THE STUDY OF FOREIGN POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP89-01258R000100010004-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 31
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 26, 2006
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: December 31, 1944
• Content Type: STUDY

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CONFIDENTIAL
STUDY OF FOREIGN POLITICAL
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES
A NEW FIELD OF
POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE
Report by the Chief of the Foreign Nationalities Branch
to the Director of Strategic Services on the organization
of the Branch and its operation to 31 December 1944
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112 -
CONFIDENTIAL
THE STUDY OF FOREIGN POLITICAL
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES
A NEW FIELD OF
POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE
---7r
Report by the Chief of the Foreign Nationalities Branch
to the Director of Strategic Services on the organization
of the Branch and its operation to 31 December 1944
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
I. WHAT HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED--------------------------------- 2
II. THE SITUATION OUT OF WHICH NEED FOR THE WORK
AROSE---------------------------------------------------------------- 11
III. SKETCH OF THE ORGANIZATION WHICH HAS BEEN DE-
VELOPED -------------------------------------------------------------
IV. SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE FUTURE-------------------------- 22
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REPORT
D URING the past three years, under the impact of the .war, a new
field of political study and reporting has been organized. For
the first time in American foreign relations systematic attention has',
been given to foreign political manifestations inside of the United_
States itself. Contact has been organized with those important groups
in the American citizenry which are of recent foreign extraction and
retain therefore a special interest in the problems of their "old coun-
tries" and Europe generally, and also with political refugees, and.
the activities and opinions of both have been currently reported. The-
resulting flow of intelligence has proved to be useful ; it might be said
indispensable.
The work has been done by the Foreign Nationalities Branch of
the Office of Strategic Services. At the end of three years it seems
appropriate to submit to the Director of Strategic Services (1) a sum-
mary of what has been accomplished, (2) an examination of the
situation out of which need for the work arose, (3) a sketch of the
continuing organization which has been effected, and (4) some
observations on the future.
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1. WHAT HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED
First steps toward the organization of the Foreign Nationalities
Branch were taken in November 1941 following an intimation by offi-
cers of the Department of State to General William J. Donovan, then
Coordinator of Information, that a systematic reading, from the dip-
lomatic viewpoint, of the foreign-language press in the United States
would be helpful in the conduct of our foreign relations. Coupled
naturally with that assignment were (1) some broader contact with
the foreign nationality groups for whose use the foreign-language
press is published; (2) day-to-day study of the agitations which; were
afoot among them on foreign political issues; and (3) friendly con-
tact with those foreign publicists and political leaders who, arriving
here as refugees, still hoped to promote their causes from American
shores and to enlist therefor the sympathy of their American cousins
and the support of American official influence.
There was no precedent for the undertaking. The Bureau of the
Budget had to be convinced and numerous interdepartmental adjust-
ments effected. So it was early 1942 before the Branch began to take
on reality and to circulate its memoranda and reports.
During the three years which have ensued-that is, up to 31 Decem-
ber 1944-more than one thousand releases, mostly classified confiden-
tial or secret, have been put out. They have gone to the Director of
Strategic Services and other officers and branche's of OSS and to OSS
theater offices abroad; to the Secretary of State and other officers and
divisions of the Department of State and to American diplomatic
missions abroad; to the Executive Office of the President; to the
Combined Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Army
and Navy intelligence services; to the office of the Attorney General
and the Federal Bureau of Investigation; to Censorship; and also
on appropriate occasion to the Office of War Information, the Federal
Communications Commission, and others.
The output of the three years adds up in all to 7,000 pages, something
like a million and a half words, and is now being bound in sixteen
volumes. There have been 225 reports, or larger scale studies, 296
bulletins, 271 reports of public meetings, 152 news notes (a series begun
only recently), and 126 special memoranda addressed jointly to the
Director of Strategic Services and the Secretary of State. In addition
the Chief of the Branch has sent some 300 informal letters to various
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officers of the State Department conveying specialized bits of
information.
A Handbook of foreign nationality groups in the United States
has also been published. It brings together in 185 pages information
respecting the composition and location of the thirty-odd groups, lists
their newspapers and organizations, and summarizes their attitudes
and activities in relation to the current issues of foreign politics.
Nothing of the sort was previously available.
The volume of the Branch's output during three years has surprised
even the writer of the present report, because he remembers that 1942
and early 1943 were still pioneering times. Only 1944 can be ac-
counted a year of fully ordered going and production. Also, it can
be said in all conscience that quantity has not been striven for. On the
contrary, the unrelenting effort has been toward selection and brevity.
The 3-year total of 7,000 pages truly reflects, therefore, the bountiful
yield of newly cultivated ground.
NATURE OF THE OUTPUT
The nature of this yield of political intelligence may be indicated
under three headings :
(1) Reflection in the United States of situations abroad and fore-
shadowing here of possible developments abroad.
(2) Diplomatically unrecognized movements and dissident agita-
tions.
(3) The American democratic process: pressures at Washington
touching points in international relations.
(1) During these first three years of the Branch's operation (1941-
44) nearly all of Europe was closed to any sort of free political life.
The "governments-in-exile" kept as close to their homes as possible, but
in most cases their largest free constituencies-indeed, their only large
constituencies-were here in the United States. These American con-
stituencies are removed from "old country" problems not in spaice
alone but more particularly in time, and there are distortions also
in the numerical relations between, different national and political ele-
ments here and there, but the old mentalities are in some degree pre-
served and communications have never been wholly severed despite
the political embargoes. Though the American mirror is for these
reasons not perfect, it has been proven possible to obtain through the
study of newspaper and other utterances in the United States some
idea, in certain cases a very good idea, of what was to be expected on
the European scene as the process of liberation went forward.
The Carpatho-Russians (Carpatho-Ruthenians) offer a good ex-
ample. There are approximately as many of this ethnic group in the
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United States as in the homeland, which was part of Hungary before
the First World War and after that became the eastern tip of Czecho-
slovakia. The decision in 1919 to join Czechoslovakia was based partly
on the outcome of a plebiscite then conducted among Carpatho-Rus-
sian-Americans in the United States. That the Tartar Pass, an age-old
sally-port through the Carpathians f rom east to west, lies in their ter-
ritory and their valleys debouch on to the plain of Hungary, imparts
to the poor and rugged Carpatho-Russian homeland a disproportionate
importance.
An American Carpatho-Russian Congress convening at Pittsburgh
during July 1942 denounced Czechoslovakia for having (allegedly)
treated its Carpatho-Russian minority ill and recorded a conviction
that the destiny of the Carpatho-Russians in Europe was linked with
that of "Mother Russia." Moscow gave no sign of encouragement.
