340.1115A/1700: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Consul General at Jerusalem (Wadsworth)
Your despatch 1411, November 15.
1. In accordance with the Department’s instructions to its officers in the Near East, it was suggested by you to Americans in Palestine, in anticipation of the spread of hostilities to the Mediterranean, that they return to the United States while transportation facilities were available and opportunity remained for them to do so. Despite that [Page 888] advice and the subsequent spread of hostilities to the Mediterranean and although there still exists means of transportation to the United States via the Persian Gulf and India, the large number of persons referred to in your despatch have remained and continue to remain in Palestine.
2. The persons in question admit a loyalty to Palestine impelling them to remain there and they do not propose to leave unless a dire emergency should occur when, they say, they will expect this Government to come to their aid with all the power at its command, financial and otherwise. The Government will, of course, at all times extend to bona fide citizens abroad every possible protection and assistance, but citizens choosing to remain in a dangerous situation must understand that the Government’s efforts to protect and assist them may be vitiated by circumstances beyond its control. It is very possible that the Government would be unable in particular to arrange for the removal of Americans in Palestine, especially of such a large number as are remaining, should an emergency arise.
3. While the Department will continually endeavor to arrange, in so far as it can, for sufficient transportation facilities for Americans returning home from war areas, it is not the obligation of government to repatriate its citizens and the Congress has not appropriated funds for that purpose. The Department has on occasion since the outbreak of hostilities made allotments to its officers abroad for advances as loans against promissory notes to destitute Americans in hazardous areas for their transportation expenses to the United States. It has made these allotments from special funds which are limited by reason of other purposes for which they are used. When it is found necessary and possible to make such allotments, the loans therefrom may only be made to bona fide American citizens. In this regard the Department in its telegraphic instruction to its offices in France60 covering the recent repatriation of Americans from that country defined bona fide American citizens for purposes of Government financial assistance for repatriation as:
“Persons resting under unrebutted presumption may not be afforded the benefit of the arrangements including the loan of government funds to qualify under Rule G. Bona fide citizens are those citizens who are in complete and unquestioned possession of their citizenship rights, including the right to passports and the full protection of this Government, who have ties in the United States and who have continually held themselves out while abroad as American citizens and are in every way identifiable as such. They are citizens temporarily abroad desiring to return home. They are not persons merely possessing some circumstantial claim to American citizenship which they have not validated by residence and maintenance of ties in the United States [Page 889] and by truly identifying themselves abroad as bona fide citizens of the United States. The affording of transportation to the United States to the latter class of destitute persons, particularly with the aid of funds of this Government, would undoubtedly cause just public criticism of the action and is not the intent of the Department. Each and every officer concerned will take careful note of these instructions and be prepared to give the Department evidence as may be desired by it of his compliance therewith in any case which he should pass for repatriation.”
While applications for loans when allotments are granted for that purpose are considered upon the merits of the individual case, it is hardly possible that persons, such as those referred to in your despatch, who have left the United States and settled in a foreign country to which they admit a loyalty at least equal to that which they may have for the United States, should be able to qualify as bona fide American citizens properly entitled to the use of the public funds of the United States.
4. You are authorized to use the foregoing in your discretion.
5. You are also authorized to state to the persons concerned, with reference to the possible need of those whom they may represent for repatriation or relief funds supplied by American charity, that the Department itself cannot properly undertake to solicit those funds.
- Telegram No. 857, December 18, 1940, to the Chargé in France, vol. ii, p. 182.↩