840.48 Refugees/4762: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 11—11:59 p.m.]
7865. By letter dated October 1st we communicated to the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees the substance of Department’s 6009, September 29 and have today received the following reply dated November 10 in which the Director confidentially requests certain information probably in the possession of the United States Treasury:
“May I refer you to your letter of the 1st October with which you conveyed a message from the State Department relating to a proposal put forward by Dr. Goldmann of the World Jewish Congress to provide food, clothing, et cetera to remnant groups of surviving Jews located in Central Europe.
As you know we wrote to the International Red Cross asking it to supply us as soon as possible with as detailed an outline as possible of such particular projects as it might recommend as practical for the assistance of the groups in question. We further suggested that it should limit itself to recommending projects whose nature is such that only lack of funds prevents their being undertaken or extended. We still await a reply.
In the meantime, however, we have received some information regarding the help that is being given, first by Allied Governments to their own nationals including Jews, and secondly by voluntary organizations, mainly Jewish, to Jews in occupied territory. Our information is, however, far from complete and in order to put the case fully before the Executive Committee in due course we should have complete and accurate knowledge of what is being done under existing arrangements insofar as it affects persons coming within the mandate of the Intergovernmental Committee.
We understand that the normal system is for the United States Treasury or the British Treasury as the case may be to grant licenses giving exchange facilities to the Allied Governments or to the organizations as the case may be for the purpose of purchasing food et cetera in certain neutral countries. The food so purchased is then sent, under certain guarantees, for the benefit of the nationals or the Jewish groups respectively in the occupied territory.
[Page 375]We are at present inclined to think that whatever may be the nature of the reply from the International Red Cross, the extension of the existing system may be a contribution towards the problem that has been referred to us. In any case it is a relevant fact about which the Executive Committee will wish to be informed. We shall be grateful therefore if you can obtain from the American Treasury through the State Department information regarding the licences now in force which have been issued for this purpose, the Governments or organizations to which they have been granted and the amount of the exchange facilities to which they relate. This information would be treated as strictly confidential and for the information of the Executive Committee only.
I have written a similar letter to Mr. Randall of the Foreign Office.”