Rousing a Response Amanda J. Rothschild When the United States Changes Policy Toward Mass Killing

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Rousing a Response Rousing a Response Amanda J. Rothschild When the United States Changes Policy toward Mass Killing

State-sponsored mass killings claimed millions of lives during the twentieth century. Examples include the Armenian Genocide of World War I, the Holocaust, West Pakistani massacres in Bangladesh in 1971, the Iraqi massacres of Kurds in 1988, atrocities in the Balkans in the 1990s, and the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. In most cases, the international community offered only a limited response. Given the frequency and enormity of the problem of mass killing, political scientists, historians, and journalists have attempted to understand the sources of this limited responsiveness. Some argue that it was a lack of political will for robust action.1 Others point to cost-beneªt considerations.2 Still others argue that the answer can be found in changing norms about which groups are worthy of protection.3 Finally, some focus on the importance of individual his-

Amanda J. Rothschild is an associate with the International Security Program in the Belfer Center for Sci- ence and International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

For helpful comments and suggestions, the author thanks Mark Bell, Kelly Greenhill, Vipin Narang, Roger Petersen, Barry Posen, Michael Poznansky, Stephen Van Evera, the anonymous re- viewers, her interview subjects, and participants in seminars and workshops at Harvard Univer- sity, the University of Virginia, and the annual meetings of the American Political Science Association, the International Studies Association, and ISSS-ISAC. For their generosity and assistance, the author thanks archivists and staff at the National Security Archive, the National Ar- chives, the Library of Congress, and the presidential libraries of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Baines Johnson, George H.W. Bush, and William Clinton. The author thanks the Tobin Project and the Harry S. Truman Library Institute for funding this research. She is particularly grateful to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation and the late Harry Middleton for support through the Harry Middleton Fellowship in Presidential Studies.

1. Michael N. Barnett makes this argument with regard to the United Nations in Rwanda. See Barnett, Eyewitness to a Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003), p. 3. Samantha Power concludes that “the real reason the United States did not do what it could and should have done to stop genocide was not a lack of knowledge or inºuence but a lack of will. Simply put, American leaders did not act because they did not want to.” She suggests that a democratic state should be susceptible to pressures to act from inside and outside of government. In contrast to my analysis, however, she argues that the executive has been largely free from internal pressures and does not outline how these pressures might change policy. See Power, “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide (New York: Harper Perennial, 2002), particularly pp. 508–509. See also Thomas G. Weiss, “The Sunset of Humanitarian Intervention? The Responsibility to Protect in a Unipolar Era,” Security Dialogue, Vol. 35, No. 2 (June 2004), pp. 135–136, doi:10.1177/0967010604044973; and Thomas G. Weiss, “R2P after 9/11 and the World Summit,” Wisconsin International Law Journal, Vol. 24, No. 3 (2006), pp. 742–743, 745, 747, 757. 2. Benjamin Miller, “The Logic of U.S. Military Interventions in the Post–Cold War Era,” Contem- porary Security Policy, Vol. 19, No. 3 (December 1998), pp. 83–87, doi:10.1080/13523269808404202. 3. Martha Finnemore, The Purpose of Intervention: Changing Beliefs about the Use of Force (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003), pp. 52–73.

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torical actors, at times maintaining that leaders’ beliefs about the use of force or their worldviews play a decisive role in shaping policy.4 Like other states in the international community, the United States has typically responded to mass killings with restrained measures, such as condemning the violence or offering limited humanitarian aid, for the duration of the crisis. In certain cases, however, U.S. presidents have changed course to dramatically intensify American humanitarian, diplomatic, or military efforts to stop the killing. The reasons behind such sudden and signiªcant increases in responsiveness remain largely undertheorized. Building on the extant literature, this article develops a generalizable theory to explain signiªcant policy change in U.S. responses to state-sponsored mass killings. I argue that three factors account for why and when the United States moves from a limited response to more robust measures: dissent within the president’s inner circle; a high degree of congressional pressure on the president to change policy; and the president’s perception that inaction will lead to personal political costs. In contrast to prior work, my theory illuminates the role of nonmilitary responses, including diplomatic, humanitarian, and economic policies. Studying an array of policies allows me to incorporate signiªcant U.S. responses that fell short of military intervention. A prominent example, and the subject of this article, is what President Franklin D. Roosevelt regarded as perhaps the most signiªcant U.S. response to the Holocaust:5 the War Refugee Board (WRB), a refugee rescue program, established in 1944, that saved approximately 200,000 Jews from near-certain death.6 Remarkably, a history of the Board has not yet been written, and the public appears to be largely unaware of its activities.7

4. Gary J. Bass, The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013); Michael Roskin, “From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam: Shifting Generational Paradigms and Foreign Policy,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 89, No. 3 (Autumn 1974), pp. 563–588; Eliza- beth N. Saunders, Leaders at War: How Presidents Shape Military Interventions (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2011); Jon Western, “Sources of Humanitarian Intervention: Beliefs, Information, and Advocacy in the U.S. Decisions on Somalia and Bosnia,” International Security, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Spring 2002), pp. 112–142, doi:10.1162/016228802753696799; Jon Western, Selling Intervention and War: The Presidency, the Media, and the American Public (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005); and Jon Western, “Warring Ideas: Explaining U.S. Military Intervention in Regional and Civil Conºicts,” Columbia University, 2000. 5. “Caring for Refugees in the United States, Message from the President of the United States,” June 12, 1944, box 673, White House Central Files: Ofªcial File (WHCF: OF) 127 (1945), Truman Pa- pers, Harry S. Truman Library (hereafter TL), Independence, Missouri. 6. Rafael Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide: Josiah E. DuBois, Jr. and the Struggle for a U.S. Re- sponse to the Holocaust (West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 2009), p. 129; and Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman, FDR and the Jews (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013), p. 294. 7. On the need for more research on the War Refugee Board, see “Transcript of the Summary of the Conference on ‘Policies and Responses of the American Government to the Holocaust,’ 11–

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The theory also explains variation in responses to cases with similar cost- beneªt outcomes and to cases occurring almost simultaneously—without time for signiªcant changes in humanitarian norms—such as the cases of Rwanda and Somalia. Finally, the study draws heavily on primary sources to improve historical accuracy, to highlight overlooked evidence, and to more fully understand internal government debates on this issue. The remainder of the article proceeds as follows. First, I advance a new theory to explain signiªcant shifts in U.S. policy during cases of mass killing. Second, I illustrate the theory with an examination of U.S. responsiveness to the Holocaust. Third, I demonstrate how the theory applies to other cases by providing a brief shadow case on U.S. policy toward atrocities in Bosnia in the early 1990s. I conclude with a discussion of the broader implications of this research for international relations, international security, and diplomatic history.

The Argument

I argue that U.S. presidents decide to change policy to respond more forcefully to mass killing when three factors are present. I consider policies to be more forceful when they involve increased resource costs or when they address the killing more directly—for instance, a shift from alleviating the consequences of the killing to directly confronting it. In determining whether a policy shift has occurred, I also consider the duration of the policy change, which in turn illuminates whether the shift represents a temporary, limited measure or a deliberate adjustment. I also examine historical documents to determine whether key actors at the time viewed the change as a purposeful shift in strategy from their prior approach. Policies pursued in a period of change or in a period of limited measures can assume a variety of forms. The theory described here does not predict which policies the United States will pursue, but rather the timing of policy change toward increased responsiveness. To simplify the analysis, I group U.S. policies into seven categories: enabling policies; ignore policies; private diplomacy; and public condemnation, humanitarian, punishment, and intervention policies. Enabling policies occur when the United States provides military or economic assistance to the perpetrating

12 November 1993,” in Verne W. Newton, ed., FDR and the Holocaust (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996), pp. 17–18, 23; and Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide, p. ix. Medoff argues that “a comprehensive history of the War Refugee Board” has not yet been written. Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman argue that “[t]here is still a need for a thorough study of the War Refugee Board.” See Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, p. 402 n. 60.

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state. Ignore policies occur when the United States does not invest signiªcant resources in a response of any kind. Private diplomacy occurs when the United States pressures the perpetrator state through private channels or works alongside other states to attempt to halt the killing through mainly private channels, such as phone calls, letters, and other démarches. Public condemnation occurs when the United States publicly acknowledges the atrocities and applies pressure on the perpetrating state. A statement by the president condemning the killings and urging the parties to bring them to an end is an example of public condemnation. In pursuing a humanitarian policy, the United States provides humanitarian aid to the victims or facilitates their rescue. Examples include the airlift of supplies and the direct evacuation of refugees. Punishment policies involve U.S. efforts to penalize the offending state through means short of military force, such as imposing economic sanctions, removing the offender from international organizations, or threatening post- crisis criminal trials. Intervention occurs when the United States uses military force to halt the killings, as it did in Bosnia in 1995. The United States may pursue policies in several categories simultaneously. For instance, it might shift to a more robust response by pursuing a policy within the intervention category, while continuing its humanitarian efforts. A period of limited responsiveness likewise may include restricted or sporadic measures in both the public condemnation and private diplomacy categories. Importantly, such policies are not unique to U.S. responsiveness to mass killings. They are tools available to any state responding to a range of crises.

the theory My theory posits that three factors are historically responsible for provoking signiªcant shifts in U.S. policy toward more robust responsiveness to mass killings: the level at which dissent occurs within the government; the degree of congressional pressure; and the direction of a presidential political liability (henceforth political liability) variable. When dissent occurs within the president’s inner circle, when congressional pressure for a policy change is high, and when the president perceives personal political costs for continued inaction, U.S. policy shifts toward increased responsiveness. Importantly, all three variables are required for policy change. dissent within the government. Dissent occurs when U.S. government ofªcials express opposition to the administration’s policy toward mass killings and argue for more robust measures in response. Inner-circle dissent takes place when trusted senior members of the administration with frequent access to the president (e.g., cabinet members and senior political appointees) voice their preference for change. Low-level or midlevel dissent occurs when gov-

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ernment ofªcials beyond the president’s inner policy circle—for example, those in junior positions and members of the civil service—do the same. Dissenters can express their preferences through a variety of channels. Em- pirically, I ªnd that inner-circle dissenters typically approach the president directly or raise concerns in meetings with other high-level ofªcials. A charac- teristic of inner-circle dissent, therefore, is that it almost always occurs pri- vately. In contrast, low-level or midlevel dissenters are apt to use ofªcial dissent channels to argue for change, or resign in protest. The strategies available to a dissenter are understandably determined by his or her access to the president and to other senior ofªcials. Importantly, dissent is distinct from formal or institutionalized policy con- testation and policy development processes. For instance, I do not code key individuals’ discussions of the strengths and weaknesses of opposing policy options—or arguments on behalf of a preferred policy among a range of options—as dissent. congressional pressure. The second necessary factor for change is a high degree of congressional pressure on the president for a policy shift toward more robust measures. Congressional pressure is high when large numbers of senators or representatives publicly express their desire for a shift and propose, pass, or are poised to pass widely supported resolutions and bills calling for a policy change contrary to the preferred course of the executive. The president must believe that, absent a veto or other executive action, Congress will be able to alter U.S. strategy or inºict costs on him. The theory does not require that political opponents initiate these congressional measures, though they sometimes do. I consider congressional pressure to be of medium strength when members of Congress propose measures to change policy toward increased responsiveness, but such proposals do not receive enough support to receive a vote or to pass. Congressional pressure is low when members of Congress do not publicly advocate for a change in policy, when they publicly recommend a restrained response, or when they pass measures that seek to constrain U.S. policy. political liability. The third factor—political liability—captures the degree to which the president’s policies in dealing with the killings inºuence his legacy, reputation, electoral prospects, or domestic and international political agenda. This factor takes on one of three values: positive, negative, or neutral. A positive value means that the administration’s failure to respond to the crisis more intensively will result in political consequences (costs for inaction). A negative value means that adopting a more robust response will result in political consequences detrimental to the president (costs for action). A neutral value means that the president’s policies toward the case of mass killing are not likely to signiªcantly affect his political standing.

