871.4016/2811
Memorandum by Mr. Cavendish W. Cannon of the Division of European A fairs14a
The Minister at Bucharest reports that the Turkish Minister there has now suggested that his Government discuss with the British and French Embassies at Ankara a plan for transporting some 300,000 Rumanian Jews across Turkey to Syria or Palestine for temporary cantonment, pending a radical solution of the Jewish problem. The Turkish Minister requested American support of this plan, and Mr. Gunther has forwarded to MacMurray15 some background material, and has suggested that the Department cable instructions to him.
This project suggests the following considerations:
- 1.
- Assuming that Jews or others elsewhere in the world would be willing to provide clothing, housing, medical attention, and food for these 300,000 refugees, there would still remain the problem of shipping to supply this colony. I doubt if ships are available for such service;
- 2.
- The project would at once reopen the Arab question, not with-standing the announcement that the sojourn of the colony is “temporary”;
- 3.
- The argument regarding the temporary nature of the project loses force in view of the lack of progress in plans for a permanent settlement (the allocation of territory in Africa or in Russia has been hardly more than a suggestion put forward in the press);
- 4.
- Endorsement of such a plan is likely to bring about new pressure for an asylum in the western hemisphere;
- 5.
- By removing from Rumania the remaining Jews the plan would relieve the Rumanian Government of all responsibility for participation in a general settlement of the question, and in a backhand fashion would demonstrate that the brutal policy of the Rumanian authorities had been effective and realistic;
- 6.
- An almost identical situation prevails in Hungary, though there has been less publicity of the atrocities. A migration of the Rumanian Jews would therefore open the question of similar treatment for Jews in Hungary and, by extension, all countries where there has been intense persecution.
I suppose that these factors and probably others will occur to the Turkish Government, and I wonder whether it will accept with any enthusiasm the plan worked up by its Minister in Bucharest. I think, however, that the Department should be prepared for the representations on the part of American Jewish leaders, which I have been expecting since the alarming reports from Rumania and Hungary have become current. I have therefore drafted two telegrams (to Bucharest [Page 876] and to Ankara) which are attached.16 We have already informed Mr. Gunther of the Department’s approval of his personal conversations, and it may now be in order to give an official endorsement of his representations and an indication that he might say that his remarks are made by instruction of his Government.
The question now arises whether, in order to indicate a positive position on our part, we should communicate with the British on the matter. At the present stage a formal note would not contribute very much to the general problem, and would more or less leave the initiative to us for the next step. So far as I know we are not ready to tackle the whole Jewish problem. I have therefore prepared a memorandum for our use, with the idea that a copy of it might be handed to someone in the British Embassy for their information.