I
106TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION
H. R. 5432
To amend the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act to extend and modify the
functions of the Nazi War Criminal Records Interagency Working Group
to cover records of the Japanese Imperial Government, and for other
purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
OCTOBER 10, 2000
Mrs. MALONEY of New York (for herself and Mr. LANTOS) introduced the
following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Government Reform
A BILL
To amend the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act to extend
and modify the functions of the Nazi War Criminal
Records Interagency Working Group to cover records
of the Japanese Imperial Government, and for other
purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Nazi War Crimes and
Japanese Imperial Government Disclosure Act’’.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress makes the following findings:
(1) In 1998, Congress adopted the Nazi War
Crimes Disclosure Act (Public Law 105–246) re-
quiring the executive branch to identify any still-
classified records in its custody relating to Nazi war
crimes, war criminals, persecution, and looted assets
and to declassify and release such records to the
American public. Under that Act, the President es-
tablished the Nazi War Criminal Records Inter-
agency Working Group (in this section referred to as
the ‘‘Interagency Group’’) to carry out the functions
required by that Act.
(2) In its first year, the Interagency Group
screened more than 600,000,000 pages of material
relating to Nazi war crimes and has declassified
1,500,000 pages of such material and opened them
to the public at the National Archives.
(3) While the Interagency Group has worked
diligently to screen materials and declassify millions
of pages of material, the limited staff and funding
available to the Interagency Group threaten its abil-
ity to complete the functions required by the Nazi
War Crimes Disclosure Act.
(4) Already, significant new information about
the Holocaust has been revealed in the more than
400,000 records of the Office of Strategic Services
that were released by the Interagency Group at the
National Archives on June 26, 2000. However, fur-
ther such revelations depend on the availability of
adequate staff support and funding for the Inter-
agency Group.
(5) The remarkable progress made by the Inter-
agency Group has been achieved even though Con-
gress has not appropriated funds for the support of
the Interagency Group or for the activities carried
out by the various Federal agencies which hold
records subject to its functions. Without the re-
sources to review the materials being released, it will
be years before the significance of the contents of
such materials will be understood.
(6) The Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act
charged the Interagency Group with reviewing all
records that pertain to World War II, under the di-
rection of, or in association with the Nazi govern-
ment of Germany, any government occupied by the
military of the Nazi government, and any govern-
ment that was an ally of the Nazi government,
which includes the Japanese Imperial Government.
(7) After the end of World War II, the United
States returned more than 18,000,000 pages of cap-
tured Japanese records to the Japanese Government
at its request.
(8) In order to complete the Congressional di-
rectives of the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, the
Interagency Group should review the materials that
were returned to Japan. Therefore, the full coopera-
tion of the Japanese Government in granting access
to the Interagency Group and assisting in the review
of all World War II records is desired to insure that
these historic records can be reviewed, released, or
otherwise made available to the public in a timely
and efficient manner.
(9) The Interagency Group has been working
diligently to fulfill its charge under the Nazi War
Crimes Disclosure Act, but the original three-year
authorization of the Interagency Group under that
Act does not allow for the completion of the momen-
tous tasks outlined in that Act, specifically the com-
pletion of the review of the records pertaining to the
Japanese Government.
SEC. 3. EXTENSION AND MODIFICATION OF AUTHORITY OF
NAZI 
WAR 
CRIMINAL 
RECORDS 
INTER-
AGENCY WORKING GROUP TO COVER JAPA-
NESE IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT RECORDS.
(a) AMENDMENT TO TITLE.—Section 1 of the Nazi
War Crimes Disclosure Act (Public Law 105–246; 112
Stat. 1859; 5 U.S.C. 552 note) is amended by striking
‘‘Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act’’ and inserting ‘‘Nazi
War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Disclo-
sure Act’’.
(b) EXTENSION OF AUTHORITY.—Section 2(b)(1) of
such Act is amended by striking ‘‘3 years’’ and inserting
‘‘5 years’’.
(c) MEMBERSHIP.—Section 2(b)(2) of such Act is
amended by striking ‘‘3 other persons’’ and inserting ‘‘4
other persons, who shall be members of the public and
of whom 3 shall be persons appointed to the Interagency
Group before the date of the enactment of the Nazi War
Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Disclosure
Act’’.
(d) FUNCTIONS REGARDING JAPANESE IMPERIAL
GOVERNMENT RECORDS.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—Section 2(c)(1) of such Act
is amended by inserting ‘‘and all classified Japanese
Imperial Government records of the United States’’
after ‘‘of the United States’’.
(2) DEFINITION OF JAPANESE IMPERIAL GOV-
ERNMENT
RECORDS.—Section 3 of such Act is
amended—
(A) by redesignating subsections (b) and
(c) as subsections (c) and (d), respectively; and
(B) by inserting after subsection (a) the
following new subsection (b):
‘‘(b) 
JAPANESE
IMPERIAL
GOVERNMENT
RECORDS.—For purposes of this Act, the term ‘Japanese
Imperial Government records’ means classified records or
portions of records that pertain to any person with respect
to whom the United States Government, in its sole discre-
tion, has grounds to believe ordered, incited, assisted, or
otherwise participated in the persecution of any person be-
cause of race, gender, religion, national origin, or political
opinion, during the period beginning September 18, 1931,
and ending on September 2, 1945, under the direction of,
or in association with—
‘‘(1) the Japanese Imperial Army;
‘‘(2) the Japanese Imperial Government;
‘‘(3) any government in any area occupied by
the military forces of the Japanese Imperial Army;
‘‘(4) any government established with the as-
sistance or cooperation of the Japanese Imperial
Army or Japanese Imperial Government; or
‘‘(5) any government which was an ally of the
Japanese Imperial Government.’’.