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For the president to change policy, the political liability variable must be able to shift to a positive coding (costs for inaction). Congressional pressure and inner-circle dissent alone are not enough to move policy. My evidence shows that, historically, presidents must also face political consequences for failing to act. Empirically, it is often this imminent political pressure that forces the president to move quickly. The sources of a positive (costs for inaction) and a negative (costs for action) coding on the political liability variable can be diverse and, at times, context- speciªc. In the Holocaust case, the positive value on President Roosevelt’s political liability variable in 1944 is driven in part by an impending scandal at the Department of State. In the Bosnia case, the positive value on President Bill Clinton’s political liability variable in the summer of 1995 is shaped in part by the likely deployment of U.S. ground forces at the height of the 1996 presidential election. Similarly, the sources of a negative coding are typically speciªc to the case. In the Holocaust case, for instance, Roosevelt faced case-speciªc political costs for action in the early years that prevented a shift toward a positive coding on the political liability variable.8

relationship between variables The three variables described above can interact in various ways. Congres- sional pressure and political liability, though distinct variables, are the most likely to be linked. Increased pressure from Congress, for instance, can exacer- bate the political consequences for presidential inaction. Similarly, when, for example, the public is opposed to liberalizing immigration policy, members of Congress and the president are unlikely to speak out in favor of increased refugee initiatives. The dissent variable is normally independent of congressional pressure and political liability. Although dissenters sometimes leverage the congressional pressure and political liability variables in framing their dissents, they do not appear to be primarily motivated by either factor. Dissenters could, however, inºuence the other variables through activities independent of their dissent. For example, they might leak information to Congress or the public. Leaks did occur during the atrocities committed in Bangladesh in 1971 and in Bosnia in the early 1990s, but I do not ªnd evidence that they led to signiªcant increases in congressional pressure or changes in political liability.9 Dissenters can also

8. Richard Breitman, “Roosevelt and the Holocaust,” in Newton, FDR and the Holocaust, pp. 115– 119; and Richard Breitman, “The Failure to Provide a Safe Haven for European Jewry,” in Newton, FDR and the Holocaust, p. 136. 9. Western, “Warring Ideas,” pp. 310–311; Power, “A Problem from Hell,” p. 301; Michael R. Gordon, “12 in State Department Ask Military Move against the Serbs,” New York Times, April 23, 1993, http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/23/world/12-in-state-dept-ask-military-move-against-the-

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indirectly inºuence presidential concerns over political liability if their resig- nations or threats of resignation are likely to risk signiªcant embarrassment for the administration.

omitted variable The empirical evidence does not support the possibility of an omitted variable driving all three factors to high levels prior to policy change, and thus consti- tuting the root cause of policy shifts. If an omitted variable were driving all three factors, one would expect the sources of the three key variables to be similar within and across cases. Yet, as explained, the roots of the three main variables tend to be diverse and at times highly speciªc to the case under study. Thus, a critical contribution of the theory is its ability to demonstrate that despite a diversity of root causes and the peculiarities of historical cases, the three variables consistently lead to signiªcant movement in U.S. policy within and across cases over a long period of time.

The Holocaust Case, 1938–45

Scholars have criticized the U.S. response to the Holocaust and to other Nazi atrocities as inadequate and indifferent.10 Indeed, for years the United States did little to address Nazi persecution of Jews, homosexuals, Poles, Roma, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, among others. Consequently, from 1938 through 1943, which is most of the period under study, I do not identify a signiªcant change in U.S. policy toward pursuit of more robust measures.11 During this period, I code the U.S. response as ignore with limited and sporadic efforts in the humanitarian, private diplomacy, punishment, and public condemnation categories. The congressional pressure and political liability variables during this time were, respectively, low and negative; there was no inner-circle dissent. In January 1944, however, U.S. policy shifted dramatically with the creation of the War Refugee Board through Executive Order 9417.12 The Board, which

serbs.html?pagewantedϭall; author interview with Jon Western, July 14, 2015; and Bass, The Blood Telegram, pp. 61, 74, 116, 147, 151, 211. 10. David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941–1945 (1984; reis. New York: New Press, 2007); Power, “A Problem from Hell”; Arthur D. Morse, While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy (New York: Random House, 1968); and Theodore S. Hamerow, Why We Watched: Europe, America, and the Holocaust (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008). 11. I begin my analysis in 1938 because this year witnessed the nationwide pogrom against Jews known as Kristallnacht. For more on this event, see “Kristallnacht,” in Holocaust Encyclopedia (Washington, D.C.: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.), http://www.ushmm.org/ wlc/en/article.php?ModuleIdϭ10005201. 12. “Executive Order Establishing a War Refugee Board,” January 22, 1944, contained in “Release Regarding Establishment of War Refugee Board,” January 22, 1944, Diaries of Henry Morgenthau

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reported directly to President Roosevelt, was tasked with taking “all measures within [the U.S. government’s] power to rescue the victims of enemy oppression who are in imminent danger of death.”13 It was to rescue “as many as possible of the persecuted minorities of Europe” with deliberate actions “to forestall the plan of the Nazis to exterminate all the Jews and other persecuted minorities.”14 In Roosevelt’s words, the Board’s purpose was “directly and closely related to our whole war effort.”15 As historian Henry Feingold has written, the Board was “remarkable because it [for the ªrst time] gave the notion of rescue an independent priority” within the United States government.16 Roosevelt’s sudden decision to make rescue a codiªed aim of the U.S. war effort in January 1944—while the United States was expending sig- niªcant human and ªnancial resources in a great power conºict with wide- spread civilian casualties—represented a noteworthy change in U.S. policy over the previous several years. Accordingly, the president and key policymakers regarded the creation of the War Refugee Board as a major turning point in the U.S. response to Nazi atrocities.17 In his address to Congress on June 12, 1944, Roosevelt cited the Board as the primary U.S. effort to assist victims of Nazi persecution.18 Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. noted that the Board “put the full prestige and power of the United States Government” behind its rescue efforts, giving the issue “attention by the government at the highest level.”19 In the words of the Board’s ªrst executive director, John Pehle, “[T]he most important thing about the WRB was that [it] dramatically changed the policy of the U.S. overnight. Before the board was established, nothing really was being done to help Jews [. . .] With the establishment of the board it became the

Jr. (hereafter Morgenthau Diaries), April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 696: January 22–26, 1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (hereafter FDRL), Hyde Park, New York, pp. 2–3. 13. Ibid., pp. 1–2; and “Release Regarding Establishment of War Refugee Board,” January 22, 1944, pp. 1–3, at p. 1. 14. “Release Regarding Establishment of War Refugee Board,” p. 1. 15. “Caring for Refugees in the United States, Message from the President of the United States,” p. 2. 16. Henry L. Feingold, “‘Courage First and Intelligence Second’: The American Jewish Secular Elite, Roosevelt, and the Failure to Rescue,” in Newton, FDR and the Holocaust,p.76. 17. “Caring for Refugees in the United States, Message from the President of the United States”; Henry Morgenthau Jr., “Memorandum for the President,” May 23, 1945, WHCF: OF 127 (1945), box 673, Truman Papers, TL, p. 1; and “Interview with John Pehle, Transcript,” 1978 to 1981, ªlm ID: 3259–3264, story number: RG-60.5021, Claude Lanzmann Shoah Collection, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C., Yad Vashem, and State of Israel, p. 2, http://data.ushmm .org/intermedia/ªlm_video/spielberg_archive/transcript/RG60_5021/117C6DD4-8D96-4531- 8765-3C028B306E0E.pdf. 18. “Caring for Refugees in the United States, Message from the President of the United States,” pp. 1–2. 19. Morgenthau, “Memorandum for the President,” p. 1.

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policy of the U.S. to do whatever could be done, consistent with the war effort, to help people escape.”20 Historians similarly describe the Board and its activities as the “apogee of the American effort to rescue European Jewry,” as “the most concerted effort [. . .] by the American political establishment to aid in the rescue of Jews,” and as “a signiªcant reversal of earlier wartime policy.”21 Following the Board’s creation and the codiªcation of rescue as an ofªcial, independent aim of the U.S. government, the United States ampliªed its humanitarian, private diplomacy, public condemnation, and punishment efforts. The Board was also the only U.S. government agency at the time to seri- ously consider and promote an intervention response—the bombing of the Auschwitz concentration camp.22 Although the success of the Board is a sepa- rate question from whether it represented a change in policy, David Wyman— a scholar critical of U.S. efforts to address the Holocaust—notes that the Board explains in large part why “the American rescue record was better than that of Great Britain, Russia, or the other Allied Nations.”23 In all, the Board is cred- ited with saving approximately 200,000 potential Jewish victims despite its late creation.24 This ªgure may underestimate the total number of lives saved by the Board, because it does not fully account for those rescued as a result of the Board’s psychological warfare and relief operations.25 Notably, the 200,000 ªgure, though a small fraction of the total number of Holocaust victims, is double the total number of those killed during the conºict in Bosnia; it also represents more than the total number of Americans killed in every war since World War II combined.26 The estimated number of lives saved as a result of

20. “Interview with John Pehle, Transcript,” p. 2. 21. Feingold, “Courage First and Intelligence Second,” p. 67; Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, p. 274; and Breitman, “Roosevelt and the Holocaust,” p. 121. 22. Richard Breitman, “Allied Knowledge of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943–1944,” in Newton, FDR and the Holocaust, p. 175. 23. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, p. xxi. 24. Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide, p. 129; and Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, p. 294. Medoff, and Breitman and Lichtman, cite the 200,000 ªgure. Medoff, however, argues that additional unaccounted-for lives were saved because of war-crimes warnings and aid delivery. Breitman and Lichtman also note that the war-crimes warnings may have saved others not counted, but nevertheless settle on the 200,000 ªgure. 25. The 200,000 ªgure represents those saved through direct evacuation. Evacuation, however, constituted only one of three main War Refugee Board programs: physical evacuation (accounted for); psychological measures against Nazi forces and satellites (not counted); and relief programs, including the shipment of food parcels to concentration camps (not counted). See War Refugee Board Staff, “History of the War Refugee Board, 1944–1945,” Records of the War Refugee Board, Vol. 1, box 117, FDRL, p. 8; and Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide, p. 129. 26. “Bosnia War Dead Figure Announced,” BBC News, June 21, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/ hi/europe/6228152.stm; “The Bosnian Book of Dead” (Sarajevo: Royal Norwegian Embassy in Sarajevo, n.d.), http://www.norveska.ba/News_and_events/Society-and-Policy/rdc_bbd/; and “How Many Americans Have Died in U.S. Wars?” PBS NewsHour, May 24, 2015, http://www .pbs.org/newshour/updates/many-americans-died-u-s-wars/.

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the Board’s efforts—if only 50 percent accurate—is comparable to the number of lives that would have been saved by bombing Nazi camps.27 Drawing extensively on primary source materials collected from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, and the Library of Congress, I argue that the events leading up to the creation of the War Refugee Board are consistent with my proposed theory of policy change.

u.s. policy and the holocaust case, 1938–43 The U.S. policy response to Nazi atrocities from 1938 to 1943 primarily consisted of measures within the ignore category and did not exhibit signiªcant change. The three variables required for change toward more robust measures were not present. Inner-circle dissent did not emerge. Congressional pressure remained low, and the political liability variable held a negative value: Roosevelt perceived some political cost to signiªcantly changing U.S. policy. Importantly, the United States was aware of the Nazis’ persecution of Jews throughout this period. Some analyses and historical evidence suggests that the U.S. government knew of the Nazis’ genocidal plans, and certainly of Nazi discrimination against Jews, as early as 1938; but at the latest, Roosevelt knew of the Final Solution28 by November 1942.29 During this period, anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant sentiment permeated U.S. public opinion. Seventy-two percent of Americans were against allowing signiªcant numbers of German Jews into the United States.30 In 1939, almost 50 percent of Americans believed that Jews had too much power, and nearly

27. Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, p. 294. 28. “‘Final Solution’: Overview,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article .php?ModuleIdϭ10005151. 29. Breitman, “Roosevelt and the Holocaust,” p. 116; Sumner Welles, “Department of State Memo- randum of Conversation, Subject: Recent Events in Austria,” March 14, 1938, folder 04, box 162, Europe Files 1933–1943, Sumner Welles Papers, FDRL; Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, pp. 120–121; “Rublee to Acheson,” December 8, 1938, Rublee folder, box 27, Acheson Papers, Ster- ling Memorial Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, cited in Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, p. 121; “Wiley to Messersmith,” June 8, 1938, item 1051, George Messersmith Pa- pers, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware (hereafter Delaware Library), cited in Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, p. 121; and “Geist to Messersmith,” December 5, 1938, item 1087, George Messersmith Papers, Delaware Library, cited in Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, pp. 120–121. 30. Breitman, “The Failure to Provide a Safe Haven for European Jewry,” p. 131. For more on this citation and polling data, see the following sources cited in ibid: Daniel Yankelovich, “Re-Creation of the American Public’s Perception of the Events from 1933–1945,” paper presented at “The Holo- caust and the Media,” Harvard Divinity School–WCVB-TV Conference, May 19, 1998; Leonard Dinnerstein, Uneasy at Home: Anti-Semitism and the American Experience (New York: Columbia Uni- versity Press, 1987), p. 179; and Charles Stember, ed., Jews in the Mind of America (New York: Basic Books, 1966).

