Office of the Historian

840.48 Refugees/1794: Telegram

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

Washington, August 4, 1939—7 p.m.

617. Please communicate the following agenda for the meeting in Washington on October 16 and 17 of the officers of the Intergovernmental [Page 142] Committee to Lord Winterton, to Sir Herbert Emerson, to Ambassador Le Breton, and to Count Limburg-Stirum.71 You are also authorized to leave a copy at the Foreign Office for the information of the British Government.

  • “(1) Report on the present position of the refugee problem and a review of the work of the Intergovernmental Committee.
  • (2) Present status of plans for settlement, including present indications as to the practicable extent of settlement in areas so far investigated.
  • (3) The question of whether or not the possibilities for individual immigration and either group or mass settlements so far developed are adequate to meet the problem.
  • (4) Possibilities of large-scale settlement in areas already considered or in other areas.
  • (5) The problem of financing immigration and settlement, including the possibilities of governmental participation.
  • (6) Consideration of an increase in the scope of the Intergovernmental Committee so as to enable it to deal with problems arising from the voluntary or involuntary emigration of persons who find it necessary, for political, social or economic reasons, to start their lives anew in countries other than those of their birth, and to enable the Committee in this manner to make a real contribution to international friendship and world peace. Such problems might result either from (a) an emergency situation, such as that involving Spanish refugees, or from (b) a basic situation, such as that confronting certain population groups, for which a solution could only be brought about gradually and over a long period of years.”

Please repeat this telegram to Am[erican] Embassy Paris with the request that the agenda be communicated to Senator Bérenger, to the French Foreign Office, and to Mr. Myron Taylor, to the American Legation in Bern for communication to Lobo in Geneva; and to the American Legation in The Hague for communication to the Netherlands Foreign Office.72

Welles
  1. Representative of the Netherlands on the Intergovernmental Committee.↩
  2. The text of the agenda was also sent to the Ambassador in Brazil for communication to the Brazilian Foreign Office and for transmission to the Embassy in Argentina for similar communication; Department’s telegram No. 141, August 4, 8 p.m., not printed.↩