg was put on the US state department’s list of prioritized political prisoners, according to the paper.

In 1977 Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal presented a false witness, who had allegedly seen Wallenberg in a Soviet prison camp, according to Carlberg.

In several other international news outlets, among others the Washington Post and the German ZDF, the CIA planted another witness, which was also false, ultimately leading to the internationalization of the Wallenberg affair.

According to Carlberg, it was all done to increase anti-Soviet sentiments, in Sweden in particular.

Carlberg thinks that her revelations will cause quite a stir, especially in the Swedish corridors of power.

“Many will be surprised. I have outlined the political game behind a historic change – the internationalization of the Wallenberg case,” Carlberg told DN.

The Local/rm
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