Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1942, General; the British Commonwealth; the Far East, Volume I

340.1115A/2455a

The Secretary of State to the Chargé in Switzerland (Huddle)²³

No. 1202

Washington, February 14, 1942.

Sir: The Department refers to its telegram no. 439 of December 31, 1941,²⁴ and to your telegrams, no. 221 of January 22 and no. 241 of January 23, 1942, concerning financial assistance and the transmission of funds to American nationals in territories where the interests of the United States are represented by Switzerland.

1. To lighten the burden of work and the expense involved in making individual payments, whether from official relief or pension funds or from private funds, to American nationals in territories where the interests of the United States are represented by Switzerland, the United States Government proposes that Swiss representatives charged with such representation make no distinction between the several kinds of payments in advancing funds to American nationals found to be in need. All such American nationals able to qualify for financial assistance in accordance with the rules hereinafter stated will be entitled to receive from the Swiss representatives monthly payments corresponding to their established needs up to the maxima hereinafter set forth in a tentatively-established scale. From time to time, the scale will be revised upward or downward upon the basis of such recommendations as may be made by Swiss representatives charged with the representation of the interests of the United States. All recipients, with the exceptions specified below, will be limited to the maximum monthly payments for their place of residence, regardless of their ability to repay to this Government amounts greater than the sums advanced. Furthermore, the financial assistance herein authorized is intended entirely to supplant the transfer of any other funds to the American nationals concerned. It is realized that a limitation upon the amount that American nationals may expend in enemy territory, even from their own resources, will entail some hardship. The conservation of foreign exchange, however, is an essential factor in the present economic policy of the United States and it is expected that Americans everywhere will willingly share with those in the armed forces the sacrifices that must be made in winning the war.

2. The maxima may be exceeded to meet such extraordinary expenditures as may be essential to the health or safety of American nationals for medical, surgical, or dental care, for hospitalization, for reasonable legal defense against political or criminal charges, or for a decent though modest burial where such is not provided by friends or relatives nor by the local authorities.

3. Payments should be made against receipts in quadruplicate embodying promises to repay without interest the sums advanced. It is desirable that the receipts, of which a specimen is transmitted herewith,²⁵ be plainly marked, “Original”, “Duplicate”, “Triplicate”, and “Quadruplicate”. The original and duplicate should be forwarded to the Department, the triplicate retained by the Legation, and the quadruplicate retained by the Swiss Government or its representatives, as the Swiss Government may determine. It is suggested that receipt forms be printed in small type and on light-weight paper. Their cost is a proper charge against the funds of the United States Government. It is assumed that the Swiss Government will have such forms printed in Switzerland, but they may also be printed locally, where-ever it may prove impracticable for Swiss representatives to procure the forms from Switzerland.

4. Receipts should indicate the evidence of American nationality borne by recipients of payments and the names and addresses of persons, firms, or organizations, if any, to whom the United States Government may look for reimbursement of the sums advanced. Recipients of payments may attach to the original receipt, checks or other negotiable instruments payable to the Treasurer of the United States, in amounts that cover partially or fully the sums received, upon the understanding that the obligation to repay such sums will not be discharged until the Treasurer of the United States actually receives full repayment in legal tender of the United States.

5. The Department will inform interested persons in the United States of its willingness to accept private deposits to be used either to reimburse the Government for sums advanced to American nationals in territories where the interests of the United States are represented by Switzerland, or to be held as a reserve against which such advances may be charged upon the receipt of evidence of payment to beneficiaries. Such deposits will be held by the Department until the receipts of the beneficiaries are received in the Department. The receipts (and the promissory notes embodied in them) will thereupon be canceled and forwarded to the depositors of the funds, and sums corresponding to the amount shown by the receipts to have been advanced will at the same time be transferred from the special deposits to the credit of the Treasurer of the United States. If any private deposit is insufficient to discharge in full the obligation of a beneficiary in whose behalf the deposit is made it will be applied against the indebtedness, the promissory note will be appropriately endorsed, and the depositor so informed. Notes accompanied by negotiable instruments will be canceled upon the receipt by the Treasurer of the United States in legal tender of the United States of full repayment of the sums advanced and will then be held in the Department’s files at the disposition of the payer. Notes not redeemed in any of the abovementioned ways will be held until eventually repaid by the actual recipients of the sums advanced.

