grants by officials of the United States. This is in the best interests not only of those admitted under the program but also in the best interests of the United States.

It was only during the latter stages of the displaced persons program that trained interviewers recruited from the Federal and State employment services were sent to Europe to work with the voluntary agencies to help match the candidates against the job assurances that were outstanding.

We know, too, that many of the persons who were settled here under the displaced persons program did not stay on the job because of lack of proper selection and this was later recognized by the voluntary agencies which participated in the program. I have confidence in the mechanism provided by this program. It would make use at the outset of an employment service which is geared to the requirements of American industry and agriculture. I believe that this approach holds great promise with respect to the screening and selection of the prospective immigrants who are not being sponsored by relatives. Employer job assurances developed on this side of the ocean on the basis of particular skills required in particular places would go to our personnel on the other side who have the knowhow in this specialized work. We may expect that these job orders will be realistically matched with the worker who meets the specifications.

Instead of permitting individuals, voluntary agencies, and other organizations to bring immigrants into the United States on a blanketassurance basis and thereafter attempt to find, or to impose quotas on their constituencies for providing employment, housing, and support for the unfortunate immigrants and their families who had actually arrived in this country, Congress reversed that procedure by prohib iting the administrative authorities from accepting blanket assurances, and requiring that appropriate individual assurances of suitable employment, housing, and support be given by American citizens before the immigrants were brought to the United States.

Great consideration was given to forming a commission similar to that of the Displaced Persons Act, but in revising the bill to eliminate the title, staff, personnel, and office of a coordinator, Congress decided that there should be no new board, body, commission, or agency of the Government created to administer the Refugee Relief Act with an expansive and expensive bureaucracy, but that the act should be administered under the supervisory jurisdiction of the Administrator, acting through the established operating agencies of the Government, for each of which funds were appropriated by Congress to enable them to initiate their operations.

Section 7 (d) (2) of the act required of each refugee, as a prerequisite to visa issuance, a certificate of readmission issued by the authorities of the country where he obtained a visa. This could be used if it developed later that he had obtained his visa through fraud or material misrepresentation. Obviously, no visa could be issued without the certificate of readmission since the issurance of this certificate depended not upon ourselves but upon the foreign governments concerned. It was necessary to enter into negotiations with those governments in order to arrange for the issurance of the certificates.

The requirement of a reentry certificate from the government of the country from which the refugee (not a citizen of that country) was being brought to the United States was involved and took months of negotiation in many instances. In effect it required a cooperating government to guarantee to take back noncitizen refugees when they were not acceptable to the United States. Some governments felt

♦ Chronological list of readmission certificate agreements, appendix, p. 111.

that the requirement of this certificate was in itself an infringement upon their sovereignty. Others maintained that such certificates were not necessary.

Critics of the program admonished the administrative group for the slow start of the refugee program in Germany and the Far East. The necessary reentry certificate agreements for these areas could not be concluded until March 22, 1954, 8 months after the program was initiated; and, of course, no visas could be issued before that date. In Hong Kong, perhaps the greatest center of refugees in the world, a satisfactory agreement with the authorities of the Crown Colony could not be concluded until December 18, 1954.

INVESTIGATIVE PROGRAM AGREEMENT NEEDED FROM FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS

The requirement of the investigation posed another delicate question which necessitated arrangements with the foreign governments concerned. In some countries there was considerable opposition to the functioning of our investigators. In order to maintain the standards of security necessary for the protection of the United States as clearly desired by the Congress, it was necessary to make satisfactory arrangements in this regard before our visa issuing program could begin. In Germany, United States Army investigators were assigned to work on the refugee program. In Italy, on the other hand, our RRP investigators used Italian police authorities for actual local investigations, evaluated the material submitted by them and wrote the required reports. In certain other areas of operation, our own corps of investigators did the entire investigation and the report. Refugee Act visa issuance had to be set up as a section of the regular Department of State visa operation.

Since no central authority was created under the Refugee Relief Act for visa issuance and because the regular operating agencies of the Government shared in its administration, issuance of the regulations had to be preceded by conferences with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Department of the Army, the Public Health Service, the United States Employment Service, the Department of Labor, the Treasury Department and voluntary welfare agencies that cooperated in obtaining assurances for the refugees from American citizens. One of the first steps was the issuance of special regulations for the guidance of the regular officers and employees who were to carry out the provisions of the Refugee Relief Act. Despite the complexity of the problems involved with so many different public and private agencies working on a single program, the Administrator was able to draft the necessary regulations, obtain their approval and have them published within 120 days.

In experience, the Administrator found that the major problems which faced him in successfully carrying out the act stemmed from certain provisions which covered eligibility and assurances. Section 2 (a) of the act states:

"Refugee" means any person in a country or area which is neither Communist nor Communist-dominated, who because of persecution, fear of persecution, natural calamity or military operations is out of his usual place of abode and unable to return thereto, who has not been firmly resettled, and who is in urgent need of assistance for the essentials of life or for transportation.

All escapees and German expellees also had to qualify as refugees under this definition in order to be eligible under the act. A narrow interpretation of the eligibility provisions regarding refugees would effectively have prevented the achievement of the objectives of the act because of the limited number of applicants who would have qualified. The Administrator took the position that the eligibility provisions should be interpreted as broadly as possible within the law in order to achieve its objectives. The Administrator, accompanied by the Assistant Commissioner for Examinations of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Mr. Allan C. Devaney, visited key posts in Europe and the Middle East during December 1954, for the specific purpose of explaining to consular officers and Immigration and Naturalization Service officers the policy of broadly interpreting the eligibility provisions of the act.