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one-third believed that a campaign against Jews in the United States was possible.31 These views did not dissipate as news of Germany’s extermination program against the Jews began to reach U.S. shores. In June 1945, 58 percent of the U.S. public still believed that Jews had too much power.32 Additionally, the Roosevelt administration had been disparaged for being too inºuenced by Jews. Critics referred to Roosevelt’s famed New Deal as the “Jew Deal” and to the president as “President Rosenfeld.”33 Congress reºected the anti-immigration and anti-Semitic views of the public. For instance, in early 1939, a bill introduced by Senator Robert Wagner and Representative Edith Rogers to admit 20,000 German-Jewish children into the United States met opposition in Congress and from two-thirds of the American public.34 Congress similarly blocked refugee initiatives in 1942, when President Roosevelt asked for the power to suspend immigration laws to beneªt the war effort through the Third War Powers Act.35 The administration denied that the intent of the suspension was to increase refugee ºows, but in effect the requested provision would have relaxed immigration restrictions.36 The New York Times reported that the bill would give President Roosevelt “sweeping wartime power to suspend any laws hampering ‘the free movement of persons, property and information into and out of the United States.’”37 Congress opposed relaxing immigration laws, and the immigration provision was eventually deleted from the bill, with Roosevelt yielding to congressional pressure.38 Newsweek reported, “The ugly truth is that anti-Semitism

31. Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, p. 146. 32. Breitman, “The Failure to Provide a Safe Haven for European Jewry,” p. 131. For more on this citation and polling data, see ibid: Yankelovich, “Re-Creation of the American Public’s Perception of the Events from 1933–1945”; Dinnerstein, Uneasy at Home: Anti-Semitism and the American Experi- ence, p. 179; and Stember, Jews in the Mind of America. 33. Feingold, “Courage First and Intelligence Second,” p. 56; and Breitman, “Roosevelt and the Holocaust,” p. 114. 34. Breitman, “The Failure to Provide a Safe Haven for European Jewry,” pp. 133–134; Feingold, “Courage First and Intelligence Second,” p. 57; and “Wagner-Rogers Bill” (Washington, D.C.: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.), https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of- events/1939-1941/wagner-rogers-bill. 35. Breitman, “Roosevelt and the Holocaust,” pp. 116–117; Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Message to the Congress Urging Integration of War Production with Canada—November 2, 1942,” in Samuel I. Rosenman, ed., Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Vol. 1942: Humanity on the Defen- sive (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1950), pp. 442–444; and Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, pp. 204–205. 36. Breitman, “Roosevelt and the Holocaust,” pp. 116–117. 37. Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, pp. 204–205; “President Asks Trade Barrier End,” New York Times, November 3, 1942; and Roosevelt, “Message to the Congress Urging Integration of War Production with Canada—November 2, 1942,” p. 443. 38. Breitman, “Roosevelt and the Holocaust,” pp. 116–117; Newton, “Transcript of the Summary of the Conference on ‘Policies and Responses of the American Government to the Holocaust,’ 11– 12 November 1993,” p. 17; and Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, pp. 204–205.

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was a deªnite factor in the bitter opposition to the President’s request for power to suspend immigration laws.”39 Another Newsweek piece noted, “Above all else, senators and representatives fear a ºood of postwar immigration, particularly from Nazi-occupied Europe.”40 Mounting national security concerns during this period, along with anti- Semitic Nazi propaganda, further ampliªed the U.S. government’s aversion to undertaking refugee initiatives. In 1940, for example, President Roosevelt supported tightening immigration regulations.41 Roosevelt and State Department ofªcials feared the emergence of a ªfth column within the United States and the possibility that refugees might be used as enemy agents.42 Writing on September 3, 1940, Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long advocated “making the exemptions as strict as possible in order to admit just as few persons as possible.”43 From July 1940 to March 1941, U.S. consulates in Germany issued just 2,126 visas.44 On June 6, 1941, U.S. consuls received instructions to deny visas to applicants with close relatives living in Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union.45 Later that month, Roosevelt would sign legislation, the Bloom- Van Nuys Bill, allowing consuls to reject applicants deemed public-safety threats.46 Following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in December, visa restrictions were further tightened for anyone who had been born in an enemy country or who had resided in an enemy country for a long period.47 By November 1942, the only U.S. consuls issuing visas in continental Europe were in Spain and Portugal.48 These restrictions contributed to immigration quotas remaining unªlled.49 During the period of U.S. engagement in the war, only

39. “The Periscope: National Notes,” Newsweek, November 30, 1942, p. 11; and Wyman, The Aban- donment of the Jews, p. 57. See also “House Says No, Then Yes But, to President on War Powers,” Newsweek, November 30, 1942, pp. 29, 32, 34. 40. “House Says No, Then Yes But, to President on War Powers,” p. 34. 41. Breitman, “Roosevelt and the Holocaust,” p. 110. 42. Newton, “Transcript of the Summary of the Conference on ‘Policies and Responses of the American Government to the Holocaust,’ 11–12 November 1993,” pp. 9–10; and Breitman, “Roose- velt and the Holocaust,” pp. 110–112. 43. “Breckinridge Long to Mr. Hackworth, September 3, 1940,” September 3, 1940, folder: Visa- Division, GEN, 1940, box 211, Breckinridge Long Papers, Library of Congress (hereafter LOC), Washington, D.C. 44. Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, p. 176; and “Visas Issued at German Issuing Ofªces by Months from 1 July 1940 to 31 March 1941,” 1940 to 1941, 1994.A.0342, reel 48, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C., cited in ibid. 45. Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, p. 177. 46. Breitman, “The Failure to Provide a Safe Haven for European Jewry,” p. 133; and Richard Breitman and Alan M. Kraut, American Refugee Policy and European Jewry, 1933–1945 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), p. 135. 47. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, pp. 125–126. 48. Ibid., p. 135. 49. Ibid., p. 136; and “United States Policy and Its Impact on European Jews,” Holocaust Encyclope- dia, https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleIdϭ10007652.

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10 percent of the quota slots for persons from Axis-held European countries were ªlled.50 In addition, political considerations during this period dampened efforts in the public condemnation category. Historian Richard Breitman argues that Roosevelt did not want to be seen as providing special treatment for Jews: “It was not advisable—it was strongly inadvisable politically—to make a public issue of the Holocaust.”51 Roosevelt accordingly avoided highlighting the persecution of Jews in public and pursuing highly visible actions to assist them.52 An additional reason for the Roosevelt administration to avoid public mention of the Holocaust was Nazi propaganda that Jews were behind the United States’ entry into the war—a claim that the United States and its ally Great Britain did not want to reinforce.53 Roosevelt did not publicly mention Jews as victims of Nazi persecution until July 1942.54 A joint Allied statement condemning Nazi oppression of Jews that followed in December 1942—spearheaded by British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, who was himself responding to political pressures—constituted the most visible and direct public condemnation effort on behalf of Jewish victims during the war period.55 Thus, several factors contributed to a low value on congressional pressure and a negative value on political liability during this period. Congress was de- cidedly anti-immigration, consistently opposing measures that would assist refugees, and Roosevelt proved unwilling to challenge Congress on its restric- tionism. Conºict with Congress could have jeopardized the president’s political goals—speciªcally his desire to maintain public support and congressional cooperation for his foreign policy agenda.56 When faced with opposition from a Congress that he depended on to support his anti-Nazi foreign policy, he did not endorse the Wagner-Rogers Bill, and he was unwilling to push back forcefully on the Third War Powers Act.57 In the early years, Roosevelt was also concerned with the looming 1940 presidential election.58 As soon as 1938, he believed that he needed to maintain the presidency in order to effectively lead the United States through the anticipated war.59 Yet, even after winning the

50. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, p. 136. 51. Breitman, “Roosevelt and the Holocaust,” p. 119. 52. Ibid., pp. 115–119. 53. Breitman, “The Failure to Provide a Safe Haven for European Jewry,” p. 136. 54. Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, p. 198. 55. Ibid., pp. 211–212; Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, p. 75; and Breitman, “The Failure to Provide a Safe Haven for European Jewry,” p. 136. 56. Breitman, “Roosevelt and the Holocaust,” p. 114. 57. Feingold, “Courage First and Intelligence Second,” p. 57; and Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, pp. 160, 204–205. 58. Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, p. 124. 59. Ibid.

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election, he remained politically vulnerable. In 1942, the midterm elections resulted in increased power for a “conservative coalition of Republicans and southern Democrats,” groups opposed to measures to assist Jewish refugees.60 Roosevelt also did not use his legal authority to compel the State Department to ªll the unused immigration quotas.61 This reluctance may have stemmed from his fears of a ªfth column and his direct support for tighter immigration restrictions in 1940.62 As Wyman has suggested, he also may have worried that Congress would “lash back and enact the restrictions,” or perhaps he was “just not interested.”63 The theory advanced here would suggest that Roosevelt was likely to remain disinterested absent the three factors necessary for capturing presidential attention—a positive value on inner-circle dissent, rising congressional pressure for action, and political liability.

policy shift, 1943–44 The creation of the War Refugee Board in January 1944 prompted the U.S. government to signiªcantly expand its humanitarian, private diplomacy, public condemnation, and punishment policies. The Board had three main initiatives.64 The ªrst focused on hiding refugees, evacuating them from enemy territory, and getting them protected nationality status.65 The second initiative consisted of psychological measures aimed at persuading Nazi and Nazi-aligned forces, including satellite countries, to cease cooperation with Nazi atrocities and extermination policies.66 The third sought to improve conditions in German concentration camps and to keep prisoners alive until they could be rescued or liberated.67 The Board sent representatives overseas—for instance, to Britain, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey—to assist in its rescue efforts.68 Consistent with the theory advanced in this article, the Board’s creation was the result of inner-circle dissent, an increase in pressure from Congress, and a positive value (costs for inaction) on political liability from 1943 into early 1944.

60. Ibid., p. 319. On these groups’ opposition to refugee measures, see Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, p. 55. Note that Wyman speciªes that conservative Republicans, not all Republicans, were typically opposed to refugee measures. 61. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, p. 136; and “United States Policy and Its Impact on Euro- pean Jews.” 62. Breitman, “Roosevelt and the Holocaust,” p. 110; and Newton, “Transcript of the Summary of the Conference on ‘Policies and Responses of the American Government to the Holocaust,’ 11– 12 November 1993,” pp. 9–10. 63. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, pp. 136–137. 64. War Refugee Board Staff, “History of the War Refugee Board, 1944–1945,” p. 8. 65. Ibid. 66. Ibid. 67. Ibid. 68. “Interview with John Pehle, Transcript,” p. 20.

