Soviet Muddlers of the Nazi Crime Issue

To the [New York Times] Editor:

The accusations against the U.S. Government for hiding Nazi war criminals that recently have appeared in your letters column are fair enough, but there is another side to this issue. The Soviets, in whose hands a lot of evidence rests, have done a great deal to confuse the facts, making it difficult to get to the bottom of things.

The degree to which the Soviets have engaged in obfuscating the issue is now being revealed by Imants Lesinskis, an erstwhile K.G.B. agent and a recent defector to these shores. In his memoirs, "The Years of Servitude," which are serialized in the Latvian newspaper Laiks, he tells in great detail how he and his associates in the Riga K.G.B. engaged in writing books and articles accusing numerous Latvian émigrés of war crimes. Though not all accusations were inventions, very frequently, Lesinskis tells us, they were. In reference to Vilis Hazners, a man now being investigated by the U.S. immigration authorities, Lesinskis tells us that he had been charged with looking into his activities during the Nazi occupation of Latvia but after a thorough search had nothing to report.

Though the evidence Lesinskis cites cannot be taken as the final truth, it does indicate to me the difficulties under which the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has to operate.

Andrew Ezergailis Professor, Department of History
Ithaca College Ithaca, N.Y., Oct. 31, 1979