Yet the agitation of the Carpatho-Russian-Americans for union of
the "old country" with the USSR has grown rather than abated. Very
recently the problem has begun to transpire in the general American
press, receiving one of its earliest spot-news treatments in a special
dispatch from a New York Times correspondent in London published
in that paper 22 January 1945. Through contact with the rather
obscure Carpatho-Russi an community in the. United States this Branch
had been enabled to delineate the situation as early as 11 October 1943
in a report entitled "Carpatho-Russia, Clue to Soviet Policy?" A half-
dozen subsequent releases carried the story to the present; the latest
was a bulletin of 5 February 1945 entitled "A Carpatho-Russian Soviet
Republic?"
Likewise, it has been possible to deduce from agitation among Slovak
groups in the United States against "Bones centralism" in the Czecho-
slovakia of 1919-38 that the new Czechoslovakia would have to be
reorganized on a basis of much wider local autonomy. In October
1944, after protracted hesitation, President Bones publicly announced
that such would be the case. The Branch's current reporting on this
matter was amplified from 1941 on by informal contact with Milan
Hodza, Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia 1935-38 and Bones' chief
political opponent, until Hodza's death at Clearwater, Florida, March
1944.
As Yugoslavia, not less thoroughly than Czechoslovakia, was sealed
off by the German armies from the world and any sort of normal
political development, the mirror created by the presence of Croat,
Slovene, and Serbian elements in the United States has proved serv-
iceable also. Reports by this Branch based on its contacts among
these groups have contributed, reliably it has proved, to an under-
standing of political potentials in Yugoslavia itself.
Cases could be multiplied, but those of Carpatho-Russia, Czecho-
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slovakia, and Yugoslavia will serve to illustrate how situations
abroad can be reflected in the United States and possible develop-
ments foreshadowed. The opportunity thus created for useful
political intelligence has been still further enlarged by the presence
here as political refugees of a good number of European practitioners
of the art of politics, whose intimate knowledge of situations and
trained acumen were found to be worth consulting in selected in-
stances. The State Department and other executive agencies can
hardly cultivate contacts of this sort very freely without putting an
official cachet on the individuals in question and inviting criticism
from politically hostile quarters. It has been feasible for the Foreign
Nationalities Branch, however, to talk intimately and as frequently
as needed with such men. When the information or opinions elicited
seemed worth it, and after the necessary correctives had been applied
for partisanship, it has circulated summaries to interested quarters.
The following names may be mentioned as illustrative in this
connection :
Don Luigi Sturzo, Count Carlo Sforza, Alberto Tarchiani,
Alberto Cianca, Colonel Randolfo Pacciardi, Ambrogio Donini,
Giuseppe Berti, Heinrich Bruening, Gottfried Treviranus,
Thomas Mann, Karl Spiecker, Paul Tillich, Paul Hagen,
Siegfried Aufhaeuser, Julius Deutsch, Friedrich Adler, Fer-
dinand Czernin, Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, Archduke
Otto of Habsburg, Bishop Athenagoras, Emmanuel Tsouderos,
Sophocles Venizelos, Basil Vlavianos, Constantine Chekrezi,
Bishop Fan Noli, Ivan Subasich, Sava Kosanovich, Franc
Snoj, Bishop Dionisije, Tibor Eckhardt, Rustem Vambery,
Alexander Kerensky, Victor Chernov, Theodore Dan, Raphael
Abramovitch, Charles A. Davila, Feliks Gross, Stefan de Ropp,
Waclaw Bitner, Oscar Halecki, General Kazimierz Sosnkowski,
Ignacy Matuszewski, Antanas Smetona, Milan Hodza, Jan
Papanek, Adrien Tixier, Alexis Leger, Jacques Maritain, Henri
de Kerillis, Henry Torres, Paul Vignaux, Frans van Cauwelaert,
Jose Antonio de Aguirre, Julio Alvarez del Vayo, Diego Mar-
tinez Barrio, Fernando de los Rios.
(2) UNRECOGNIZED MOVEMENTS
The experience of the last three years in the Foreign Nationalities
Branch, following twenty years with the State Department at an earlier
period, has much impressed this writer with the importance of some
systematic and discreet contact on the part of the United States Gov-
ernment with unrecognized movements and dissident agitations.
Something apart from the ordinary diplomatic machinery is needed,
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because even when discretion does not estop the regular diplomatic
staff from contacts of this type, simple geography frequently does so.
More often than not movements of the kind in question, ranging from
outright revolutionary plotting to the milder forms of political oppo-
sition, base themselves of necessity outside of the country to which
they relate.
Consider, for example, the Spanish Republicans at the present time.
Mexico City is the principal center of their planning and agitation
against the Government of Franco. New York City is important also.
The Foreign Nationalities Branch has regularly reported on the course
of this political activity. It has maintained informal contact with
the chief personalities, including the leaders of the Catalan and
Basque autonomy movements.
More dissident agitations fail in the end than succeed, and it may
be years before success comes to the ultimately successful. They are
political realities meantime, however. Successful and unsuccessful
alike are affecting the general course of political events in some degree.
The stupid consequences which can flow from neglect to keep in touch
with every possibility in the realm of politics have been made clear to
this writer through personal experience. Leon Trotsky lived in New
York during 1916-17, and went from New York fairly directly to
Petrograd. Some prior informal contact with this dark horse would
have been entirely feasible. Yet when the Bolshevik outbreak of
November 1917 surprisingly succeeded, no one among the American
diplomatic and consular staff in Russia really knew anything about
Trotsky, and least of all had any footing been created for friendly
informal contact with this decisively emergent figure. It maybe added
that even the more experienced British were so ludicrously unready
for the November coup that Bruce Lockhart, then a lowly vice consul,
got the jump on all his colleagues and started toward an eventual
knighthood, because he remembered that Trotsky had figured in the
revolutionary disturbances of 1905, and also because he, almost alone,
had some idea what Lenin and Bolshevism were all about.
To understand how dissident agitations taking form in the United
States may subsequently figure on the international scene, it is neces-
sary only to recall the coming of the Irish Free State into being in
the years before 1921. The human energy, the money and the political
leverage on Great Britain were all 'found among us here. The horning
of Czechoslovakia during World War I occurred in good part in the
United States, as is so well known.
It is not to be doubted that like experiences are destined to recur.
In addition to the Spanish Republicans, already mentioned, the United
States is at this very moment the locus of several agitations against
foreign governments with which we are in normal diplomatic rela-
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tions. Meeting in New York September 1944 representatives of the
dominant Ukrainian organizations of the United States and Canada
agreed to pool their efforts to keep alive the fires of Ukrainian nation-
alism. This was reported fully in the Branch's B-282 of 21 November
1944. The conference appeared to owe some of its initiative to Ukrain-
ians in the Argentine, and the movement was well publicized by Ukrain-
ian nationalist papers throughout the Western Hemisphere. Commu-
nist quarters denounced it as a German-inspired attempt to whip up
an anti-Soviet crusade among the nationalities now being liberated
by the Red Army.
