840.48 Refugees/1467e: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Kennedy)
150. For Pell. Reports are being received with increasing frequency that German vessels carrying large numbers of Jewish refugees [Page 93] with inadequate assurances of admission are arriving at South and Central American ports. This influx is causing a general reaction in the countries concerned to tighten immigration restrictions and threatens to undo much that the Intergovernmental Committee has accomplished. Most of these countries are willing to cooperate to a certain extent in permitting orderly immigration but the present influx, if not stopped in the immediate future, will greatly increase the difficulties of securing permission for the entrance of refugees. The German authorities should realize that such travel, even if it removes a substantial number of Jews from Germany immediately, will make it far more difficult for larger numbers of such persons to obtain admission into the American republics in the future.
We have communicated the foregoing to the Embassy at Berlin,40 which has been instructed that we would perceive no objection, should you request such action, to the Chargé bringing informally to the attention of the appropriate German authorities, on behalf of the Intergovernmental Committee, the desirability of “discouraging” such travel on German vessels.
It would be helpful if the British Ambassador in Berlin were similarly instructed.
- Department’s telegram No. 38, of the same date, not printed.↩