The broad policy followed with regard to eligibility was consistent with the achievement of the overall objectives of the act and with the intent of the Congress as expressed on numerous occasions.

There is in the appendix of this report a copy of the regulations promulgated by the Administrator, which include the broadened interpretation of certain factors here mentioned. The regulations themselves played a considerable part in the successful conclusion of operations under the Refugee Relief Act.

'Regulations under Refugee Relief Act, appendix, p. 111.

THE MACHINERY

ORGANIZATION OF REFUGEE RELIEF PROGRAM

The first phase of operation under the refugee relief program was one of organization and preparation. While regulations were being prepared and staffing started, negotiations with the various foreign governments regarding reentry certificates, required by section 7 (d) (2), were carried on through diplomatic channels. Upon completion of the official regulations and forms, after agreement by the interested Government departments, they were submitted to certain voluntary sectarian and nonsectarian agencies for revision and approval.

Several factors militated against as rapid a completion of the organization phases as the Administrator would have liked. In the first place the recruitment of personnel both in the United States and abroad was slowed down by the length of time needed for required security clearances. On the average, these clearances took approximately 2 months. The personnel were chosen for their experience either in the field of immigration and visa matters or, in the case of those who were to function abroad, by experience in the language, customs, and general conditions in the countries where they were to be employed.

At the outset there was a tendency, prompted principally by the desire of everyone concerned to economize to the fullest possible extent, to minimize the number of additional personnel needed to carry out the provisions of the act in accordance with the intent of the Congress.As actual operations got underway, it became evident that additional personnel would be needed in the investigative and visa-issuing phase abroad, as well as in the office of the refugee relief program in the Department.

Employment of staff was a complex problem. The Administrator wished to obtain the best type of personnel which he could find for the type of operations envisaged. One factor operated in his favor. By reason of a decreased appropriation for the Department of State, a reduction-in-force program was underway, involving a severe cutback in personnel. The Administrator was therefore able to hire experienced consular personnel, in many cases, while they were still in their overseas posts, after they had been notified that they would have to be dropped by the reduction in force. However, the matter of hiring personnel to conduct the security investigations required by the act was a process which took considerable time. The Administrator wanted people who could speak the language of the country where they were to be assigned and who had investigative experience, and it was necessary to conduct a recruitment campaign in order to find individuals who met these standards. Security investigations had to be conducted on all personnel and the Security Office of the Department of State, which was overburdened at the time by the necessity of reinvestigating and reevaluating the incumbent personnel

in the Department, had also to shoulder this extra task. Nevertheless, the first investigators were employed and sent overseas in October 1953, and began arriving in substantial numbers in February and March of 1954 so that field operations could be begun. It was soon found necessary to staff the Division of Assurances to carry out the responsibilities of the Administrator in verifying the assurances of housing, employment and support required by the act. The Washington office of the Deputy Administrator for the refugee relief program also required an adequate staff.

In order to answer inquiries from the American public as to the availability of refugees and the steps required to file an assurance, it was also necessary to establish a Public Affairs Office. This Office was placed in charge of an experienced journalist who proved able to operate effectively with a small staff consisting of not more than 2 or 3 assistants.

As the issuance of visas to refugees and relatives increased, the load of correspondence, not only between the Department and our field offices abroad, but also between the offices of the refugee relief program in Washington and Members of Congress and others, grew to a point where it was necessary to have an adequate staff for this work. Therefore, in June 1955, the Special Projects Branch of the refugee relief program was established. This office maintained liaison with Members of Congress and others relating to such cases and also drafted advisory opinions for the guidance of our consular and immigration officers in the field in those cases where disagreement had arisen. These opinions were not sent to the field until they had the concurrence of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. In addition, the Special Projects Branch, headed by a Foreign Service officer with over 20 years of experience, performed such special functions as the Administrator or his deputy directed. For example, when the field operations of our program at one of the large offices in the Far East appeared in difficulty, the Administrator dispatched the Chief of the Special Projects Branch to the office concerned to assist in working out the problems. As a result, the visa issuance program got rapidly underway at the post concerned.

As the operations of the act began to assume substantial proportions, two coordinators were appointed to serve as the Administrator's deputies in Europe and in the Far East. The job of these coordinators, one stationed at Geneva, Switzerland, and the other at Taipei, Formosa, was to keep in close touch with our consular and investigative officials, to assist them in their day-to-day problems and to make frequent field trips to check on the operations of the program. In the summer of 1955, a Foreign Service inspector was assigned to the refugee relief program to visit the field operations of the program and to report back to Washington on their present progress. The reports of this inspector were most valuable and reflected in the main the devotion to duty of our staffs abroad and their efforts through long hours of overtime work to make a difficult program a success. Recommendations of the inspector designed to increase the efficiency of our operations were put into effect wherever it was practicable to do so. A report of this nature to the President and to the Congress would not be complete if it did not include in it a statement from the Administrator of his high opinion of the investigators of the Foreign Service of the State Department who carried out their duties in the refugee