Agitations against the Soviet Union more important than the
Ukrainian are now making use of, and will continue to make use of,
the freedom of agitation proffered by America. Protests against So-
viet Russian policy toward Poland are heard most loudly here, of
course, and here in' America such agitation finds its most sensitive po-
litical response. During the last three years the Foreign Nationalities
Branch has kept the appropriate American authorities currently ad-
vised on the Polish-American situation, and on analogous activities
among the Lithuanian-Americans. Releases in the Polish field, many
confidential or secret, add up to 154 for the three years, and in the Lith-
uanian field to 46. Even if the bulk of Polish-Americans and Lith-
uanian-Americans in due course reconcile themselves to actual solu-
tions respecting Poland and Lithuania, it will be necessary still to
count on important Polish and Lithuanian irredentist agitations going
on here for an indefinite time to come.
The Foreign Nationalities Branch has reported some incipient agi-
tation in Portuguese-American circles against the Government of Sala-
zar, and still other reporting during the last three years could be cited
under the present general heading. Reference will be made, however,
to only one case further.
It is the Zionist movement. This activity, having its chief center
in the United States, impinges on our relations with Great Britain
comparably to the pre-1921 movement for Irish freedom. It affects
the position of the United States vis-a-vis peoples and rulers in the
Middle East, and toward Soviet Russia too. Now more than ever the
United States has become leading spokesman in the councils of nations
for Jewish causes. Study of the course of the Zionist movement in
the United States from the viewpoint of foreign politics has been an
important activity of this Branch. In the course of 1942 to 1944
thirty-five papers have been put out, adding up to some 200 pages.
(3) THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the new field of political
intelligence which the Branch has been working into shape is its rela-
645539--45-2
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tion to the American democratic process. The so-called foreign na-
tionality groups are parts of the electorate. Their aroused concern
over foreign issues acquires its telling effect from their influence as
voters. In that quality they command the attention of those who
shape American policy at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. For
that reason these new parts of the American. population-which were
mostly of humble origin in the old homelands and as often politically
neglected there, and are still working forward in the American social-
economic scale-have now become through the American metamor-
phosis the recipients of frequent and respectful attention from foreign
governments and from leaders seeking to change or replace those
governments. The utterances of foreign-language newspapers, which
singly are with few exceptions pretty weak enterprises, are listened
to, and seem worth listening to, because they make up a part of that
broad chorus of opinion with which democratic leaders harmonize
their more particular arias.
All of this is right and proper. It is how American democracy
works. The assigned task of the Foreign Nationalities Branch is that
of the simple intelligence officer. In fulfilling that function, however,
the Branch has become, quite automatically, a mechanism for con-
veying to those charged with the formulation of foreign policy the
thoughts on particular points of foreign policy which are currently
astir among those sections of the electorate which in many ways are
the most directly concerned. The right of petition is a well culti-
vated habit in the United States, and it is exercised by the foreign
nationality groups as much as by any. The State Department and the
White House are never without direct submissions from these quarters.
But it is believed that never before in our history have all the multi-
farious indications of various opinion been so carefully gathered to-
gether at one point as they have been during the past three years by the
Foreign Nationalities Branch in respect of the foreign nationality
groups, and analyzed and equitably reported.
The Branch has come to be conscious of a particularly grave re-
sponsibility in this regard. In the preparation of memoranda and
reports the staff has striven to impart to the raw data of opinion and
activity coming over its desks an understanding interpretation. No
field of political study could be more highly charged with drama.
The "raw data" just referred to issue from the loves and hopes, the
frustrations and hates, of some tens of millions who, directly or in-
directly, have been ground out of the European turmoil at its more
unpleasant end and are still making their footing in a new milieu.
It is a grave and moving task to attempt to be interpreters for such.
From the democratic viewpoint the case of the Italian-Americans
has seemed foremost during the last three years. Italian-Americans of
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the first and second generation total five million, and of course their
political influence has been increasing as they moved forward econom-
ically and socially. Attitudes among them can now have decisive
political effects in New York State, for example. They constitute a
first-rate factor in the trade-union world. It seems plain that United
States policy toward Italy since the capitulation has differed from
the British, for example, correlatively with the weight of Italian-
American elements in the domestic political scales.
Sensitive and generous by temperament, the Italian-Americans have
suffered a peculiarly painful emotional sequence with the constructive
phase of Fascism, the hero-worship of Mussolini, the Ethiopian and
Greek wars, the Italian declaration of war on the United States, the
American invasion, the debunking of Mussolini and Fascism, the
physical destruction among the villages they remember, and the suffer-
ing that continues. At the end of 1944 the Branch had circulated a
total of 111 releases on foreign-political activity in the United States
touching Italy primarily.
These releases have elicited a particularly lively response. In No-
vember 1944 a request was received from the OSS Reports Section.
in Rome to be supplied with ten additional copies each of FN memo-
randa and reports on Italy. OSS and State Department agencies
in Italy had been receiving them for some time past. The additional
copies were wanted to meet requests which had come in from various
Allied organs in Italy, and United States military and naval
authorities.
It seems appropriate to mention also at this point the value which
the Honorable Anthony J. Drexel Biddle found in all the FN output
during the time he was American Ambassador, collectively, to the
exiled governments in London. When back in the United States
during December 1943 he stated to the OSS Planning Group that FN
reports, notably on the Polish situation, had been of "inexpressible
benefit" to him. They were "the finest pieces of work that could be
imagined on this subject." IIaving subsequently been commissioned in
the Army and attached to General Eisenhower's staff, early in 1945
Colonel Biddle asked to be supplied with the FN releases for use at his
new post.
There has already been occasion to refer to the Polish field. Plainly
the concern felt by the 3,000,000 or so Polish-Americans for their
unhappy homeland has become a lively factor in recent American
politics. Up to the end of 1944 the Branch had issued 154 papers.
in the Polish area. This was the top figure in any one area. Ac-
knowledgment of the value of these releases had come from a number
of important quarters in addition to Mr. Biddle.
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Reference may be made finally to a number of over-all studies of
topics which range broadly across the whole field of the foreign nation-
alities. Such have been FN Number 176 of 8 March 1944, a 25-
page study of. "The Eastern Orthodox Church in the United States";
Number 129 of 24 May 1943 on "Federation in Central and Eastern
Europe"; Number 209 of 26 August 1944, "American Peace Organi-
zations and Foreign Influence"; and Numbers 170 and 215 of 28 Jan-
uary 1944 and 25 October 1944 on "Soviet Russia and the Peoples
of Europe," Parts I and II.
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11. THE SITUATION OUT OF WHICH NEED FOR THE
WORK AROSE
The broad aspect of American life out of which the foregoing
matters issue continued to be comprehended no more than vaguely
by most American officials. Truth is that those who undertook the'
organization of the Foreign Nationalities Branch were at the time
innocent enough and had to labor through a deal of exploration before
they began to obtain anything like a clear-cut view of the operational
terrain. The findings of the first eighteen months were reduced to
form in the 185-page Handbook, mentioned above, which was published
under date of June 1943 but was actually in hand only in September
of that year.