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the dissenters The inner-circle dissent in the Holocaust case was voiced by Treasury Secretary Morgenthau, with the support of a team of department subordinates. In the summer of 1943, the Treasury Department began negotiations with the State Department on a license request for the transfer of funds overseas as part of a World Jewish Congress rescue proposal, known as the Riegner plan and favored by President Roosevelt.69 The Treasury Department quickly approved the proposal, but the State Department engaged in a series of delays, often failing to inform Treasury when and why these delays were occurring.70 By November 1943, Treasury ofªcials had become increasingly frustrated with the State Department’s unexplained delays on a proposal long favored by Roosevelt.71 On December 9, the Treasury Department received information concerning these delays when a former State Department ofªcial, Bernard Meltzer, met with Treasury’s assistant general counsel, Josiah DuBois Jr.72 Several months prior, Meltzer, once acting chief of the Foreign Funds Control Division of the State Department, mentioned to DuBois that he had information about State Department policy that he would share only after he had left the Department.73 In December, Meltzer told DuBois that Sumner Welles, since ousted from his position as undersecretary of state after colleagues revealed

69. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, pp. 178–181; “J.J. O’Connell and J.W. Pehle to Secretary Morgenthau,” July 1, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 646: July 1–6, 1943, FDRL, p. 68; “Mr. (Randolph) Paul to the Secretary, August 12, 1943,” August 12, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 1: May 7–December 9, 1943, FDRL, pp. 15–18; Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, p. 227; and Leland Harrison, “Bern to Secretary of State #2460,” April 20, 1943, contained in “Memorandum: For Secretary Morgenthau’s Information Only,” Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 2: December 13–31, 1943, FDRL, pp. 223-W–223-X. 70. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, pp. 180–181; “Interview with John Pehle, Transcript,” p. 9; Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, pp. 225, 228; “Transcript of Telephone Conversa- tion between Herbert Lehman and Henry Morgenthau Jr., September 15, 1943, 11:44 A.M.,” Sep- tember 15, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 1, pp. 79–80; “Mr. (Randolph) Paul to the Secretary, August 12, 1943,” pp. 15–17; “Morgenthau to Hull, August 5, 1943,” August 5, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 1, p. 11; and “Randolph Paul to Secretary Morgenthau, November 2, 1943,” November 2, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 1, pp. 85–86, at p. 85. 71. “Jewish Evacuation, November 23, 1943, 2:45 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” November 23, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 1, pp. 111–118, at pp. 113–114; Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, p. 227; and “Mr. (Randolph) Paul to the Secretary, Au- gust 12, 1943,” pp. 16–17. 72. Josiah DuBois Jr., “Memorandum for the Files, December 9, 1943,” December 9, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 1, pp. 198–202; and Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, p. 233. 73. DuBois, “Memorandum for the Files, December 9, 1943,” p. 198; and “Jewish Evacuation, De- cember 13, 1943, 3:00 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” December 13, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 2, pp. 1–19, at p. 2.

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his homosexuality, had originally given the Riegner assignment to Herbert Feis, though usually this type of case would have been given to Assistant Secretary Breckinridge Long.74 Feis contacted Meltzer, and together they strat- egized methods of circumventing Long, knowing that the assistant secretary “and his crowd” would oppose the Riegner plan.75 Eventually, however, the plan required broader discussion, and as anticipated, Long and others opposed it.76 Meltzer added that only State’s Dean Acheson, Donald Hiss, and Thomas Finletter would be willing to go to battle on behalf of the issue, but their normal duties did not include such matters.77 On December 17, amid stalled progress and unsatisfying explanations from the State Department, the Treasury group convened to review developments and prepare a letter to Secretary of State Cordell Hull.78 The letter pointed out discrepancies in Hull’s explanations for the delays and highlighted Morgenthau’s personal concern with the State Department’s lack of cooperation.79 Morgenthau sent the letter and made an appointment to see Hull for Monday, December 20.80 Treasury would later learn that after receiving Morgenthau’s meeting request, Long immediately sent the license authoriza- tion for the Riegner plan, failing to clear the ªnal version with Treasury in his hurriedness.81 In Morgenthau’s words, the State Department wanted to ensure the “decks were clear” for Monday’s confrontation.82 During the Monday meeting, Secretary of State Hull acknowledged prob- lems with subordinates “down the line,” but did not appear to be well in-

74. Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, p. 228; Breckinridge Long, “Diary Entry August 29, 1943, ‘The Welles Incident,’” August 29, 1943, box 5, Breckinridge Long Papers, LOC, pp. 352–358; DuBois, “Memorandum for the Files, December 9, 1943,” p. 198; and “Jewish Evacuation, Decem- ber 13, 1943, 3:00 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” p. 2. 75. DuBois, “Memorandum for the Files, December 9, 1943,” pp. 198–199; and “Jewish Evacua- tion, December 13, 1943, 3:00 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” p. 2. 76. DuBois, “Memorandum for the Files, December 9, 1943,” pp. 199–200; and “Jewish Evacua- tion, December 13, 1943, 3:00 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” pp. 3–6. 77. DuBois, “Memorandum for the Files, December 9, 1943,” p. 201; and “Jewish Evacuation, De- cember 13, 1943, 3:00 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” p. 6. 78. “Jewish Evacuation, December 17, 1943, 10:30 A.M., Meeting Transcript,” December 17, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 2, pp. 50–62. 79. Secretary of the Treasury, “Draft: Morgenthau to Hull, December 15, 1943,” December 15, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 2, pp. 35–37; and “Morgenthau to Hull, December 17, 1943,” December 17, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 2, pp. 63–65. 80. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, p. 184; and “Jewish Evacuation, December 18, 1943, 12:00 M., Meeting Transcript,” December 18, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 2, pp. 82–94, at p. 82–90. 81. “Jewish Evacuation, December 20, 1943, 10:30 A.M., Meeting Transcript,” December 20, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 2, pp. 148–171, at pp. 150–154, 163; and Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, p. 184. 82. “Jewish Evacuation, December 20, 1943, 10:30 A.M., Meeting Transcript,” p. 153.

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formed about refugee issues in the department, later revealing that he did not know the names of four out of the ªve State Department ofªcials involved in refugee affairs.83 Long, who was also in attendance, blamed Meltzer (Treasury’s informant) for the delays during a private conversation with Morgenthau.84 Treasury knew, of course, that Meltzer had been a primary advocate for the Riegner plan.85 Meanwhile, Treasury Assistant General Counsel DuBois had been trying to track down a cable (cable 354), which was referenced in the initial cable trans- mitting the contents of the Riegner plan (cable 2460), but which was mysteri- ously omitted from the license materials.86 Treasury ofªcials had asked the State Department for cable 354 several times, but were told that it was none of their business.87 DuBois eventually contacted one of the men mentioned by Meltzer, Donald Hiss, to see if he could obtain more information about 354 in- formally.88 Hiss agreed to meet with DuBois, but noted that “it had been made clear [. . .] that cable 354 was none of Treasury’s business and that in no event should it be shown to Treasury.”89 He further claimed that he was likely to lose his job if his cooperation with DuBois became known.90 Hiss feared that his phone was tapped and that conversations with Treasury ofªcials were being monitored.91 Nevertheless, Hiss provided DuBois with cable 354 and an earlier cable, 482.

83. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, pp. 184–185; “Jewish Evacuation, December 20, 1943, 10:30 A.M., Meeting Transcript,” pp. 148, 150, 158, 164; “Jewish Evacuation, January 12, 1944, 10:45 A.M., Meeting Transcript,” January 12, 1944, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 693: January 11–13, 1944, FDRL, pp. 79–93, at pp. 81, 89; and John Pehle, “Memorandum for the Files, January 12, 1944,” January 12, 1944, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 693, pp. 98–101, at p. 101. 84. “Jewish Evacuation, December 20, 1943, 10:30 A.M., Meeting Transcript,” pp. 156–157. 85. Ibid. 86. Josiah DuBois Jr., “Memorandum for the Files, December 18, 1943 (2),” December 18, 1943, folder: State Department—Paraphrase of the Telegrams and Memorandum for the Files, box 21, Subject File, 1863–1993, Bernard Bernstein Papers, TL, pp. 1–2; Josiah DuBois Jr., “Memorandum for the Files, December 18, 1943,” December 18, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 2, pp. 99–100; Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, p. 179; Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide, pp. 21–22; “Jewish Evacuation, December 20, 1943, 9:00 A.M., Meeting Tran- script,” December 20, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 2, pp. 134–141, at p. 136. 87. “Jewish Evacuation, December 20, 1943, 9:00 A.M., Meeting Transcript,” p. 136; DuBois, “Memorandum for the Files, December 18, 1943 (2),” p. 1; Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide, p. 21; DuBois, “Memorandum for the Files, December 18, 1943,” p. 99; and “Memorandum: For Secretary Morgenthau’s Information Only,” December 23, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 2, pp. 223-J–223-X, at p. 223-N. 88. DuBois, “Memorandum for the Files, December 18, 1943 (2),” p. 1; and DuBois, “Memoran- dum for the Files, December 18, 1943,” pp. 99. 89. Ibid. 90. Ibid. 91. Ibid.

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The cable DuBois had initially set out to ªnd, 354, was not particularly inter- esting in isolation.92 When viewed alongside cable 482, however, it exposed the State Department’s attempt to prevent communication on the situation of Jews in Europe.93 Sent on January 21, 1943, from the U.S. legation in Bern, cable 482 included information about the Nazis’ persecution and extermination of Jews.94 On February 10, the State Department replied to 482 with cable 354, which instructed Leland Harrison, the U.S. minister in Bern, to stop sending reports similar to 482.95 In short, 354 was a stop order on messages about the Final Solution, but one needed both cables to understand the meaning of 354. Fortu- nately, Hiss had been willing to reveal both. DuBois summarized his efforts in a December 18 memorandum.96 Treasury ofªcials would later discover that the stop order was sent behind the back of since-ousted Undersecretary Welles, who had repeatedly requested more information about the persecution of Jews.97

92. “Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews,” January 13, 1944, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 693, pp. 212–229, at p. 224; Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide, p. 21; Laurence Jarvik interview with Josiah E. DuBois, Camden, New Jersey, October 23, 1978, cited in ibid; and Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, p. 186. 93. “Memorandum: For Secretary Morgenthau’s Information Only,” p. 223-L; Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide, p. 21; and Jarvik interview with DuBois. 94. Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide, p. 21; “American Legation, Bern to Under Secretary of State, Washington, D.C. #482,” January 21, 1943, folder: State Department—Paraphrase of the Tele- grams and Memorandum for the Files, box 21, Subject File, 1863–1993, Bernard Bernstein Papers, TL, pp. 1–2; “American Legation, Bern to Under Secretary of State, Washington, D.C. #482,” Janu- ary 21, 1943, contained in “Memorandum: For Secretary Morgenthau’s Information Only,” pp. 223-R–223-S; Jarvik interview with DuBois; DuBois, “Memorandum for the Files, December 18, 1943,” pp. 99–100; DuBois, “Memorandum for the Files, December 18, 1943 (2),” pp. 1–2; and Sumner Welles, “Personal for the Minister from the Acting Secretary,” October 5, 1942, folder 7: Switzerland, 1941–1943, box 166, Europe Files, 1933–1943, Sumner Welles Papers, FDRL, pp. 1–2, http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/_resources/images/hol/hol00423.pdf. 95. Sumner Welles, “Secretary of State to American Legation, Bern #354,” February 10, 1943, folder: State Department—Paraphrase of the Telegrams and Memorandum for the Files, box 21, Subject File, 1863–1993, Bernard Bernstein Papers, TL; Sumner Welles, “Secretary of State to Amer- ican Legation, Bern #354,” February 10, 1943, contained in “Memorandum: For Secretary Morgenthau’s Information Only,” p. 223-T; Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide, p. 21; and Jarvik interview with DuBois. 96. DuBois, “Memorandum for the Files, December 18, 1943 (2),” pp. 1–2; and DuBois, “Memoran- dum for the Files, December 18, 1943,” pp. 99–100. 97. “Jewish Evacuation, December 23, 1943, 3:00 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” December 23, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 2, pp. 223–223-I, at pp. 223–223-A; “Memorandum: For Secretary Morgenthau’s Information Only,” pp. 223-J–223-M; Welles, “Per- sonal for the Minister from the Acting Secretary,” pp. 1–2; Sumner Welles, “Secretary of State to American Legation, Bern #2314,” October 5, 1942, contained in “Memorandum: For Secretary Morgenthau’s Information Only,” p. 223-Q; Sumner Welles, “Secretary of State to American Lega- tion, Bern #877,” April 10, 1943, contained in “Memorandum: For Secretary Morgenthau’s Infor- mation Only,” p. 223-V; “Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government in the

