Loftus is an author of numerous books on a purported CIA-Nazi connection including The Belarus Secret and The Secret War Against the Jews, both of which contain material claiming a Bush-Rockefeller-Nazi connection.
He currently writes a weekly column called "spyview" for the Haredi Jewish magazine Ami.[2]
Early career
Son of a firefighter, Loftus was born in Boston, Massachusetts and is a graduate of Boston College (BA, 1971) and Suffolk University (JD, 1977).[3] He served in the U.S. Army from 1971 to 1974, attaining the rank of First Lieutenant. He began working for the US Department of Justice in 1977 and in 1979 joined their Office of Special Investigations, which was charged with prosecuting and deporting Nazi war criminals in the US. Loftus' now-expired website claimed, "As a young U.S. Army officer, John Loftus helped train Israelis on a covert operation that turned the tide of battle in the 1973 Yom Kippur War."[4]
Author
Loftus is the author and co-author of several books on Nazis, espionage, and similar topics including The Belarus Secret (1982), Unholy Trinity: How the Vatican's Nazi Networks Betrayed Western Intelligence to the Soviets (1992), The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People (1994), Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis, and the Swiss Banks (1998), America's Nazi Secret: An Insider's History of How the United States Department of Justice Obstructed Congress by: Blocking Congressional Investigations into Famous American Families Who Funded Hitler, Stalin and Arab Terrorists (2010). Although Loftus' first book, The Belarus Secret, is nonfiction, it was adapted into a TV movie, Kojak: The Belarus File (1985), with Telly Savalas.[5]
Reception of The Belarus Secret
The Office of Special Investigations historian David Marwell described Loftus' book The Belarus Secret as "the worst kind of amateur history."[6] Vital Zayka, a fellow of the Center for Jewish History in New York City, accused Loftus of falsification.[7] The Israeli historian and Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff described the book as controversial and referred to Charles R. Allen Jr.'s review in Jewish Currents, in which Allen joined the active criticism of Loftus and named him a fraud and a liar.[8]
The New York Times wrote: "there is a question as to whether the author in his zealousness may not have overstated some of his material. He says 300 Byelorussian Nazis and an 'even larger number of Ukrainian Nazis' were smuggled in. But he fails to draw a distinction between documented war criminals and hangers-on and perhaps other less culpable collaborators. ... Still, The Belarus Secret is certain to be a valuable source book when Congress reopens hearings ... into allegations of a war criminal cover-up."[9]
On August 7, 2005, he provided the United States address of an alleged terrorist named Iyad K. Hilal on Fox News. Only afterwards was it revealed that Hilal had left the address three years previously and the home was now owned by a family, who was then subjected to threats and vandalism and required police protection as a result of Loftus' words.[10] Fox terminated Loftus's contract to commentate after the event.[11] Loftus said "I thought it might help police in that area now that we have positively identified a terrorist," but he did not say why he did not contact police in a more direct manner. Loftus apologized for the mistake and expressed frustration about "one federal [agency's]" inaction on an earlier tip he had given them years ago due to the same address.[12]
Selected publications
The Belarus Secret: The Nazi Connection in America. New York City: Alfred A. Knopf (later Paragon House). 1982. ISBN1557781389. Revised and expanded as America's Nazi Secret: An Insider's History of How the United States Department of Justice Obstructed Congress by: Blocking Congressional Investigations into Famous American Families Who Funded Hitler, Stalin and Arab Terrorists; Lying to Congress, the GAO, and the CIA about the Postwar Immigration of Eastern European Nazi War Criminals to the US; and Concealing from the 9/11 Investigators the Role of the Arab Nazi War Criminals in Recruiting Modern Middle Eastern Terrorist Groups. Walterville, Oregon: TrineDay. 2010. ISBN978-1936296040.
Valhalla's Wake: The IRA, MI6, and the Assassination of a Young American (1st ed.). New York City: Atlantic Monthly Press. 1989. ISBN0871132478.
Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis, and Soviet Intelligence (1st U.S. ed.). New York City: St. Martin's Press. 1991. ISBN0312094078. Also published as Ratlines: How the Vatican's Nazi Networks Betrayed Western Intelligence to the Soviets. London, England: Heinemann. April 1991. ISBN0434829447. Released in a new and revised edition as Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis, and the Swiss Banks. New York City: St. Martin's Press. 1998. ISBN031218199X.
^"John Loftus Web site". Archived from the original on June 4, 2003. Retrieved 2010-03-17.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^Zuroff, Efraim (1994). Occupation, Nazi-hunter: the continuing search for the perpetrators of the Holocaust. Los Angeles, California. p. 52. ISBN9780881254891. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)