840.48 Refugees/4901: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant)
8171. Your 8975, 24th. Department has consistently held the opinion expressed by the correspondents of the Intergovernmental Committee as quoted in yours under reference—and still adheres to that opinion.
Mr. Long was requested to appear before the Congressional Committee which had before it resolutions concerning the refugee problem. As a condition precedent he insisted that his testimony be given in executive session and received in confidence by the Committee.
The following is quoted from the record of the proceedings. Mr. Bloom71 speaking:
“The Chairman would like to state that I asked Mr. Breckinridge Long, Assistant Secretary of State, to appear before this committee and give us information regarding these two resolutions. The Secretary asked me if we were to be in executive session so that he may be able to give certain testimony that up to now it has been considered advisable to hold strictly confidential, and I informed the Secretary that this committee has always kept its word when we were in executive session, and he would be asked to testify, and everything that he testified to before this committee, will be strictly confidential and not go outside of the committee room until released.
“Mr. Long, you can testify with the assurance that whatever you say here will be in strict confidence.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the committee, I present Mr. Long, Assistant Secretary of State.”
Mr. Long speaking:
“Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, I am glad to come before you, and I asked Mr. Bloom about the executive nature of the session because there are certain things which I think you will appreciate, as we get into them, that are for the time being confidential, and if they were not retained within the confidence of this committee and kept from our enemies, the actions contemplated and the operations would not be possible to be carried forward, and it would react against the interests of the people that we are trying to help and are interested in.
“You have before you these two resolutions. I think that for a full understanding of them, it would be necessary for you to have an idea of what has happened and something of the history of this whole refugee question.”
Department is still of the opinion just above quoted.
However, members of the Committee including the sponsor of the resolution during the hearing requested publication. It was printed as a confidential print for use by members of the Committee. Insistent requests for publication continued. After 2 weeks the Department yielded to persistent requests and the Committee published it with the following announcement.
“Notice. Since this hearing was held, during which time the testimony contained herein was given, it has been determined that it need not be held in confidence any longer and it is consequently released for public information.
“By order of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Sol Bloom, Chairman.”
The correspondents of the Intergovernmental Committee probably realize that there is a very large public desire on the part of the people of the United States to assist the persecuted persons and an accompanying desire on their part to know what is being done in behalf of those persons. When agencies of the Government are unable to announce their activities the assumption is made by interested elements of the public that the Government is inactive or negligent or indisposed or not interested and these assumptions become the bases for criticisms and even sometimes for vicious attacks.
If the correspondents of the Intergovernmental Committee would communicate to the persons in the United States on whose account they are acting abroad and suggest to them that they advise their associates and others here to desist in their demands for and indulgence in publicity with its consequent danger to the persons we are all trying to assist it would no doubt be a help to all concerned and would, if the advice were heeded, permit the various agencies to operate in that atmosphere of confidence which the Department considers necessary to the better attainment of the objectives. And that advice might also [Page 398] be heeded by those here who malign the instrumentalities of relief and impugn the motives of responsible officers.
For your own information you are advised that the Department has been under most severe pressure from persons both within and without the Government through a long succession of months. The continuing silence of the Department, even in the face of violent attacks in important parts of the press, created a situation in which the Department was unable to defend itself and which laid the basis for a gradually expanding belief that the Department was inattentive to humanitarian appeals and callous to the suffering of the Jews under Hitler as well as unresponsive to expressions of deep emotion by their fellow religionists here.
But even in that situation the Department did not initiate any public statement but realized the earnestness of the Committee of the Congress to publish the record of the hearing and accepted its decision.
- Sol Bloom, Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.↩