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Wanting further proof of State Department malfeasance, Treasury of- ªcials devised a trap. At the previously mentioned December 20 meeting, Morgenthau again asked for a copy of cable 354, this time in the presence of Secretary of State Hull.98 Unbeknownst to Hull and Long, Treasury ofªcials had already learned of the contents of cables 354 and 482 from Hiss.99 When Long sent a copy of 354, he made one minor change. He deleted the reference to cable 482—the cable revealing that 354 was in fact an attempt to suppress information about the Final Solution.100 Thus, Long was trying to hide the stop order. Morgenthau then instructed Randolph Paul, the Treasury Department’s general counsel, to call Long and tell him that Treasury ofªcials were “having some trouble understanding Cable No. 354,” and that perhaps they could see the original cable to clear up their confusion.101 Ansel Luxford, a Treasury of- ªcial, was sent to Long’s ofªce to retrieve the original cable.102 After seeing the “unparaphrased” copy of 354, Luxford informed Long that the copy sent earlier to the Treasury had omitted the reference to cable 482, which should have appeared in cable 354’s heading.103 Luxford requested that the State Department provide a copy of 482 as well, which Long said would be done the following morning.104 The next morning, State Department ofªcials had difªculty in locating the ªle.105 In fact, Hiss had not yet returned the copy he had taken to show DuBois, though he had assured Treasury that it would be put back in time.106 Later in the day, the contents of cable 482 were relayed

Murder of the Jews,” p. 224; “American Legation, Bern to Under Secretary of State, Washington, D.C. #482,” contained in “Memorandum: For Secretary Morgenthau’s Information Only,” 223-R– 223-S; “American Legation, Bern to Under Secretary of State, Washington, D.C. #482,” pp. 1–2; Welles, “Secretary of State to American Legation, Bern #354”; Welles, “Secretary of State to Ameri- can Legation, Bern #354” contained in “Memorandum: For Secretary Morgenthau’s Information Only,” 223-T; and Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, p. 179. 98. “Jewish Evacuation, December 20, 1943, 9:00 A.M., Meeting Transcript,” pp. 134, 136; and “Jewish Evacuation, December 20, 1943, 10:30 A.M., Meeting Transcript,” pp. 154–155. 99. See also Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide, pp. 32–33. 100. “Jewish Evacuation, December 20, 1943, 2:25 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” December 20, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 2, pp. 172–185, at pp. 173–174; “Memorandum: For Secretary Morgenthau’s Information Only,” pp. 223-N–223-O; and Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, p. 186. 101. Ansel Luxford, “Memorandum for the Files, December 20, 1943,” December 20, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 2, pp. 186–188, at p. 186. See also “Jewish Evacuation, December 20, 1943, 2:25 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” p. 174. 102. Luxford, “Memorandum for the Files, December 20, 1943,” p. 186. 103. Ibid., p. 187; and “Jewish Evacuation, December 21, 1943, 2:30 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” De- cember 21, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 2, pp. 201–218, at p. 203. 104. Luxford, “Memorandum for the Files, December 20, 1943,” p. 188; and “Jewish Evacuation, December 21, 1943, 2:30 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” December 21, 1943, pp. 203–205. 105. “Jewish Evacuation, December 21, 1943, 2:30 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” p. 205. 106. Ibid., pp. 205–206.

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to Luxford and subsequently to the rest of Treasury.107 As Luxford reported, the cable was “in all respects as shocking as Mr. DuBois’ memorandum of December 18 [. . .] indicated.”108 The cover-up at State was now fully apparent. On December 23, 1943, Treasury ofªcials presented Secretary Morgenthau with a secret memorandum109 summarizing their ªndings.110 The memorandum stated in part: “[O]fªcials of this Government were so fearful that this Government might act to save the Jews of Europe if the gruesome facts relat- ing to Hitler’s plans to exterminate them became known, that they not only attempted to suppress the facts, but, in addition, they used the powers of their ofªcial position to secretly countermand the instructions of the Acting Secretary of State [Welles] ordering such facts to be reported. We leave it for your judgment whether this action made such ofªcials the accom- plices of Hitler in this program and whether or not these ofªcials are not war criminals.”111 On January 13, 1944, Morgenthau received a report from his staff titled “Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews.”112 The eighteen-page document, spearheaded by DuBois, outlined the ways in which the State Department had willfully attempted to prevent the rescue of Jews.113 The report also highlighted mounting congressional pressure for action on refugees.114 By this point, the Treasury team was discussing speciªc plans to approach Roosevelt.115 On January 15, Morgenthau made an appointment with President Roosevelt for him, John Pehle, and Randolph Paul for the following day.116 They would ask Roosevelt to form an independent commission with the goal of rescuing refugees.

107. Ansel Luxford, “Memorandum for the Files, December 21, 1943,” December 21, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 2, p. 200; and “Jewish Evacuation, December 21, 1943, 2:30 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” pp. 201–218, at p. 206. 108. Luxford, “Memorandum for the Files, December 21, 1943,” p. 200. 109. “Memorandum: For Secretary Morgenthau’s Information Only,” pp. 223-J–223-X. 110. “Jewish Evacuation, December 23, 1943, 3:00 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” pp. 223–223-I; and “Memorandum: For Secretary Morgenthau’s Information Only,” pp. 223-J–223-X. 111. “Memorandum: For Secretary Morgenthau’s Information Only,” pp. 223-J–223-K (underlin- ing in the original). 112. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, p. 187; and “Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews,” pp. 212–229. 113. “Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews,” pp. 212–229. On DuBois’s role, see Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide, pp. 34, 55; and Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, p. 187. 114. “Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews,” pp. 215–216. 115. “Jewish Evacuation, January 13, 1944, 11:00 A.M., Meeting Transcript,” January 13, 1944, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 693, pp. 187–211. 116. “Jewish Evacuation, January 15, 1944, 9:30 A.M., Meeting Transcript,” January 15, 1944, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 694: January 14–17, 1944, FDRL, pp. 59– 110, at pp. 100, 109.

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During the January 16 meeting at the White House, Morgenthau explained that Treasury ofªcials had “uncovered evidence indicating that not only were the people in the State Department inefªcient in dealing with this problem, but that they were actually taking action to prevent the rescue of Jews.”117 Morgenthau had brought along an edited version of the “Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews,” now titled “Personal Report to the President” and bearing Morgenthau’s signature.118 Referring at times to his father Ambassador Henry Morgenthau Sr.’s efforts to save Armenians from Turkish oppression, Secretary Morgenthau argued that action could still be taken to rescue Jews.119 Roosevelt agreed and ended the meeting with the statement “We will do it.”120 In less than one week, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9417, creating the War Refugee Board.121 Earlier in 1943, three other attempts to alter U.S. refugee policy proved un- successful. When a congressional delegation led by Representative Emanuel Celler had suggested policy changes in an April meeting with the president, Roosevelt had referred the matter to the State Department.122 When Undersecretary of State Edward Stettinius had discussed establishing a refugee committee with Roosevelt in the fall of 1943, he too was referred back to State, where he met opposition from Hull and Long.123 A proposal originating with Assistant Solicitor General Oscar Cox and Milton Handler of the Foreign Economic Administration in June 1943, the same proposal that eventually formed the basis of the War Refugee Board, was rejected by the State Department before it captured the attention of Morgenthau.124

117. John Pehle, “Memorandum for the Secretary’s Files, January 16, 1944,” January 16, 1944, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 694, pp. 190–192, at p. 190. 118. Henry Morgenthau Jr., “Personal Report to the President,” January 16, 1944, Morgenthau Di- aries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 694, pp. 194–202. 119. Pehle, “Memorandum for the Secretary’s Files, January 16, 1944,” pp. 190–191. 120. Ibid.; Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide, p. 64; and Martin Ostrow interview with John Pehle, Bethesda, Maryland, October 2, 1991, cited in ibid. 121. Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide, p. 70; “Executive Order Establishing a War Refugee Board”; War Refugee Board Staff, “History of the War Refugee Board, 1944–1945,” p. 1; and “Re- lease Regarding Establishment of War Refugee Board.” 122. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, pp. 100–101; and Breitman, “Roosevelt and the Holo- caust,” p. 118. 123. The exact date when Stettinius approached Roosevelt is vague in the document. Oscar Cox remarks that it was during the Moscow Conference, but there were several such conferences. Based on the fact that Hull and Long objected to the proposal because of possible interference with the report from the 1943 Bermuda Conference, Cox is likely referring to the Third Moscow Confer- ence (1943). See “Jewish Evacuation, January 15, 1944, 9:30 A.M., Meeting Transcript,” pp. 92–93; and “Stettinius Conªrmed as Undersecretary,” Washington Post, October 1, 1943. 124. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, pp. 183–184; and Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Geno- cide, p. 25. Note that Cox would become General Counsel for the Foreign Economic Administra- tion in December 1943. See “Collection Historical Note,” Oscar S. Cox Papers, FDRL, http://www

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Morgenthau succeeded where others had failed. He was both a high-level ofªcial and Roosevelt’s closest friend in the cabinet.125 As the president had noted, he and Morgenthau were “two of a kind.”126 Morgenthau had the same socioeconomic background as the Roosevelts, with close family ties to both the president and his wife, Eleanor.127 In Eleanor’s words, over time Morgenthau became “Franklin’s conscience.”128 Eleanor judged that the two men shared a friendship of “underlying deep devotion and trust which never really wa- vered” despite their sometimes divergent views.129 She and her husband had “enjoyed [the Morgenthaus] as neighbors and friends before politics and work.”130 Further, dating back to his governorship, she noted that her husband had not held political ofªce “without having Henry Morgenthau, Jr., in some way in his ofªcial family.”131 As historian and Morgenthau biographer John Blum recounts, Morgenthau was one of only two people who Eleanor believed “dared tell her husband categorically that he was wrong.”132 At the time, Treasury ofªcials noted that Morgenthau, who had occasionally expressed hesitancy about approaching Roosevelt and about their prospects for success more broadly, was unusually well positioned to change Roosevelt’s mind.133 In discussions about bringing attention to the State Department’s ac-

.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/collections/franklin/index.php?pϭcollections/ªndingaid&id ϭ456. 125. Trude Lash, former chairman of the Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and board member of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, argues that among high-level government ofªcials at the time, Morgenthau was the closest to Roosevelt. See Newton, “Transcript of the Summary of the Conference on ‘Policies and Responses of the American Government to the Holocaust,’ 11–12 No- vember 1993,” p. 10. 126. “Franklin D. Roosevelt and Henry Morgenthau Jr.,” February 9, 1934, 8176, Photographs, FDRL. 127. Feingold, “Courage First and Intelligence Second,” pp. 63–65; and John M. Blum, Roosevelt and Morgenthau: A Revision and Condensation of From the Morgenthau Diaries (Boston: Houghton Mifºin, 1970), p. 24. 128. Feingold, “Courage First and Intelligence Second,” p. 65; and Blum, Roosevelt and Morgenthau, p. xvi. 129. Ibid. 130. Blum, Roosevelt and Morgenthau, p. xvi. 131. Ibid. 132. Ibid., p. 23. 133. Note that in the December 28 meeting, Morgenthau did favor informing Roosevelt. See “Transcript of Telephone Conversation between Henry Morgenthau Jr., Randolph Paul, and Harry White, December 28, 1943, 9:26 A.M.,” December 28, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933– July 27, 1945, book 688, part 2, pp. 227–235, at p. 232–234. On hesitancy, see “Henry Morgenthau Jr. to Oscar Cox, December 31, 1943,” December 31, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 2, p. 250; “Oscar Cox to Henry Morgenthau Jr., December 27, 1943,” December 27, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 2, p. 251; and “Jewish Evacuation, December 18, 1943, 12:00 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” pp. 84–89. On colleagues pushing a reluctant Morgenthau to see Roosevelt and citing his special position, see in particular “Argen- tina; Jewish Evacuation, January 10, 1944, 3:00 M., Meeting Transcript,” January 10, 1944, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 692, part 2: January 7–January 10,