6. Swiss representatives charged with the representation of the interests of the United States may explain to the recipients that the financial assistance herein provided should not be considered as public bounty but as loans from public funds to American nationals finding themselves in an abnormal position by reason of the war. It is accordingly expected, as already indicated, that all sums advanced will eventually be repaid. However, the ability to repay is not an indispensable condition to financial assistance and American nationals able to qualify therefor in accordance with the rules hereinafter stated should in no event be refused payment simply because they cannot foresee a time when they will be able to repay the sums advanced.

7. Territories where the interests of the United States are represented by Switzerland are hereby divided into five classes and the basic maximum monthly payment for an adult is hereby established tentatively for each class as follows:

Class I	$60
Class II	65
Class III	70
Class IV	75
Class V	80

8. In a single household with more than one adult member of the family, only one adult may receive the basic maximum monthly payment. For each additional adult member of the same family entitled to receive payments the monthly payment to the family may be increased by seventy-five percent (75%) of the basic maximum, provided that the total maximum monthly payment for all of the adult members of the same family entitled to receive payments shall not exceed two hundred fifty percent (250%) of the basic rate. The monthly payment for the family may be further increased by twenty-five percent (25%) of the basic maximum for each minor member of the family entitled to receive payments, provided that the total maximum monthly payment for the minor members of the same family entitled to receive payments shall not exceed seventy-five percent (75%) of the basic maximum. The maximum monthly payment for a single family in one household shall not exceed three hundred and twenty-five percent (325%) of the basic maximum, unless in special cases, such as extraordinarily large families, the Swiss representative recommends to the Legation at Bern and receives specific exceptional authority to pay a larger percentage of the basic maximum. It is emphasized that the rates of payment authorized above are maxima. It is expected that whenever possible the actual sums advanced will be less than the permitted maxima, and such advance should in no event be more than enough to provide for minimum essential needs. Whenever a payment to any individual exceeds the basic maximum, the receipt should indicate in detail the method of calculating the sum advanced, whether the excess is attributable to the fact that the payment includes authorized financial assistance for additional members of the family, or to extraordinary expenditures authorized by paragraph 2.

9. Territories are hereby classified tentatively as follows:

Baltic States	Class II	Italy	Class IV
Belgium	Class III	Japan	Class III
Bulgaria	Class III	Luxembourg	Class III
China	Class II	Manchuria	Class II
Czechoslovakia	Class V	Netherlands	Class III
Denmark	Class V	Norway	Class V
France	Class V	Philippine Islands	Class III
French Indochina	Class III	Poland	Class II
Germany	Class III	Rumania	Class V
Greece	Class I	Straits Settlements	Class III
Hong Kong	Class I	Thailand	Class III
Hungary	Class V	Yugoslavia	Class III

10. Except upon the specific authorization of the American Legation at Bern, payments may be made only to persons who, upon the date of the severance of diplomatic relations (which for the purpose of this instruction is considered to be December 7, 1941), were in possession of valid American passports, valid American certificates of registration, or letters from American diplomatic or consular officers informing them that their applications for registration had been approved by the Department for a period extending beyond December 7, 1941.

11. Applications for payments desired by persons unable under the terms of the preceding paragraph to establish their claims to American nationality should be referred to the American Legation at Bern, which may, at its discretion, approve or disapprove them. In reaching its decisions, the Legation should be guided by the criteria established by the Department’s circular instruction of August 12, 1941, diplomatic serial no. 3382,²⁶ concerning advances of Government funds for repatriation purposes. In each instance, the Legation should report its decision and the facts of the case to the Department by air mail. If, upon receiving such a report, the Department wishes to reverse the Legation’s decision (be it approval or disapproval of an application), it will so inform the Legation, which will then communicate the revised decision to the Swiss Government for the guidance of the appropriate Swiss representative.