Three principal factors, it was found, gave to the phenomenon of
foreign politics in the United States its special vigor and importance.
These were (1) the cosmopolitan character of our electorate, (2) the
towering influence of the United States in the world's affairs, and (3)
the freedom of political discussion and activity accorded here to all
and sundry.
It was noted in the Foreword to the Handbook that -
The United States is a nation formed by 135,000,000
people who are related to each other, not in the racial
sense, but in being democratically minded. Ideas, rather
than race or nationalism, have guided American history.
Quite in the logic of history and the American tradition
therefore the present war, which is primarily a struggle
of ideas, gives emphasis anew to our unity in basic prin-
ciple and at the same time to the wide variety of race and
nationality which still exists in the United States and
helps to shape our political life.
More than one-fourth (35,000,000) of the present in-
habitants of the United States either were born abroad
or were born in the United States of foreign or mixed
parentage. If we subtract those (mostly from the British
Isles and Ireland) who, though born abroad or born here
of foreign parentage, have English as their mother
tongue, 25,000,000 still remain, or nearly one-fifth of the
population. One-fifth of our countrymen, that is, are
very recently derived from Continental Europe or the
Near East and are disposed by sentiment to concern
themselves-often actively, sometimes passionately-with
the fate of the lands whose culture they still share in
some degree.
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Twenty million or nearly one-sixth of our people are
recently derived from the 19 countries of Central and
Eastern Europe, namely-Germany, Italy, Russia, Po-
land, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Yugoslavia, Greece, Al-
bania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania, Sweden, Norway,
Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. It
is precisely in this Central and Eastern part of Europe
that the most intricate and highly charged political prob-
lems of the coming peace arise.
Against this demographic background, and interplaying with it
politically, was the eminence of power to which the United States
had risen in the world. The hopes of the outcast transport them al-
ways to the seats of power. The gravitation must be redoubled by the
presence there of sympathetic hosts. The experience of the first year
and a half had convinced the Foreign Nationalities Branch that "our
American citizens are American citizens first of all"-but, it was writ-
ten in the Handbook, "the so-called foreign-nationality groups-that
large portion of our citizens which retains concurrently a lively con-
cern for the fate of their `old countries' overseas-have been stirred
into a new self-consciousness and life. A. political situation results,
a political experience has begun, which is likely to make increasing
demands on our attention as the war progresses, as the peacemaking
approaches, and as we begin the work of relief and rehabilitation."
How richly that prognosis has been fulfilled is attested by the still
mounting curve of FN output.
The almost untrammelled freedom which the American people ac-
cord to political discussion, organization, and activity of all kinds has
been a third fundament. Compared with World War I, controls have
been less strict during the present more drastic experience. Whereas
25 years ago foreign-language papers had to run English translations
in parallel columns, this time the foreign-language papers have been
allowed the same almost abusive freedom as the standard English-lan-
guage press. Only two or three sheets have been closed down. In
Brazil President Vargas simply blotted out the foreign-language press.
What has happened here testifies to the strength of our democracy,
and it has greatly facilitated the work,of the Foreign Nationalities
Branch by keeping its clientele fully vocal.
Outside of the field of criminality, which has been so well taken
care of by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, only one restrictive
statute has been widely felt. That is the Foreign Agents Registration
Act. Designed not to stop, but simply to label by source publicly and
truthfully, all special pleading in the United States from foreign
sources, it seems beyond question a wise and necessary measure. But
a statute of that kind is difficult to draft and perplexing to enforce;
and the situation has been complicated by the disposition of a good
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many honest foreigners here to regard registration under the Act as
something like the registration of prostitutes and so to resist what is
not in fact intended to be derogatory. The section in the Attorney
General's office which has had the enforcement of the statute in hand
has shown moderation and good sense.
The atmosphere of freedom and the practical attributes of freedom
Were thus preserved in the United States during the years under con-
sideration, and one among numerous happy results was to let the
policy-making authorities of the United States be made aware at all
times, and always by fair and open means, of the currents of thought
and action on foreign political issues which were running through
that very large segment of our population composed by the thirty-odd
foreign nationality groups. The foreign-language press was the great
megaphone but a complicated instrument and not easy to listen to,
as will be made clear in the section following.
The other main source of intelligence has been direct contact with
people in the foreign nationality groups. Personal contact of this
kind is facilitated in the case of most of the more recently come groups,
notably those of Slavic race, because these people are in greatest part
city dwellers. Their life heads up in relatively few great urban cen-
ters such as New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Cleveland,
Detroit, Philadelphia, Boston, and perhaps a dozen other points.
Especially in the case of the Slavic groups large numbers of them, and
particularly the leaders, are mobilized, moreover, in "fraternal organ-
izations" or mutual insurance societies. According to the December
1944 issue of the Slavonic Monthly, the Polish, Russian, Ukrainian,
Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Carpatho-Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Lusa-
tian, and Macedonian "fraternals" have close to 13,000 lodges in the
United States with approximately 2,000,000 members. Their total
assets were reported as of the order of $250,000,000 and insurance
carried as more than a billion.
This social structuring has facilitated personal contact for the gath-
ering of political intelligence, but one has to look out. Leaders and
committees pretend to speak for precise and large numbers of constitu-
ents. Many of those who have been more or less honestly counted
are in fact, however, no more than policy-holders who have their
minds on eventual sickness and burial rather than European politics.
So far as they are politically minded the politics which interest
them may be primarily those of the "fraternal." A good number of
the "fraternals" pay their officers sizable salaries and the posts are
much sought after. Then there are the editorial chairs in the foreign-
language newspapers, a good many of which are fraternal organs.
The occupants of both types of jobs must justify their existence.
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American domestic politics (where the foreign nationality pattern
is an old familiar and was very specifically worked by both sides in
the 1944 elections) provides another venue still. The issues of Euro-
pean politics are thus brought into the life of the foreign-language
groups in more ways than one. Those who are concerned primarily
with Europe or American policy toward Europe agitate these issues
with an eye to moral support in the United States. At the same time
other individuals, who have become Americanized beyond any deep
emotional concern for European affairs, seize nevertheless upon the
emotional appeal of European issues as means for advancing their
personal interests on the American scene - election to a public or
"fraternal" office, gaining subscribers for a newspaper, or whatever
else.
Other correctives have had to be kept in mind. The following was
written in the Foreword to the Handbook:
From the beginning the United States has been peo-
pled by those, speaking broadly, who were dissatisfied
with economic, religious, or political conditions in their
original homelands; and in the successive waves of
migration peasants and artisans have been represented
in much greater proportion than in the. societies fr9m
which they came. A high proportion have stemmed
from ethnic minorities. We are, in sum, a Nation of
dissidents ret aining, often for a long time after becoming
good Americans absorbed in American life, the resent-
ments which moved us hither.
The one-sixth of our population who have come most
recently, and from the countries of Central and Eastern
Europe, are not different in these respects. They tend
predominantly to represent minorities and dissidents.