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tions, Henrietta Stein Klotz, Morgenthau’s assistant, noted, “[N]obody [. . .] will do what you will do.”134 Luxford similarly explained to Morgenthau, “You have a real voice.”135 In a meeting on January 10, 1944, Harry Dexter White, another Morgenthau adviser, urged Morgenthau to consider his special position: “[T]his Government has played a role that is little short of sickening [. . .] there is only one who can make the President alter it, and that is yourself. There doesn’t happen to be two other men in this situation [. . .] nobody can have a chance to do it except you.”136 In the end, White would be correct. Roosevelt listened to his longtime friend, and in less than one week, U.S. policy experienced a dramatic transfor- mation. For 200,000 potential victims of the Holocaust, the decision would mean the difference between life and death.

mounting congressional pressure for action While Treasury ofªcials were gathering evidence and preparing their dissent, congressional pressure for more action on the refugee issue dramatically intensiªed, along with criticism of the administration’s handling of the United States’ relief and rescue efforts. In early 1943, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution condemning Nazi atrocities and asserting that the perpetrators would be punished.137 Shortly thereafter, the House passed the same resolution.138 As mentioned, by April 1943, congressional criticism had reached such high levels that Representative Celler and six other Jewish members of Congress took the refugee issue directly to Roosevelt, claiming that the State Department had failed to adequately address the subject and asking him to simplify refugee immigration procedures.139 As discussed earlier, Roosevelt referred the issue to Assistant Secretary of State Long, who the Treasury

1944, FDRL, pp. 268–292, at pp. 287–290. On hesitancy and dim prospects, see “Jewish Evacuation, January 12, 1944, 10:45 A.M., Meeting Transcript,” pp. 88–90; and “Jewish Evacuation, November 23, 1943, 2:45 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” pp. 115–116. 134. “Jewish Evacuation, December 18, 1943, 12:00 M., Meeting Transcript,” p. 89. On Klotz, see “H.S. Klotz, 87, Aide to Treasury Secretary,” New York Times, December 21, 1988, http:// www.nytimes.com/1988/12/21/obituaries/h-s-klotz-87-aide-to-treasury-secretary.html. 135. “Jewish Evacuation, December 18, 1943, 12:00 M., Meeting Transcript,” p. 87. 136. “Argentina; Jewish Evacuation, January 10, 1944, 3:00 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” pp. 289–290. 137. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, p. 95; “S.Con.Res.9 (Senate),” CR-1943-0305, Congressio- nal Record, Vol. 89, part 2 (March 5, 1943), p. 1570; and “S.Con.Res.9 (Senate, Agreed),” CR-1943- 0309, Congressional Record, Vol. 89, part 2 (March 9, 1943), p. 1723. 138. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, p. 95; “Nazi Outrages,” S.Con.Res. 9, Statute at Large: 57 Stat. 721, Concurrent Resolutions, 78th Cong., 1st sess. (March 18, 1943), pp. 721–722; and “S.Con.Res.9 (House),” CR-1943-0318, Congressional Record, Vol. 89, part 2 (March 18, 1943), p. 2184. 139. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, p. 100; and Breitman, “Roosevelt and the Holocaust,” p. 118.

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group would later discover was the ofªcial most responsible for the State Department’s attempt to conceal its obstruction of Jewish immigration.140 The most signiªcant congressional action, however, occurred in the fall of 1943 with the introduction in both the Senate and the House of the so-called Gillette-Rogers Resolution to establish a government commission devoted to rescue.141 The resolution, which had its roots in the advocacy efforts of several political action committees known as the Bergson Group—including radio broadcasts, newspaper advertisements, petitions, and a march of 400 rabbis to the White House—was introduced by Senators Guy Gillette and Robert Taft in the Senate and by Congressmen William Rogers Jr. and Joseph Baldwin in the House.142 Hearings on these resolutions would begin to expose the State Department’s attempt to conceal its neglect of the refugee issue and presented the beginnings of a political scandal for the Roosevelt administration. On November 26, 1943, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs held hearings on House Resolutions 350 and 352, “Resolutions Providing for the Establishment by the Executive of a Commission to Effectuate the Rescue of the Jewish People of Europe.”143 Speaking before the committee, Long stated, “We have taken into this country since the beginning of the Hitler regime and the persecution of the Jews, until today, approximately 580,000 refugees.”144 Long’s ªgures, however, were widely condemned as having been grossly exaggerated. Following his testimony, the Nation, the New Republic, the New York Post, and several Jewish organizations disputed his calculations.145 The

140. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, pp. 100–101; Breitman, “Roosevelt and the Holocaust,” p. 118; and “Memorandum: For Secretary Morgenthau’s Information Only,” p. 223-J. 141. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, p. 155; Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide, pp. 24– 25; Breitman, “Roosevelt and the Holocaust,” pp. 120–121; “Rescue Resolution,” Encyclopedia of America’s Response to the Holocaust (Washington, D.C.: David Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, n.d.), http://enc.wymaninstitute.org/?pϭ474; and “Report to the Secretary on the Acqui- escence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews,” p. 216. 142. “Rescue Resolution”; “Bergson Group,” Encyclopedia of America’s Response to the Holocaust, http://enc.wymaninstitute.org/?pϭ127; Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, pp. 228–229; Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, pp. 155, 193–194; Breitman, “Roosevelt and the Holocaust,” pp. 120–121; Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide, pp. 24–25; and “Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews,” p. 216. 143. “Rescue of the Jewish and Other Peoples in Nazi Occupied Territory, Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, Seventy-Eighth Congress First Session on H. Res. 350 and H. Res. 352,” November 26, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 2, p. 190. 144. “Statement of Hon. Breckinridge Long, Assistant Secretary of State,” November 26, 1943, contained in “Rescue of the Jewish and Other Peoples in Nazi Occupied Territory, Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives, Seventy-Eighth Congress First Session on H. Res. 350 and H. Res. 352,” p. 190. Long’s formal statement appears on pp. 15–32 of the committee report; the quotation appears on p. 23. 145. Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide, pp. 58–59; Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, pp. 197–198; “Crocodile Tears (Editorial),” Nation, December 25, 1943, p. 748; “The Week: The State Department and the Jews,” New Republic, December 20, 1943, pp. 867–868; New York Post, Decem-

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Nation editorial “Crocodile Tears” argued that Long’s “[f]igures could hardly be more deceptive.”146 Congressman Celler noted that during the previous ªscal year, only 4,705 of the immigrants admitted to the United States were Jews ºeeing Nazi persecution.147 In a diary entry, Long wrote that he was being “pilloried as an enemy of the Jew and as trying to discredit them.”148 Treasury’s “Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews” called Long’s testimony “[t]he most patent instance of a false and misleading statement.”149 On December 20, 1943, the Gillette-Rogers Resolution received a unanimous vote from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to report the resolution out and it was awaiting debate on the ºoor, scheduled for January 24, 1944, at the time Treasury dissenters approached Roosevelt.150 Although the House resolution had not yet been reported out at the time that Treasury ofªcials approached Roosevelt, likely “[p]assage [of the Gillette-Rogers initiative] by an overwhelming majority had been indicated,” and opponents in the House were having to do “everything [they could] possibly do to keep [the] resolution from being reported out.”151 Increasing congressional pressure and the threat of scandal helped set the stage for Morgenthau and his team to persuade President Roosevelt to act. Dis- senters mentioned mounting congressional pressure in several meetings leading up to their dissent, even citing it as their most signiªcant leverage in making their case for a policy change.152 Oscar Cox, who worked closely with the Treasury Department dissenters, noted the congressional resolutions during a December 19 meeting: “The other thing in terms of the President that is

ber 11, 1943, as cited in Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, pp. 197–198; and New York Post,De- cember 13, 1943, as cited in Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, pp. 197–198. 146. “Crocodile Tears (Editorial),” p. 748. 147. “Congressman Emanuel Celler Challenges Statement of Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long That United States Is Haven for Refugees,” CR-1943-1220, Congressional Record, appendix, Vol. 89, part 12 (December 20, 1943), pp. A5596–A5597; “Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews,” pp. 219, 228–229; Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide, p. 52; and “No More Sanctuary, Extension of Remarks of Hon. Emanuel Celler of New York in the House of Representatives,” CR-1944-0111, Congressional Record, appendix, Vol. 90, part 8 (January 11, 1944), pp. A87–A88, at p. A88. 148. Breckinridge Long, “Diary Entry January 1, 1944,” January 1, 1944, box 5, Breckinridge Long Papers, LOC, pp. 383–384, at p. 383. 149. “Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews,” p. 228. 150. “Jewish Evacuation, January 15, 1944, 9:30 A.M., Meeting Transcript,” p. 88; “Jewish Evacua- tion, December 21, 1943, 2:30 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” p. 216; and Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide,p.62. 151. “Call of Humanity,” Washington Post, January 25, 1944, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933– July 27, 1945, book 696, p. 96; and “Jewish Evacuation, January 13, 1944, 11:00 A.M., Meeting Tran- script,” p. 198. 152. For another example of Treasury Department discussion of mounting congressional pressure, see “Jewish Evacuation, December 20, 1943, 9:00 A.M., Meeting Transcript,” p. 138.

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basic here, which has come out on the Hill, is you also have, incidentally, a domestic political problem, and the people who have been backing the resolution on the Hill are, interestingly enough, with some exceptions, all people opposed to the President.”153 On December 21, Pehle, who was pushing Morgenthau to approach Roosevelt, emphasized the importance of targeting the State Department now when it was vulnerable. He cited the recent unanimous approval of the Gillette-Rogers Resolution. [A] signiªcant newspaper clipping says that [the] Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved unanimously yesterday a resolution by General Gillette and eleven others proposing that President Roosevelt set up a commission of diplomatic, economic, and military experts to devise ways to save the surviv- ing people of Europe [. . .]. [. . .] It was aimed right at the State Department. So they are under terriªc pressure right now. This is a resolution that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously passed.154 The day before, Cox had again reminded Morgenthau of the pressure coming from Capitol Hill. He had sent over a copy of his executive order draft and press release on forming a rescue committee.155 He added, “It might also be that getting the executive order signed would forestall some of the action on the Hill in connection with the Rogers-Gillette Resolution.”156 The rescue proposal, in short, could be presented as a way to diminish the political pressure and criticism plaguing the administration. The day before Treasury approached Roosevelt, the role of congressional pressure was raised again, with Morgenthau asking how the resolutions would ªt into the dissenters’ plans to approach Roosevelt.157 Morgenthau argued that much of the dissenters’ leverage with Roosevelt would come from increasing pressure on the Hill. H.M.JR: [. . .] I personally hate to say this thing, but our strongest out is the im- minence of Congress doing something. That is our strongest out. Really, when you get down to the point, this is a boiling pot on the Hill. You can’t hold it; it is going to pop, and you have either got to move very fast, or the Congress of the United States will do it for you. [...]

153. “Jewish Evacuation, December 19, 1943, 5:30 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” December 19, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 2, pp. 103–130, at p. 119. 154. “Jewish Evacuation, December 21, 1943, 2:30 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” p. 216. For more discussion of Roosevelt’s ability to get ahead of congressional resolutions, see “Jewish Evacuation, January 13, 1944, 11:00 A.M., Meeting Transcript,” pp. 198–199. 155. “Oscar Cox to Secretary Morgenthau, December 20, 1943,” December 20, 1943, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 688, part 2, pp. 191–194. 156. Ibid., p. 191. 157. “Jewish Evacuation, January 15, 1944, 9:30 A.M., Meeting Transcript,” p. 88.