(3) APPLICATION OF EXEMPTIONS.—Paragraph
(3)(A) of section 3(c) of such Act, as redesignated
by paragraph (2)(A) of this section, is amended to
read as follows:
‘‘(A) IN
GENERAL.—In applying the ex-
emptions 
provided 
in 
subparagraphs 
(B)
through (J) of paragraph (2), there shall be a
presumption that the public interest will be
served by disclosure and release of the Nazi war
criminal records or Japanese Imperial Govern-
ment records, as the case may be. The exemp-
tion may be asserted only when the head of the
agency that maintains the records determines
that disclosure and release would be harmful to
a specific interest identified in the exemption.
An agency head who makes such a determina-
tion shall promptly report such determination
to the committees of Congress with appropriate
jurisdiction, including the Committee on the Ju-
diciary and the Select Committee on Intel-
ligence of the Senate and the Committee on
Government Reform and Oversight and the
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of
the House of Representatives. The exemptions
set forth in paragraph (2) shall constitute the
only authority pursuant to which an agency
head may exempt records otherwise subject to
release under paragraph (1).’’.
(4) CONFORMING AMENDMENTS.—Such Act is
further amended as follows:
(A) In section 2(a)—
(i) by striking ‘‘and’’ at the end of
paragraph (3);
(ii) by striking paragraph (4); and
(iii) by adding after paragraph (3) the
following new paragraphs:
‘‘(4) ‘Japanese Imperial Government records’
has the meaning given such term under section 3(b)
of this Act; and
‘‘(5) ‘record’ means a Nazi war criminal record
or a Japanese Imperial Government record.’’.
(B) In section 3(c)(1), as redesignated by
paragraph (2)(A) of this subsection, by insert-
ing 
‘‘and 
Japanese 
Imperial 
Government
records’’ after ‘‘Nazi war criminal records’’.
(C) In section 4(d), as so redesignated, by
inserting ‘‘or Japanese Imperial Government
record’’ after ‘‘Nazi war criminal record’’.
(D) In section 4, by inserting ‘‘or Japanese
Imperial Government record’’ after ‘‘Nazi war
criminal record’’ each place it appears.
(e) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.—Section
2(d) of such Act is amended to read as follows:
‘‘(d) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.—There
are authorized to be appropriated for the Interagency
Group to carry out this section, $5,000,000 for each of
fiscal years 2001, 2002 and 2003.’’.
(f) RECORDS INCLUDED.—Section 3(a)(2)(A) of such
Act is amended by striking ‘‘beginning on March 23,
1933, and ending on May 8, 1945’’ and inserting ‘‘begin-
ning on January 1, 1931, and ending on September 2,
1945’’.
(g) MODIFICATION
OF
NAME
OF
INTERAGENCY
GROUP.—Such Act is amended by striking ‘‘Nazi War
Criminal Records Interagency Working Group’’ each place
it appears and inserting ‘‘Nazi War Crimes and Japanese
Imperial Government Records Interagency Working
Group’’.
(h) CLERICAL AMENDMENTS.—(1) The section head-
ing of section 2 of such Act is amended to read as follows:
‘‘SEC. 2. ESTABLISHMENT OF NAZI WAR CRIMES AND JAPA-
NESE 
IMPERIAL 
GOVERNMENT 
RECORDS
INTERAGENCY WORKING GROUP.’’.
(2) The section heading of section 3 of such Act is
amended to read as follows:
‘‘SEC. 3. REQUIREMENT OF DISCLOSURE OF NAZI WAR
CRIMINAL RECORDS AND JAPANESE IMPE-
RIAL GOVERNMENT RECORDS.’’.
(3) The section heading of section 4 of such Act is
amended to read as follows:
‘‘SEC. 4. EXPEDITED PROCESSING OF FOIA REQUESTS FOR
NAZI WAR CRIMINAL RECORDS AND JAPA-
NESE IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT RECORDS.’’.
SEC. 4. REPORT ON ACTIVITIES OF NAZI WAR CRIMES AND
JAPANESE IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT INTER-
AGENCY WORKING GROUP.
(a) REPORT REQUIRED.—Not later than 1 year after
the date of the enactment of this Act, the Nazi War
Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Interagency
Working Group shall submit to Congress, including the
committees of Congress specified in subsection (b), a re-
port on the activities of the Interagency Group under the
Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Dis-
closure Act, as amended by section 3 of this Act, during
the one-year period ending on the date of the report. The
report shall describe the activities of the Interagency
Group and applicable Federal agencies under section 2(c)
of that Act, as so amended, and include a description of
the records processed by the Interagency Group under
that Act (including the disposition of such records).
(b) COMMITTEES OF CONGRESS.—The committees of
Congress specified in this subsection are as follows:
(1) The Committee on the Judiciary and the
Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate.
(2) The Committee on the Judiciary, the Com-
mittee on Government Reform and Oversight, and
the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of
the House of Representatives.
SEC. 5. SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING COOPERATION
OF FOREIGN NATIONS.
It is the sense of Congress that foreign nations, and
in particular Japan, should make every effort possible to
make its records available to and cooperate with the Nazi
War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records
Interagency Working Group established by section 2 of the
Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Dis-
closure Act, as amended by section 3 of this Act, in car-
rying out the duties of the Interagency Group under such
Act, as so amended.
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