After several years of shilly-shallying, the CIA has apparently agreed to fully disclose information related to its postwar relationships with Nazi war criminals.

Under pressure from Congress, the Central Intelligence Agency has formally agreed to a broad new interpretation of a 1998 law that requires disclosure of classified records related to Nazi war criminals, a C.I.A. document shows.

Senator Mike DeWine, Republican of Ohio, praised the action in an interview on Sunday as a "major breakthrough" in a dispute that had been waged in private for more than two years. Mr. DeWine presided last week over what he called "a very blunt meeting" on the subject with C.I.A. officials, and he had threatened to summon Porter J. Goss, the director of central intelligence, to testify in public on the matter.

The document was sent as an e-mail message late Friday to members of a government working group charged with reviewing the records. In the message, the C.I.A. reversed a legal stance in which it had argued that the law required disclosure only of records related to war crimes, not war criminals, and did not apply to information about the agency's postwar dealings with former Nazis....

In the message, the C.I.A. explicitly pledged for the first time to "acknowledge any relationship" between the C.I.A. and SS members, regardless of whether there was any information specifically tying them to war crimes. The message said the C.I.A. had also agreed that documents "concerning acts performed by Nazi war criminals, to include members of the SS, on behalf of C.I.A." are relevant and are subject to disclosure under the law.

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NOTE: With apologies to Mort Sahl.