When, therefore, one views the politics of Europe re-
flected here in their thoughts and activities, it is necessary
to allow for some distortions-first, of numerical distri-
bution. For example, in Yugoslavia Serbs outnumber
Croats and Croats outnumber Slovenes. In the United
States these proportions are reversed. In Czechoslovakia
Czechs are more numerous than Slovaks. In the United
States the numerical discrepancy is not so great. The
Arabic-speaking people of the Near East are mostly
Moslem in religion, but those who have migrated to the
United States derive from the Christian minority with
the result that nearly all the Arabic-speaking element
here is Christian in its religious affiliation.
Finally, allowance must be made in nearly every case
for a political time lag. The American foreign-language
group is likely to be thinking in a frame of factual and
sentimental reference which has become in some degree
outdated in the homeland by the passage of later events.
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This phenomenon, natural whenever groups of people
are transplanted, has become especially marked in the
United States since free immigration ceased about 1920.
Then there have been the political refugees who began to come with
Hitler's advent to power and increased in number after the fall of
France in 1940. While the full count of all those who might be called
political refugees, arriving from Europe since 1933, may run to half
a million, the individuals among them of real political consequence in
relation to particular situations abroad are to be counted by tens or
hundreds at the most. In the case of Poland the count of politically
consequential figures, according to the experience of this Branch,
would not go beyond 200; France and Italy, each about the same;
Czechoslovakia 100; Germany 50; Yugoslavia 40; Russians, taking
flight again from Paris in 1940, 30; Austria, Hungary and Spain, each
20; and so on.
The emphasis in the case of the refugees has, therefore, not been
on quantity but on individual interest, careful selection, and personal
cultivation. Those who were found to possess the greatest interest
have already been named on page 5 above.
New York City is naturally the chief center. The number residing
in Washington has been very few. Those living elsewhere found
Washington a difficult city to visit, especially with slim purses. Con-
sideration was given at one point to moving FN to New York, but it
was deemed better to keep the main operation in direct contact with
other branches of the Government in Washington and to have a small
but very carefully equipped office in New York. This will be spoken
of further in the next section, which deals with the development of
the FN organization since 1941.
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III. SKETCH OF THE ORGANIZATION WHICH HAS BEEN
DEVELOPED
To cope with the task of (1) extracting from the social and political
situation outlined in the preceding section an adequate,- balanced
stream of raw intelligence data and (2) working this material into
correct and succinct reports, the Foreign Nationalities Branch was
organized in two divisions. The Field Study Division was charged
with the first task primarily, the Chancery Division with the second;
but the Branch was to remain a small organization, a team rather
than a system, and everyone helped out where he could.
How to cover the foreign-language press was the first problem.
Not less than 1,500 periodicals (dailies, semiweeklies, weeklies, month-
lies) could be counted in all. The total number of different languages
was said to be 53. Until September 1943 the Department of Justice
was having much of this formidable array of matter regularly scanned
by a staff numbering 125 or more. The summaries produced were
helpful but they were required to serve a number of different interests
and the State Department had found the foreign-political viewpoint
not to be sufficiently segregated and developed to meet its particular
requirements.
Language-equipped personnel could hardly have been recruited for
another staff such as that already existing in the Department of
Justice, even if the Bureau of the Budget had not stood in the way of
such a duplication. So recourse was had to volunteer help and a, ready
response was found among university faculties preeminently. Within
a surprisingly short time 100 to 150 scholars at 20 or so universities,
commanding among them the necessary languages, were doing a good
part of the needed press scanning as a contribution to the war effort.
They translated and summarized from the particular viewpoint of
American foreign relations. It was by no means necessary to exhaust
the whole range of 1,500 items, but some 200 of the more considerable
papers were taken care of in this way, 25 to 30 languages coming into
play; and the work still goes on. During the twelve months ended
December 1944 press readings received numbered 9,879.
As inevitably with volunteers the results are spotty, but done as
they are by scholars, many of the reports possess an intellectual quality
which could never be had from ordinary workers at Government rates.
In addition a working tie has been established between the Branch
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and the academic world which has proved helpful in various ways;
and the system has enabled a good number of citizens to hold to their
necessary normal tasks and still give to the war effort in a specifically
personal way. Supplementary readings have been provided through
contract with a newspaper-translating bureau in New York and it has
remained necessary for the regular staff in Washington to scan without
delay some of the most important foreign-language papers. But the
system of volunteer readers went some distance towards solving a
difficult problem in an extraordinarily satisfactory manner.
From 1943 to the beginning of 1945 the volunteer reading system
was headed up at Princeton, where the Institute for Advanced Study
generously contributed-for the Princeton Office of Volunteer Read-
ings, as it was called-office space and incidental services.
PERSONAL CONTACTS
The second task for the Division of Field Study was to arrange
means of personal contact with leaders in the foreign nationality
groups and with the more important political refugees. A field repre-
sentative was established at San Francisco in January 1943 and another
at Pittsburgh in March of that year. An office was set going in New
York in April. At the end of 1944 the Branch had in addition repre-
sentatives in Chicago, Madison-Milwaukee, Cleveland-Detroit, and
Boston.
The yield of information from Pittsburgh has been particularly
rich. Pittsburgh is a remarkable place from the viewpoint of the work
of this Branch. More than one-third of the city's total population
of 672,000 are foreign-born or the children of foreign-born. More than
75,000 first- and second-generation Slavs live there; 49,000 of equally
direct Italian extraction; 47,000 German. Pittsburgh is an important
center as well for Polish-American elements, Carpatho-Russian,
Czechoslovak (predominantly Slovak), Yugoslav, Lithuanian, Ukrai-
nian, Hungarian. Fifteen among the largest foreign-language "fra-
ternals" have their headquarters there. There are a dozen important
foreign-language newspapers. Agitation on foreign political issues
is incessant and various.
The unusually able officer who took on the Pittsburgh assignment
in the spring of 1943, and has continued with it since, had to make
contact with local leaders of the several groups, overcome their natural
disposition to regard him as one more "Government spy," assuage their
partisan and racial jealousies, and seem to give them something in
return for the information they gave him. At the end of 1944 the list
of his "going" contacts ran to 100, and he had forwarded no less
than 900 memoranda and reports to Washington.
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New York proved a different sort of problem. There the pro-
portion of first- and second-generation Americans is higher than in
Pittsburgh, but organizational heading-up of the American type does
not occur in New York on the scale characteristic of Pittsburgh,
Cleveland and Chicago. New York is nearer to Europe. It is in New
York that nearly all the foreign political refugees, or those of con-
tinning political importance, reside. During 1943, for example, no
less than six Yugoslav ministers of state were living there.
The Branch gave special attention to the location and physical sur-
roundings of its New York headquarters. After a season in conven-
tional office space, the small staff was established in an apartment
house at 54th Street and Park Avenue. Here foreigners, frequently
men of highest distinction in their own countries, could come without
the sense of being bureaucratically summoned, and could talk with a
freedom and intimacy hardly attainable elsewhere.