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Mr. Cohen: It is the best argument the President can use to get things started with Hull.158 When looking back on his discussions with Roosevelt, Morgenthau would also cite congressional pressure as a key factor in the Treasury Department’s success. In a meeting with Treasury colleagues on March 8, 1944, Morgenthau explained that congressional pressure was critical to their efforts. DuBois would add, however, that Morgenthau’s role should not be diminished. H.M.JR: [. . .] [T]he thing that made it possible to get the President really to act on this thing—we are talking here among ourselves—was the thing that—the resolution at least had passed the Senate to form this kind of a War Refugee Committee, hadn’t it? [. . .] Mr. DuBois: It was more because of what you did than anything else, in my opinion. H.M.JR: I had something to do with it, granted, but the tide was running with me. Mr. DuBois: That is true. H.M.JR: I think that six months before I couldn’t have done it.159 On March 16, Morgenthau recounted his conversation about the creation of the War Refugee Board with another Roosevelt administration ofªcial, Myron Taylor. He again noted the importance of the congressional resolutions: “I said, ‘A part of the thing was in order not to have the President’s hand forced where he has shown so much interest in this thing and getting it started under his own free will—not to have him forced by the Congress to do this.’”160 Dissenters thus noted that mounting pressure in Congress forced Roosevelt to act before members could pass their resolutions. Indeed, the executive order establishing the War Refugee Board was signed only two days before the

158. For this quote and more of the discussion, see ibid., pp. 97–98, 108. For evidence that the Mr. Cohen in attendance was Benjamin Cohen, then general counsel for the Ofªce of War Mobiliza- tion, see “Telephone Conversation Transcript between Henry Morgenthau Jr. and Judge Rosenman, January 13, 1944, 11:33 A.M.,” January 13, 1944, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933– July 27, 1945, book 693, pp. 205–208, at pp. 205–206. See also “Jewish Evacuation, January 15, 1944, 9:30 A.M., Meeting Transcript,” pp. 68, 77–78 (among others) for references to “Ben.” For more on Cohen, see “Biographical Note,” Benjamin V. Cohen Papers, 1902–1983, LOC, http://ªndingaids .loc.gov/db/search/xq/searchMfer02.xq?_idϭloc.mss.eadmss.ms011090&_faSectionϭoverview& _faSubsectionϭbioghist&_dmdidϭd7137e20. 159. Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide, pp. 64–65; and “Jewish Evacuation, March 8, 1944, 3:50 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” March 8, 1944, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 707: March 7–8, 1944, FDRL, pp. 219–233, at pp. 220–221. 160. “Jewish Evacuation, March 16, 1944, 3:50 P.M., Meeting Transcript,” March 16, 1944, Morgenthau Diaries, April 27, 1933–July 27, 1945, book 710: March 14–16, 1944, FDRL, pp. 192– 198, at p. 194; and Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide,p.65.

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Gillette-Rogers Resolution was scheduled for a vote in the Senate.161 Immedi- ately after the executive order was issued, Senator Gillette and Congressman Rogers withdrew their respective resolutions.162

political liability in washington The political situation in the winter of 1944 was also conducive to presidential action. Continued inaction on the refugee issue would only serve to fuel mounting congressional criticism and the ensuing State Department scandal as Congress and the public learned more about its efforts at obstruction. At some point, the facts presented to Roosevelt in January 1944 about State Department ofªcials’ actions would reach a wider audience. DuBois, for instance, had already voiced his desire to go to the press with his report detailing the State Department’s nefarious behavior should the administration fail to take corrective action.163 Pehle also surmised that the potential scandal was weighing on Roosevelt, noting, “I would assume that [Roosevelt] recognized [these] political implications too, because the State Department was found taking these actions which the American public would not agree with.”164 For his part, Long had already been the recipient of intense public criticism after his false testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The Roosevelt administration appeared to be mismanaging the refugee issue, and the shocking information uncovered by the Treasury Department would only bolster critics and tarnish the administration’s image. The Senate would soon vote on the Gillette-Rogers Resolution, which would likely once again send the message that the administration was incompetent in dealing with refugee issues.165 Taking action would allow Roosevelt to get ahead of the congressional resolutions and preempt a public scandal emanating from revelations about the State Department’s cover-up. Additionally, forces that had caused the political liability variable to retain a negative value dissipated in 1943 and early 1944. Previously, maintaining Roosevelt’s favorability rating and policy agenda incentivized avoiding battles on refugee and immigration issues with Congress, the State Department, and the public. Now, however, Congress had forcefully condemned Nazi atrocities and was pressing for the creation of a refugee committee. Further, the United States was by this point deeply engaged in the war, freeing Roosevelt from the

161. Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide,p.70. 162. Ibid. 163. Ibid., p. 53; and Henry Morgenthau III interview with Josiah E. DuBois Jr., Pitman, New Jer- sey, February 26, 1981, cited in ibid. Transcript in possession of Medoff. 164. “Interview with John Pehle, Transcript,” p. 17. 165. Medoff, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide,p.70.

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need to appease anti-immigration sentiment to garner support for an anti-Nazi foreign policy or for an upcoming election in which the survival of the United States, in Roosevelt’s mind, depended on his success.

case summary The Holocaust case illustrates how the three variables introduced in this article inºuenced U.S. responsiveness to the Holocaust. Inner-circle dissent expressed by Secretary Morgenthau alongside his associates at the Treasury Department, coupled with increasing congressional pressure and a positive value on political liability in 1943 and early 1944, led to the creation of the War Refugee Board. All three factors were necessary to shift U.S. policy. Increasing congressional pressure provided the Treasury dissenters with signiªcant leverage in presenting their case to Roosevelt. A mounting scandal at the State Department, along with dissipating domestic political concerns, provided Roosevelt with an incentive to act. Morgenthau’s powerful position and friendship with Roosevelt allowed him to succeed where three others, making similar proposals, had failed.

Shadow Case of Bosnia, 1995

The theory advanced here is applicable to cases beyond the Holocaust. For example, the theory can explain why U.S. policy toward atrocities in Bosnia changed signiªcantly in August 1995, when the Clinton administration launched Operation Deliberate Force. Prior to this operation, the United States had focused primarily on aid delivery and had conducted only limited air strikes that were not designed to end the conºict.166 Just before Clinton’s decision to launch Operation Deliberate Force, congressional pressure peaked with the passage of Senator Bob Dole’s Bosnia and Herzegovina Self-Defense Act in the Senate on July 26 and in the House on August 1.167 The legislation, armed with veto-proof support, called for the uni- lateral lifting of an arms embargo on Bosnia.168 Critically, it also would have

166. For more information on these policies, see Power, “A Problem from Hell,” p. 324; Ivo H. Daalder, Getting to Dayton: The Making of America’s Bosnia Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings In- stitution Press, 2000), pp. 21–23, 83; and Peter Ronayne, Never Again? The United States and the Pre- vention and Punishment of Genocide since the Holocaust (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littleªeld, 2001), p. 130. 167. Bosnia and Herzegovina Self-Defense Act of 1995, S21, 104th Cong., 1st sess. (January 4, 1995), https://www.congress.gov/bill/104th-congress/senate-bill/21; “Final Vote Results for Roll Call 608, Bosnia and Herzegovina Self-Defense Act of 1995” (Washington, D.C.: Ofªce of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives, August 1, 1995), http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1995/roll608.xml. 168. Bosnia and Herzegovina Self-Defense Act of 1995; “Final Vote Results for Roll Call 608, Bosnia and Herzegovina Self-Defense Act of 1995”; “Undated National Security Council Document with

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prompted the deployment of U.S. ground troops to evacuate the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) peacekeeping forces stationed in Bosnia.169 Textual evidence establishes that the Clinton administration was ªghting the legislation vigorously.170 Dole’s legislation threatened political catastrophe for the administration. Clinton had agreed to deploy approximately 20,000 U.S. ground troops to evacuate UN personnel in the event of UNPROFOR’s withdrawal, and European allies had maintained that lifting the embargo would result in withdrawal of their UNPROFOR forces.171 In other words, Dole’s bill was poised to

Bulleted Points,” n.d., contained in Collection No. 2012-0800-M, National Security Council, Euro- pean Affairs, and Alexander Vershbow, “Declassiªed Documents concerning Genocide in the For- mer Yugoslavia,” Clinton Digital Library (CDL), William J. Clinton Presidential Library (WJCPL), Little Rock, Arkansas, p. 1, http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36593. 169. Daalder, Getting to Dayton, pp. xiii, xvi; “CIA Post-Meeting Memorandum for the Record, Principals Committee Meeting on ‘Yugoslavia,’ 3 February 1993,” February 4, 1993, document number 5235e80c993294098d517490, Special Collection: Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presi- dency, Historical Collections, CIA Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Electronic Reading Room, p. 1, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/5235e80c993294098d517490; and Derek Chollet, “The Road to Dayton: U.S. Diplomacy and the Bosnia Peace Process, May to December 1995,” National Security Archive Electronic Brieªng Book No. 171, 1997; repr. Novem- ber 21, 2005, National Security Archive, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., p. 2, http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB171/. 170. “Summary of Conclusions for Meeting of the NSC Principals Committee, June 6, 1995,” June 6, 1995, document number 5235e80d993294098d51751d, Special Collection: Bosnia, Intelli- gence, and the Clinton Presidency, Historical Collections, CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room, p. 4; “Memorandum of Conversation, Bilateral Meeting with President Jacques Chirac of France, June 14, 1995, 2:45 P.M.–3:37 P.M.,” June 14, 1995, contained in Collection No. 2013-0517-M, Na- tional Security Council and NSC Cables, “Declassiªed Documents concerning Bosnia,” CDL, WJCPL, pp. 2, 6, 8, http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36627; Anthony Lake and Patrick Grifªn, “Memorandum for the President, Congressional Dinner with Members of Con- gress,” contained in William C. Danvers, “Memorandum for Anthony Lake, President’s Meeting with Members of Congress at Congressional Dinner,” July 6, 1995, folder: Clinton Presidential Re- cords, National Security Council, Vershbow, Alexander, European, Bosnia—July 1995 (Early July) [2] [OA/ID 897], box 2, Records of Genocide in the Former Yugoslavia FOIA 2006-0647-F, WJCPL, pp. 1–2; William C. Danvers, “Talking Points” contained in Danvers, “Memorandum for Anthony Lake, President’s Meeting with Members of Congress at Congressional Dinner”; Danvers, “Memo- randum for Anthony Lake, President’s Meeting with Members of Congress at Congressional Din- ner”; “Statement of Hon. William J. Perry, Secretary of Defense, Accompanied by Gen. John Shalikashvili, U.S. Army, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff,” June 7, 1995, Situation in Bosnia: Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, 104th Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Ofªce 1996), pp. 13–58, at pp. 19–21; “Senate Bosnia Vote Strat- egy,” July 1995, folder: Clinton Presidential Records, National Security Council, Soderberg, Nancy, Staff Director, Bosnia, July 1995 [1] [OA/ID 1402], box 4, FOIA 2006-0647-F, WJCPL, pp. 1–2; “Telecon with French President Jacques Chirac, July 13, 1995, 3:22–3:58 P.M.,” July 13, 1995, contained in Collection No. 2012-0800-M, National Security Council, European Affairs, and Alexander Vershbow, “Declassiªed Documents concerning Genocide in the Former Yugoslavia,” CDL, WJCPL, p. 4, http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36; and “Undated National Se- curity Council Document with Bulleted Points,” p. 1. 171. Daalder, Getting to Dayton, pp. xiii, xvi; “CIA Post-Meeting Memorandum for the Record, Principals Committee Meeting on ‘Yugoslavia,’ 3 February 1993,” p. 1; and Chollet, “The Road to Dayton,” p. 2.

