Eisenhower Library, Dulles papers, “Telephone Conversations”
The Secretary of State to the Administrator of the Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs (McLeod)
Dear Mr. McLeod: The President has issued an Executive Order1 designating the Department of State as the agency of the Government which shall investigate and prepare a comprehensive report on each alien who is issued an immigrant visa as provided in the Refugee Relief Act of 1953.2 I have issued today a Departmental Order designating your Bureau of Security, Consular Affairs, and Personnel as that part of the Department which will conduct the necessary investigations and prepare the required reports.
In issuing this Departmental Order, I am carrying out the intention of the President and of Congress that an appropriate “investigative agency” of the Government shall perform the statutory function in question. Not only is the Security Office in your Bureau the investigative branch of the Department, but also the Refugee Relief Act confers certain specific authority and responsibility upon [Page 1632] you in the implementation of the Act as the Administrator named therein.
As our Refugee Relief Program will soon emerge from the planning stage into the field of actual operations, I want to tell you again of my profound interest in bringing to an early fruition the hopes and dreams of the thousands of worthy immigrants who, by the united efforts of the President and the Congress, will be granted a place of asylum and of permanent refuge in our country from the political and economic oppression of the totalitarian countries behind the Iron Curtain. As I have told you in our planning conferences, I am sure that all of us who may have a part in this Refugee Relief Program will be able to look back upon it as one of the most gratifying experiences of our lives and as one of the most effective contributions which our country ever made to a solution of one of the great humanitarian problems which beset the world of our day and the people of our time.
You and your associates in the Department and in other agencies of the Government have my full support and best wishes for an early and successful fulfillment of the Program.
Sincerely yours,