If so, the Clinton Administration could demand that Switzerland reopen the 1946 accord that led to the turnover of Nazi assets.

Turkey, which held $44 million in Nazi assets and $5 million in looted gold, made no restitution.

In 1997, he traveled to Switzerland to talk with leaders there about their nation's history as a banker for Nazi assets stolen from Holocaust victims.

If the documents shredded by the bank turn out to be related to Nazi assets, their destruction would clearly violate a law passed by the Swiss Parliament last month.

One example: Mr. D'Amato's staff publicized "recently declassified" documents showing that the Wehrli Bank, a defunct Swiss concern, had been a clearinghouse for Nazi assets.

The study should demonstrate the depth of Swiss involvement with Nazi assets before, during and after the war and the obstacles the Swiss have put up against Jews and others who tried to locate and recover stolen property.

Recent disclosures about Switzerland's duplicitous role in World War II and its hoarding of Nazi assets have been wrenching for the Swiss people, many of whom long believed the myth that their country was truly neutral.

But they have resisted calls for restitution and particularly objected to suggestions that a 1946 accord requiring the banks to turn over Nazi assets now worth billions, should be enforced a half-century later.

It made no direct reference, however, to the core accusation of the report: that the Swiss effort to protect Nazi assets continued long after the war was over.

Another co-founder was François Genoud, one of the key managers of Nazi assets after the second world war who later attained notoriety as the publisher of Joseph Goebbels' diaries.