One or two regular officers of the Branch, together with admin-
istrative and clerical aids, have kept in continuing touch with the New
York milieu. In addition, the Chief of the Branch has spent on the
average two days of each week in New York, and "desk" heads have
made irregular but frequent visits to extend their contacts or to work
on particular problems. Finally a certain number of observers and
field workers have been dependent from the New York Office, helping
to cover the variety of meetings and organizational developments
in this area. Since 1942 the number of reports and memoranda which
have been sent from the New York Office to the desks in Washington
have totaled nearly 2,700.
The field which the Field Study Division has had to cover by per-
sonal contacts, in parallel with the reading of the foreign-language
press, was not only dispersed geographically but varied in character,
demanding sharply different types of approach in different places.
By means, however, of the small, but flexible and apt, field service
which it was possible in time to build up, the Branch had come to feel,
well before the end of 1944, in sufficient touch with the important move-
ments of foreign-political feeling and activity. Parallel with the
press readings, a constant stream of memoranda of conversations,
meeting reports, and the like flowed into Washington headquarters.
By letter, long-distance phone, and telegram the field workers were
kept advised of lines of inquiry needing attention. In the same way
reports could be quickly checked and verified.
Confidential lists have been completed from time to time of personal
contacts active at date. At the end of 1944 the total count approached
2,500.
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CHANCERY DIVISION
The two incoming streams of "raw data"- (1) press readings and
(2) memoranda of conversations, meeting reports, and the like-are
taken in hand upon receipt in Washington by the Analysis and Index
Section of the Chancery Division. This Section is the Branch's in-
tellectual larder. It is rich and well kept. The number of incoming
reports, analyzed, briefed, and indexed, stood, at the beginning of
1945, at 14,590. Data had been abstracted and indexed on 20,170
individuals active in their respective ethnic groups in connection with
foreign politics. Three thousand five hundred and forty-three or-
ganizations and 2,053 publications had been catalogued.
The Section has accumulated a small, carefully selected reference
library.
As the work of the Branch developed, it became plain with respect
to most of the ethnic groups that a balanced picture of their foreign-
political life could not be had without reference to Canada and the
countries of Latin America in addition to the United States. It
chances, for instance, that the newspaper organ for North America
of the Croat Peasant Party is published in Winnipeg. The diocese
of the Serbian Orthodox Church, with its See in Chicago, embraces
Canada as well as the United States. The diocese of the Greek Ortho-
dox Church extends to South as well as North America. Italian im-
migrants are relatively as numerous in South America as in the United
States; Spanish, German, Greek, Yugoslav, Arabic, and other areas
of politics-abroad can be understood only in the larger framework of
the Western Hemisphere.
The matter was discussed at the State Department early in 1944.
The State Department has subsequently placed at the Branch's dis-
posal reports from American diplomatic missions in Latin America
touching the foreign nationality field. British and Canadian authori-
ties have been equally kind in cooperating with respect to Canada. It
became possible in consequence to enlarge a second edition of the
Handbook, which was in preparation at the end of 1944, to include
data on Latin America and Canada. Reports have been issued on
"The Poles in Latin America," "Ukrainians in Latin America," "Sec-
ond Conference of Italia Libre in Santiago (Chile)," "Election of
French Deputies in the Western Hemisphere," "The International
Garibaldi Alliance," the last heading up in Mexico City; and several
reports on Spanish Republican activities have turned on Mexico City.
THE "DESKS"
Producing units are the "ethnic desks" in the Chancery Division.
There are in all some 30 ethnic groups to be covered. Of these 20
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are of first-rate impoltance. At the end of 1944 the number of ana-
lysts in charge of the several desks was ten. This meant that each
principal analyst was responsible for at least two major desks (i. e.,
nationality groups) and one or two minor desks in addition. The
total staff in Washington, counting clerical and all, was 47.
The analysts have been drawn in large part from the academic
world. It is interesting to note that through the combined talent of
the Washington staff we had at the end of 1944 working command of
25 languages in addition to English. That comprised all but 3 of the
considerable languages of Europe and the Near East.'
A difficult combination of qualities is needed to make. a good analyst
in the foreign nationality field. He must be steeped in American and
European history and politics. He must be intimate, or able rapidly
to become intimate, with two or more national fields and possess the
language equipment appropriate to them. He must be gifted with
political insight and balance. He must be able to write succinct and
lucid English. It is particularly hard to find capable workers who
can truly understand particular national fields and still are not un-
balanced by sentiment and prejudice.
The analyst reads and digests the flow of raw information which
comes over his desk daily from the field sources. He himself, or an
assistant, scans some of the more important foreign-language news-
papers. He has personal contacts of his own in the ethnic groups
which he is covering (American citizens and refugees) and also with
colleagues elsewhere in the Government. It is pleasant to note at
this point, with gratitude, the help which the FN staff has at all times
had from R&' , SI, and other branches of OSS, from the geographical
divisions in the State Department, the Foreign Agents Registration
Section in the Department of Justice, the Federal Communications
Commission, Censorship, FBI, OWI, and other agencies.
The papers prepared at the "desks" include long-term studies, de-
tailed reports on the foreign-language press, current summaries and
estimates, and spot news. At staff meetings twice a week and by in-
formal consultation at all times among the "desks," the Editorial Sec-
tion and the executive officers, timely lines of inquiry are fixed upon
and projects scheduled.
Statistics' of Branch output during the first three years have been
noted above. At the end of 1944 the Branch was putting out 4 or 5 full-
length reports a month, 10 to 20 bulletins, 30 or more news notes, and
10 or 12 meeting reports, along with occasional special memoranda to
1 The languages commanded were Albanian, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Finnish, French,
German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian. Polish, Portuguese,
Rumanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian,
Yiddish. Those lacking were Arabic, Estonian, Latvian.
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the Director of Strategic Services and the Secretary of State, and some
informal letters to other officers of the State Department.
EDITORIAL SECTION
Early in its career the Branch developed an Editorial Section and
it has profited much thereby. Papers are required from the desks
in draft form, triple-spaced. Then they go through the wringer.
The same holds for contributions from the Branch Chief or any one
else.
The editorial workers take the drafts in hand, re-check facts-
particularly names, dates, public events-using the resources of the
Analysis and Index Section and their own retentive memories. The
orthography of proper names, for example, creates a never-ending
copy-reading chore.2 The Editorial Section has gone far beyond copy-
reading, however. It was seen from the beginning that the Branch
had not only to issue reports but to get them read. It was competing
for the attention of busy men. Format and type were carefully
studied. Headpieces were offered the reader summarizing each
longer paper. Above all, the effort to improve English style and
readability has been tireless. Comments by readers of the Branch's
output have abundantly affirmed the high practical usefulness of such
constructive editorial effort.