12. Applications referred to the Legation at Bern should be transmitted by mail if mail communications are reasonably expeditious. Otherwise they may be transmitted by telegraph at the expense of the United States Government, in which event, to effect an economy, several applications should be grouped in one telegram stating only such essential facts as the name and the place and date of birth of each applicant and a brief description of the evidence of nationality in each applicant’s possession. Such telegraphic applications should be followed as soon as feasible by a properly documented application transmitted by mail. Approval of a telegraphic application should be considered provisional, pending a decision upon the application transmitted by mail.

13. Aliens, including alien spouses and alien children of American nationals, cannot qualify for payments from funds of the United States Government.

14. It is recognized that the Swiss representatives charged with the representation of the interests of the United States may find it necessary to make payments by mail to American nationals residing in regions remote from the offices of the Swiss representatives. It is suggested that receipts might be obtained by mail and payments effected by money orders. Receipts not signed in the presence of a Swiss representative should if possible be signed in the presence of another American national and should in any event bear the right thumbprint of the person signing the receipt.

15. Since prisoners of war and interned civilians are supported by the detaining Power, it is expected that payments made to them will generally not exceed a sum sufficient to provide spending money for miscellaneous personal needs not supplied by the detaining Power. (The American Red Cross is studying the possibility of supplying such comforts free of charge.) It is thought that a maximum monthly payment of ten percent (10%) of the basic maximum rate will usually be sufficient for that purpose. If it becomes necessary to use a form of group receipt for such payments, it is hoped that the form may be drawn up in such a way as to include the essentials of the enclosed standard individual receipt form previously mentioned. No payments will be made to officers or to persons of equivalent status held as prisoners of war, who receive pay under the convention relative to the treatment of prisoners of war, signed at Geneva on July 27, 1929.²⁷

16. In view of previous inquiries, Swiss representatives may be informed that, for the purposes of this instruction, citizens of the Commonwealth of the Philippines are considered to be American nationals. However, unless such nationals are able to qualify for payments under numbered paragraph ten, their applications should be referred to the Legation at Bern. Except in the case of a Filipino who is a citizen of the United States, the receipt should be clearly marked, “Philippine Citizen”.

17. You are requested to communicate to the Swiss Foreign Office the substance of this instruction and to express this Government’s hope that the appropriate Swiss representatives will be informed of it as soon as possible by mail, wherever that would be reasonably expeditious, or by telegraph, as will doubtless be considered desirable with respect to its transmission to the Far East. Emergency relief payments shall cease as soon as the foregoing wishes of this Government are communicated to the Swiss representatives charged with the representation of the interests of the United States, with the exception that the Swiss representatives, for a further period of two months, may at their discretion continue to extend emergency relief in worthy cases of nationals unable to qualify for immediate payments under numbered paragraph ten pending the receipt of decisions from the Legation at Bern on applications referred to it under numbered paragraph eleven. In particular, sympathetic consideration might be given to such cases as involve nationals able from resources in the United States to reimburse the sums advanced during that period.

18. From such credits as the Department will from time to time establish for the representation by Switzerland of the interests of the United States, you are authorized and requested to make block allotments to the Swiss Government in the amounts estimated to be necessary for expenditures attributable to such representation, including payments herein authorized. It is assumed that such funds will in turn be allotted by the Swiss Foreign Office in the manner indicated in numbered paragraph eight of your telegram no. 221 of January 22.

19. At such time as this Government’s policy may be determined with respect to any special categories of payments not authorized by this instruction, further instructions will be issued.

20. Please acknowledge by telegraph the receipt of this instruction.

Very truly yours,

For the Secretary of State:

Breckinridge Long

23. Copy transmitted to American Diplomatic and Consular Officers under Diplomatic Serial No. 3451, February 17, 1942.
24. Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. i, p. 433.
25. Not reproduced.
26. Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. i, p. 413.
27. Foreign Relations, 1929, vol. i, p. 336.