Office of the Historian

840.48 Refugees/4762: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Chargé in the United Kingdom (Buchnell)

Washington, December 7, 1943—11 p.m.

7745. You may inform the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, in reply to your 7865, November 11, as follows, of operations so far in 1943:

1.
Licenses have been issued to the American Red Cross for the export of 148 tons of foodstuffs and 4,850 pounds of clothing to Spain for refugee relief. Export licenses have also been issued to American Red Cross for shipment of $2,958 of medicinals to Switzerland, presumably for refugees. The American Friends Service Committee has been allowed to export approximately 56 tons of new and used clothing to Spain and 10 tons of clothing to Switzerland all for distribution to refugees. No licenses have been issued for the shipment of clothing through the blockade to occupied territory.
2.
Department and Treasury have authorized five food package schemes based on Portugal and one on Sweden in the amount of $12,000 monthly for each program subject to the following conditions: (a) the contents of the packages must be confined to foodstuffs indigenous to Portugal, or Sweden as the case may be, and not of a kind imported through the blockade; (b) adequate assurances must be furnished of the receipt of the package by the addressees; and (c) the number, size and contents of the packages must be approved by the American Minister. Licenses for the shipment of packages from Portugal have been issued to: The Belgian Embassy in Washington for Belgium; the Polish American Council for Poland, other than Jewish communities; the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee for Jewish communities in Poland (no funds have been transmitted thus far under this authorization); the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee for Czechoslovakia; and the Netherlands War Relief Center, Inc., for the Netherlands. Norwegian Relief, Inc., has been issued a license for the shipment of packages from Sweden to Norway.
3.
Department has occasionally approved exceptional shipments of other food packages under the same restrictions. For example, the [Page 387] transfer of $100,000 for the purchase of 250 tons of foodstuffs in Turkey for distribution in Trans-Istria was recently authorized.
4.
In addition, Department and FEA59 have periodically approved small shipments of food and medical supplies from within a neutral country to occupied areas for the relief of civilians, particularly women and children. The Governments-in-exile of Belgium, Norway, Yugoslavia, Netherlands, Poland and Czechoslovakia have all made partial use of a credit of £500,000 in Swiss francs made available to them by the British for the purchase of relief supplies in Switzerland. Purchases have been limited to milk and milk products, medical supplies, some meat and ascorbic acid. Department has generally insisted that distribution of such goods be under the control of the International Red Cross.
5.
Licenses for export of medical supplies through the blockade totaled over $700,000 in 1943, excluding pharmaceuticals sent to Greece.
6.
It must be clearly kept in mind that Greek relief program is exceptional and is considered as completely separate from the food package program in paragraph 2 above.
7.
There is no way of determining exactly how many or what percentage of the recipients of the food package programs mentioned above are persons who come within the mandate of the Intergovernmental Committee.

Hull
  1. Foreign Economic Administration.↩