Three years' experience with the Editorial Section has greatly
strengthened a conviction which was already in the writer's mind.
It is this, that not a few who are otherwise good intelligence officers
still miss the mark by failing to write a story which will be read by
those higher up, and attended to. It is easy to feel that the job is
done with the gathering and organization of the facts and the segre-
gation, so far as can be, of truth fromr untruth ; but in developing the
Editorial Section we have proceeded in the belief that there is need still
for concise, crystal-clear, and convincing presentation. Without that
the intelligence officer does not, as it were, drive through to the kill.
2 The Branch is faced with no less than six different alphabets, viz., the Latin, Cyrillic,
Greek, Hebrew, Armenian, Arabic.
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IV. SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE FUTURE
The Foreign Nationalities Branch was brought into being under the
stimulus of the war effort, but at the end of three years a need seems to
have been demonstrated for the indefinite continuance of its essential
work in some appropriate form.
In 1941-42 three other governmental agencies were active in the
foreign nationalities field. They were the Department of State, which
did not at first relinquish its original activity; the Department of
Justice, which was then feeling out broadly the extent of its responsi-
bility under the Foreign Agents Registration Act; and the Foreign
Language Division of OWI, which at that time went beyond its basic
function of distributing information to the foreign-language press
and sought to organize and influence positively the political forces
running in the foreign-language groups.
By the middle of 1944 the Department of State had accepted the
Foreign Nationalities Branch fully as its working arm in the foreign
nationalities field, and the Department of Justice and the OWI had
so drastically curtailed their earlier activities that the Foreign Na-
tionalities Branch had become the single agency to which the Govern-
ment looked for interpretative reports on political trends and activi-
ties among the foreign nationality groups in the United States and
foreign political refugees here. It is believed that the narrowing-
down ensued naturally from the inherent unity of the task, and pre-
sumably the several branches of the Government had found themselves
to be satisfactorily served by the Foreign Nationalities Branch so far
as political intelligence was their need.
As for the future, reference is made again to the three headings un-
der which an account was given (beginning at page 3) of the develop-
ment of the Branch's intelligence function to date, and to these
"psychological warfare" is added, making the list to be as follows : -
(1) Reflection in the United States of situations abroad and
foreshadowing here of possible developments abroad.
(2) Diplomatically unrecognized movements and dissident
agitations.
(3) The American democratic process: pressures at Wash-
ington touching points in international relations.
(4) "Psychological warfare."
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(1) With Europe and other parts of the world being restored to
freedom, more or less, it is likely that the secondary type of political
intelligence which has been obtainable these past three years by study
of the reflections of foreign situations in the United States will re-
cede in importance. If this were the sole aspect of the work of the
Foreign Nationalities Branch we might look forward to the termina-
tion of the Branch as war conditions gave way to peace.
(2) There are other aspects, however. That relating to diplomati-
cally unrecognized movements and dissident agitations will not fade
but will almost certainly prove to be of increasing importance in the
conduct of American foreign relations. The heart of the case has
already been stated, page 5 if. In keeping with our fundamental
concept of liberty the United States has from the beginning played
host to political underdogs. With the power of the United States
now so greatly enhanced it is inescapable that this side of our foreign
political life should grow still more multifarious and turbulent.
There is an international aspect as well. The approaching confer-
ence at San Francisco will attract many unofficial claimants in addi-
tion to the official delegations. Information will be needed regarding
these. An informal, understanding contact with them can turn the
edge of their insistence and relieve the pressures on the American
delegates; it can help toward a fair hearing for just claims.
It is essential at all times to have regular contact, other than crass
police surveillance, with movements-in-opposition which may some
day be governments. The instance of the Russian Bolsheviks has
already been cited. Recall how the Cuban insurrection was prepared
in the United States. Apart from the possibility of their ultimate
success, these movements are currently affecting our relations with
other Powers. Consider the bearing of the Zionist movement on our
relations with Great Britain and the influence, certain to be very per-
ceptible in times ahead, of irredentist Polish and Lithuanian agita-
tions on our relations with the USSR.
It is pertinent to remark also that political refugees, even when
they seem wholly ineffective, may still be exerting, or preparing to
exert, an influence which will in time come to be of importance. It
is said that the Polish refugees of 1831 in France helped very notice-
ably to mold the political thinking of nineteenth- and twentieth-
century Poland. The ultimate effects of the flight of the refugees from
Europe to the United States since 1933 are still incalculable.
The State Department needs, therefore, to be kept informed cur-
rently about unrecognized movements and dissident agitations, and
to have contact, but contact of a suitable kind. The Department can
hardly have an accredited ambassador and some leader of the revolu-
tionary opposition to that ambassador's government pass each other
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in its corridors. A unit such as the Foreign Nationalities Branch,
operating as a part of the OSS, or some successor thereof, but in
consultation with the State Department, meets the need.
So placed the Foreign Nationalities Branch, or its successor, could
render a cognate service. It could keep the State Department ap-
prised also of "unofficial" activities here by recognized governments.
The revisionist agitations which can be counted upon to spring up
after the new peace has been made will, among other things, impinge
directly on the new international security system. In some cases they
will be quietly encouraged, in others directly supported, by govern-
ments with which we are in regular diplomatic intercourse. Often
they will "break surface," first of all perhaps, among the foreign na-
tionality groups in the United States. There will be comings and
goings and communications of various sorts to be watched, quietly
and from a diplomatic viewpoint, and correlated with current utter-
ances in the foreign-language press and other manifestations on the
American domestic scene. To illustrate: Between wars a good num-
ber of Hungarian-Americans, active in "fraternal" and journalistic
enterprises in the United States, were invited by the Horthy Govern-
ment to visit the "old country." On returning these raen played a
significant role in shaping attitudes among the Hungarian-American
population. American democracy must forever remain a court of
appeal for the discontented. We shall have to look alive to avoid
embarrassments. If we are acute, we can derive advantages.
(3) How to accommodate democratic government and the conduct
of foreign relations in a world of sovereign states is one of the prob-
lems of the age. The United States has gone far in the molding of
its foreign policy through the democratic process, and it is likely to
go further. The foreign nationalities groups present a special prob-
lem in this connection.
The general trend toward Americanization since the last war has
been unmistakable ; but recently, in consequence of the second war
and the presence here of dynamic personalities among the political
refugees, a distinct increase of foreign-political awareness has been
noticeable in the nationality groups. Following the wider American
policy signaled at Yalta and the organization presently of a general
system of security, Americans of recent foreign extraction may ex-
perience a sustained new interest in the politics of their former home-
lands. How intimately, already, the unfolding of new developments
abroad is impinging on foreign nationalities here, may be illustrated
by the cross-currents of political agitation relating to relief and re-
habilitation. The Branch had issued no less than 23 papers in 1944
dealing directly with this subject.