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force Clinton to deploy U.S. ground troops. The administration worried that sending U.S. troops to evacuate a failed UN mission in this way would embar- rass the White House and be unpopular with the public.172 Exacerbating this anxiety were predictions later that summer that absent corrective measures, an UNPROFOR evacuation was likely to occur at the height of the 1996 presidential campaign.173 The political costs for inaction were accordingly high in the summer of 1995. As the Washington Post reported, Dole’s bill ignited “a potential domestic political disaster in which [Clinton] would lose control over U.S. policy, and the Republicans would have a tailor-made issue” for the presidential campaign.174 Like Roosevelt, Clinton was faced with acting immediately to get ahead of Congress or having his hand forced on the issue. In this case, the latter option would result in the deployment of U.S. ground forces in Bosnia. Several other political embarrassments that summer also raised the stakes for Clinton, including the atrocities at Srebrenica, where civilians expecting UN protection had gathered, and French President Jacques Chirac’s overshad- owing of Clinton on the global stage. The press had criticized Clinton for the humiliation of Srebrenica and for not taking as forceful a position on Bosnia as Chirac.175 In mid-July, Clinton lambasted his staff about how the administration’s ineffective Bosnia policy was bringing him no end of hurt and humiliation.176 In a dissenting memorandum in late June 1995, Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright highlighted the increasingly humiliating political situation.177 The memorandum resulted in an extensive policy review, charac- terized by secretive deliberations and a battle among the State Department, the Defense Department, Ambassador Albright, and National Security Adviser

172. Daalder, Getting to Dayton, p. 106. 173. “Memorandum for the National Security Advisor from Ambassador Albright,” August 3, 1995, Collection No. 2012-0799-M, National Security Council and Records Management Ofªce, “Declassiªed Documents concerning Bosnia,” CDL, WJCPL, pp. 2–4, http://clinton .presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36591; and “Strategy for the Balkan Conºict,” August 4, 1995, Collection No. 2012-0799-M, National Security Council and Records Management Ofªce, “Declassiªed Documents concerning Bosnia,” CDL, WJCPL, pp. 1, 3, http://clinton .presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36591. 174. Thomas W. Lippman and Ann Devroy, “Clinton’s Policy Evolution,” Washington Post, Sep- tember 11, 1995. 175. Chollet, “The Road to Dayton” p. 10; Anne Swardson, “Chirac, New to G-7 Summitry, Proves Top Attention-Getter,” Washington Post, June 18, 1995; Lippman and Devroy, “Clinton’s Policy Evolution”; Ronayne, Never Again? p. 131; and Power, “A Problem from Hell,” p. 430. 176. Nancy Soderberg interview with Russell L. Riley, Darby Morrisroe, and Robert Strong, Wil- liam J. Clinton Presidential History Project, Miller Center, University of Virginia, May 10, 2007, pp. 54–55, http://web1.millercenter.org/poh/transcripts/ohp_2007_0510_soderberg.pdf; David Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), pp. 316–317; and Power, “A Problem from Hell,” pp. 436–437. 177. Chollet, “The Road to Dayton,” p. 11; and Daalder, Getting to Dayton, pp. 92–93.

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Anthony Lake as to whose plan would chart a new course on Bosnia.178 On August 7, President Clinton heard ªnal arguments from each camp, ulti- mately favoring the strategies of Albright and Lake; each suggested using U.S. air power to bring the warring parties into negotiations.179 Both Albright and Lake had asserted that if Clinton failed to act at this decisive moment, he would likely suffer immense political damage, as U.S. ground forces would be used to evacuate UNPROFOR forces at the height of the presidential campaign.180 Clinton swiftly vetoed the Dole legislation on the day the Senate ad- journed, buying him time to implement his new strategy.181 In just weeks, the United States began bombing Serbian targets throughout Bosnia.182 Clinton, like Roosevelt decades earlier, was moved to action by internal dissent, congressional pressure, and the need to avoid negative political consequences.

Conclusion

I have introduced a theory that identiªes inner-circle dissent, congressional pressure, and political liability as the three critical factors shaping U.S. policy in response to mass killing. The theory has several implications for scholar- ship in international affairs, security, and diplomatic history. First, the theory suggests that bringing cases of mass killing to the president’s attention and maintaining his interest are critical to shifting policy toward a more robust response. Without direct security implications for the United States, such cases might not otherwise capture presidential attention. Second, the theory sheds light on why prompt U.S. responsiveness to mass killings is rare. For policy to shift, the president must be under stress from all

178. Chollet, “The Road to Dayton,” pp. 12–14, 19; Daalder, Getting to Dayton, pp. 85, 96–97; Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace, pp. 312–313; and Anthony Lake interview with Russell L. Riley et al., William J. Clinton Presidential History Project, Miller Center, University of Virginia, May 21, 2002, p. 53, http://web1.millercenter.org/poh/transcripts/ohp_2002_0521_lake.pdf. 179. Daalder, Getting to Dayton, pp. 107–109; Chollet, “The Road to Dayton” p. 40; “Memorandum for the National Security Advisor from Ambassador Albright,” pp. 2–7; and “Strategy for the Bal- kan Conºict,” pp. 1–5. 180. “Memorandum for the National Security Advisor from Ambassador Albright,” pp. 2–4; and “Strategy for the Balkan Conºict,” pp. 1, 3. 181. “Adjournment until 10 A.M. Tuesday, September 5, 1995,” Congressional Record, daily edition, Vol. 141, No. 135 (August 11, 1995), p. S12524; “Adjournment—House of Representatives and Sen- ate,” H.Con.Res. 92, Statute at Large: 109 Stat. 1032, Concurrent Resolutions, 104th Cong. (August 4, 1995); Bosnia and Herzegovina Self-Defense Act of 1995; and “Report of the Disapproval of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Self-Defense Act of 1995—Message from the President—PM 76,” Congres- sional Record, daily edition, Vol. 141, No. 135 (August 11, 1995), p. S12326. For news coverage of the veto, see Todd S. Purdum, “Clinton Vetoes Lifting Bosnia Arms Embargo,” New York Times,Au- gust 12, 1995, http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/12/world/clinton-vetoes-lifting-bosnia-arms- embargo.html. 182. Daalder, Getting to Dayton, p. 131; and Chollet, “The Road to Dayton,” p. 73.

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three variables responsible for policy change. As the Holocaust and Bosnia cases illustrate, these variables can take years to emerge, if they emerge at all. Third, the theory and empirical evidence presented above suggest that presidents respond primarily to political considerations, not humanitarian im- pulses. In the Holocaust case, Roosevelt created the War Refugee Board only after he was approached by his closest friend in his cabinet, amid a mounting political scandal and signiªcant congressional pressure to take action. The dissenters presented him with new information about the activities of ofªcials in the State Department, but not with any truly revelatory information about the treatment of Jews in Europe. Likewise, in the Bosnian case, President Clinton acted only when he perceived that failing to do so would result in signiªcant political consequences for his presidency. Fourth, to my knowledge, this study is the ªrst to highlight the causative role of dissent in shaping U.S. policy on mass killing. An important contribution of the analysis, therefore, is to provide a historical narrative on the signiªcance of dissent in U.S. debates on mass killing. This ªnding aug- ments historical work on the emergence and effectiveness of dissent in the U.S. government.183 Fifth, the conclusion that three domestic or individual-level variables shape policy has implications for the literature on bureaucratic politics, foreign policy, and leadership. The ªndings suggest that the actions of individuals, the inner-circle dissenters, can in fact disrupt rigid organizational tendencies and mitigate the inability of large bureaucracies to innovate and adapt, both con- straints previously described by scholars of bureaucratic politics.184 Further, the ªndings on the importance of dissent support Alexander George’s view that the foreign policy process is less successful when contrarian views—in other words, dissenting opinions—fail to reach the president.185 The dissent ªnding also bolsters analyses on the role of individuals in international affairs.186 In general, the study suggests that a singular focus on third-image

183. Hannah Gurman, “The Other Plumbers Unit: The Dissent Channel of the U.S. State Depart- ment,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 35, No. 2 (April 2011), pp. 321–349; Hannah Gurman, The Dissent Papers: The Voices of Diplomats in the Cold War and Beyond (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012); Seth Jacobs, Rogue Diplomats: The Proud Tradition of Disobedience in American Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming); David Mayers, Dissenting Voices in Amer- ica’s Rise to Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); and Kal Bird, “Dissent in the Foreign Service” (Washington, D.C.: Alicia Patterson Foundation, 1985), http://aliciapatterson .org/stories/dissent-foreign-service. 184. Graham T. Allison, “Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” American Political Sci- ence Review, Vol. 63, No. 3 (September 1969), pp. 689–718; and Aaron Wildavsky, “The Self-Evalu- ating Organization,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 32, No. 5 (1972), pp. 509–520. 185. Alexander L. George, Presidential Decisionmaking in Foreign Policy: The Effective Use of Informa- tion and Advice (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1980), pp. 23–24, 122, 124–129. 186. Daniel L. Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack, “Let Us Now Praise Great Men: Bringing the

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theories (i.e., those concerned with the role of the international system) may obscure important theoretical dynamics occurring at the individual and domestic levels.187 The analysis demonstrates that domestic political forces and individual action are key in shaping policy. Sixth, elements of the theory, particularly the inner-circle dissent and political liability variables, can be applied to other states that are capable of responding to mass killings. Regardless of a state’s domestic political institu- tions, all states have a subset of government ofªcials who enjoy greater access than others to the chief executive (i.e., potential inner-circle dissenters). Democratic leaders around the world are susceptible to political liability concerns related to legacy, reputation, political agenda, or electoral prospects. Leaders in nondemocratic states may likewise fear public outcry if their hold on power is precarious. At the very least, they may have international or domestic priorities that could be inºuenced by an instance of mass killing. The congressional pressure variable, however, is not necessarily applicable to other states. The United States’ two-party system likely creates unique pressures for the executive when congressional pressure is high. To conclude, the theory has implications for contemporary U.S. policy, particularly as it relates to President Barack Obama’s response to mass killings in Syria and Iraq in the waning months of his administration. As the theory would predict, on March 17, 2016, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the Islamic State had engaged in atrocities amounting to genocide.188 Three days earlier, on March 14, the House of Representatives had unani-

Statesman Back In,” International Security, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Spring 2001), pp. 107–146, doi:10.1162/ 01622880151091916; Jacques E.C. Hymans, The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions, and Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Andrew Bingham Kennedy, The International Ambitions of Mao and Nehru: National Efªcacy Beliefs and the Making of Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Saunders, Leaders at War; Roskin, “From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam”; Western, Selling Intervention and War; Western, “Sources of Humanitarian In- tervention”; and Western, “Warring Ideas.” 187. On images, see Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001). On the importance of domestic factors, see Robert D. Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games,” International Organization, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Summer 1988), pp. 427–460; John M. Owen, “How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace,” International Security, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Fall 1994), pp. 87–125, doi: 10.2307/2539197; James D. Fearon, “Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes,” American Po- litical Science Review, Vol. 88, No. 3 (September 1994), pp. 577–592; and Jessica L. Weeks, “Auto- cratic Audience Costs: Regime Type and Signaling Resolve,” International Organization, Vol. 62, No. 1 (January 2008), pp. 35–64, doi:10.1017/S0020818308080028. 188. Elise Labott and Tal Kopan, “John Kerry: ISIS Responsible for Genocide,” CNN, March 18, 2016, http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/17/politics/us-iraq-syria-genocide/index.html; and Ex- pressing the Sense of Congress That the Atrocities Perpetrated by ISIL against Religious and Ethnic Minor- ities in Iraq and Syria Include War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity, and Genocide, H.Con.Res.75, Concurrent Resolution, 114th Cong. 2nd sess. (September 9, 2015), https://www.congress.gov/ bill/114th-congress/house-concurrent-resolution/75/text.

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mously passed a resolution declaring that the Islamic State had committed massacres commensurate with genocide.189 In making his announcement, Kerry was responding to a March 17 deadline imposed by Congress for a decision on the genocide designation.190 As CNN reported, “The move [the March 14 resolution by Congress], aimed at ramping up pressure on the Obama administration, appears to have worked.”191 Still, for the Obama administration to have taken more robust action, this congressional pressure would have had to be accompanied by increased public and international attention to the crisis—sufªcient to impose a political cost on the administration for failing to act—and dissent within President Obama’s inner circle. In the ab- sence of those factors, U.S. policy was unlikely to change signiªcantly.

189. Labott and Kopan, “John Kerry.” 190. Ibid. 191. Ibid.

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