840.48 Refugees/4847: Telegram
The Chargé in the United Kingdom (Bucknell) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 8—8:45 p.m.]
8533. Please instruct regarding the following note dated December 3d from Foreign Office, and state whether we should obtain from Foreign Office material mentioned in final sentence:
“We consider that there is a case for handing over to the Intergovernmental Committee the problem presented by civilian refugees, whether Allied or stateless, who have succeeded in escaping to Switzerland. Such a procedure would fall in with our generally agreed policy of lightening the burden imposed upon the Swiss authorities by the abnormal influx of refugees into Switzerland since the Italian armistice. Neither Allied military refugees (escaped prisoners of war) nor military internees in the strict sense (e.g. British and the Polish divisions) should, in our view, fall within the Committee’s sphere of action.
I should be grateful if you would find out the views of the State Department and let me know them. If they agree, then we could cooperate in drawing up the terms of reference to the Director, who would require to know what offers of help had been made to the Swiss Government in connection with refugees, what help was now being given and what were the Swiss requirements, economic, financial and political, stated in response to the joint inquiry by the United States and British Ministers last September. We now have material on all this.”