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In any case the nationality groups are continuing to climb economi-
cally and socially and so in domestic political significance, and their
pressures will be increasingly felt at the State Department and the
White House as well as in the halls of Congress. It has come to be
indispensable that those in authority should know in connection with
these pressures who is who, what they want, and why-the petitioners
themselves sometimes not knowing the real why of their action. The
Department of Justice has an important contribution to make through
the Foreign Agents Registration Section in the Attorney General's
office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. An indispensable
requirement still remains for political contact and appraisal. It is
believed that the Foreign Nationalities Branch has developed in the
course of the last three years a sound method of operation in this
regard and that it should be continued.
If the Branch be placed organizationally apart from the State De-
partment, the State Department may wish to consider the need for
establishing in its own structure a sort of public relations office dedi-
cated specifically to the foreign nationality groups. Such an office
would receive petitions, speak for the Department and thus relieve
the rest of the Department so far as possible. Between such an office
and the Foreign Nationalities Branch, or its successor, the most in-
timate relationship would obviously be necessary.
(4) The matter of "psychological warfare" was not mentioned in
the earlier parts of this report, because the Foreign Nationalities
Branch has not so far taken a direct part in any such program. The
bearing in this regard of the intelligence reports it has furnished is
evident, however. The fact is that during this war the foreign nation-
alities were put to less constructive use than during the First World
War. Any one particularly interested would find it worth while to
read FN Number 147 of 1 September 1943, "The Foreign Nationality
Groups and Psychological Warfare." There have been possibilities
these past three years, though none perhaps at the moment politically
sound. If, for instance, in dealing with the German problem the
United States had decided to form a Free Austrian Committee, or a
Bavarian Committee, along lines illustrated by the Russians with the
Paulus-Seydlitz committee, the information at the disposal of the
Branch and its personal contacts would have been indispensable fac-
tors. It is something to be kept in mind for the future. Psychological
warfare so-called can become appropriate in situations which are not
at all warlike in the ordinary sense.
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CONFIDENTIAL
At many points the writer of this report has repressed an impulse
to name names and assign individual credit. To have done so would
have been to clutter the text beyond the limits of easy reading or to
have risked unfairness; and, more cogently still, it would have missed
the truth. The truth is that the positive results which have been
obtained are traceable one way or another to every one who has had
a part these three years past in the Branch's development, and above
all the results have been attributable to team work founded on a
general devotion to the public interest. Individual acknowledgment
is made therefore simply by listing on the pages following those who at
one time or another have filled the posts of special responsibility.
I should like to note also how helpful it has been to the Branch, both
practically and morally, to be part of the Office of Strategic Services,
and to record the gratitude of all in the Branch for pleasant associa-
tions and many favors. It is a pleasure also to acknowledge our debt
to officers of the State Department for encouragement and friendly
counsel.
Respectfully submitted,
DEWITT C. PooLE
Chief, Foreign Nationalities Branch
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CONFIDENTIAL
THE FOREIGN NATIONALITIES BRANCH
The Honorable John C. Wiley, exercising supervision, Nov. 1941-
Nov. 1943
Chief :
DeWitt C. Poole
Deputy (Associate) Chief :
Benjamin D. Meritt
Bjarne Braatoy
Assistant to the Chief :
Francis F. Bowman, Jr.
Liaison Officer :
E. Bright Wilson
Sept. 42-Jan. 43
Sept. 44-
Feb. 42-July 42
Nov. 41-June 43
Oct. 44-
Administrative Officer :
Robert L. Reynolds
Marcella F. Kennedy
Administrative Assistant :
Sept. 42-June 43
May 44-
Billie Jenkins Feb. 42-Feb. 43
Corinne M. Poole Dec. 42-Mar. 43
Marcella F. Kennedy May 43-May 44
Mary B. Mooney June 44--
Now YORE OFFICE
Field Representatives:
T/3 Charles B. Friediger (Enl)
August Heckscher
Helen Crosby
Cornelia McCook
Manager :
Margaret I. Wheeler
Wanda G. Slasko
Nov. 43-
Nov. 44-
Feb. 43-Oct. 43
June 44-
Nov. 42-April 44
April 44-
Chief :
Weston Howland Feb. 42-July 42
Moses W. Beckelman July 42-June 43
Malcolm W. Davis July 43-Nov. 43
John P. O'Keeffe Aug. 44-
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Field Representatives :
Arnold Margolin
Feb. 42-Nov. 42
William Kubalek
Mar. 42-Nov. 44
Carl F. Butts
Mar. 43-
Henry H. Balos
Nov. 43-
John Norman
Oct. 44-
In Charge :
Benjamin D. Meritt
Jan. 43-Aug. 43
Richard V. Lindabury
Aug. 43-
Chief:
Benjamin D. Meritt
April 42-Sept. 42
Robert L. Reynolds
Sept. 42-June 43
Carl W. Blegen
June 43-
Assistant Chief :
1st Lt. James S. Kronthal, AUS
Oct. 43-Sept. 44
Analysts on Ethnic "Desks":
Robert L. Reynolds
Feb. 42-June 43
Benjamin D. Meritt
April 42-Jan. 43
Carl W. Blegen
Jan. 43-
Wm. Jay Gold
Mar. 42-Sept. 42
Lily Ross Taylor
July 43-Aug. 44
Oliver J. Frederiksen
Sept. 43-Dec. 44
Sanford Schwarz
Jan. 44-
Arthur M. Wilson
May 44-
Vincenzo Petrullo
Jan. 42-July 42
August Heckscher
Feb. 42-Aug. 43
Peter P. Klassen
Mar. 42-Sept. 43
Philip C. Horton
May 42-June 43
Richard V. Lindabury
Oct. 42-Aug. 43
Sgt. Spencer Taggart (Enl)
Feb. 44-
Marcel Grilli
Nov. 44-
Alex Dragnich
Nov. 44-
M. Alison Frantz
July 42-
Leon Shoob
Dec. 42-
Eleanor Clark
May 43-
Julian Towster
Mar. 44-
Sgt. Abraham G. Duker (Enl)
Nov. 44-
Flora L. Phelps
Feb. 42-June 44
Carl F. Butts
May 42-Mar. 43
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CONFIDENTIAL
Irene A. Venit
Oct. 43-
Elizabeth McFadden
Nov. 43-
Karl W. Kalassay
Mar. 44-
Lauri A. Williams
Oct. 43-
Ria Braatoy
July 44-
Adelaide V. Sweetser
Mar. 43-Sept. 44
Mary Augustine
Sept. 44-
Analysis and Index Section :
Chief :
Courtlandt Canby
April 42-Sept. 42
1st Lt. James S. Kronthal, AUS
Oct. 42-Oct. 43
Marion L. Woodburn
Oct. 43-
Editorial Section:
Chief :
Wm. Jay Gold
Sept. 42-May 44
M/Sgt. Selden Rodman (Enl)
May 44-
Editors :
Elise E. Thompson
Oct. 42-
Corinne M. Poole
Mar. 43-
Jane C. Klieforth
June 44-
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