Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg's Mission to Hungary In

MatzSweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944

Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944

✣ Johan Matz Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021

Introduction

Some have argued that Sweden, by commissioning Raoul Wallenberg to Bu- dapest, was the only one of the ªve neutral states in Europe to heed the U.S. request of 25 May 1944 for an increased diplomatic and consular presence in Hungary. Such a claim, however, fails to account for the particular nature of Sweden’s acceptance. The Swedish response to the request was not altogether negative, but neither was it wholly favorable. In fact, Sweden did not agree to increase the number of ofªcial government personnel at its legation in Buda- pest. What Sweden did offer was a sui generis solution with important reser- vations attached. Sweden was not alone in wanting to keep the mission at arm’s length. The United States—the initiator of the project—turned out to be even more hesitant than the Swedes about implementing it. The U.S. government was tardy in issuing instructions for the mission because the 25 May 1944 request, which was made by the United States War Refugee Board (WRB), ran counter to the ofªcial policy of isolating Hungary. That the mission began at all must primarily be ascribed to the U.S. minister to Sweden, Herschel V. Johnson, who strove to achieve a solution acceptable to all parties. The result, however, was a half-hearted compromise agreement that failed to take into account the practical aspects of the mission, including issues pertaining to Wallenberg’s personal safety. The two states’ distant attitude prior to the mission adumbrated their handling of Wallen- berg’s disappearance in January 1945.

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Dekanozov’s Message

On 16 January 1945 the Swedish minister to Moscow, Staffan Söderblom, was notiªed by Soviet Deputy Commissar of Foreign Affairs Vladimir G. Dekanozov that, according to Soviet military authorities in Budapest, the secretary to the Swedish legation in Hungary, Raoul Wallenberg, “of whom you informed me in your letter of 31 December,” had been found and that measures had been taken to protect him.1 Referring to Wallenberg, Dekanozov Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 said the Swedish legation’s staff was in the western part of the city. These comments were important not only in conªrming that Wallenberg had been located but also in forwarding a message from him, thereby signaling that the Soviet authorities could provide a channel for communication.2 Despite these unambiguous references to Wallenberg, what followed in subsequent months was a remarkable chain of events that transformed Dek- anozov’s original message into a new “truth”—that Soviet forces had located Wallenberg but he had then left in a car for an unknown destination and died somewhere in Hungary under uncertain circumstances. The Eliasson Com- mission into the Swedish government’s handling of the Wallenberg case, which presented its report, A Failure of Diplomacy, in 2003, provides an in- depth analysis of this tragic story, which need not be recounted in full detail here.3 Three factors stand out as particularly important. First, Swedish For-

1. The Soviet siege of Budapest began at the end of 1944. On 31 December Söderblom had told Dekanozov that the staff of the Swedish legation in Budapest was in need of protection from the Red Army once the city had fallen. (The eastern part of the city, Pest, fell under Soviet control on 15 Janu- ary 1945, the western part, Buda, on 11 February). Söderblom also said that approximately 15,000 Jews were under the protection of the legation. See the memorandum, dated 31 December 1944, in the Swedish National Archive (Riksarkivet, RA), HP 80 Ea. All U.S. State Department telegrams in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA], 840.48 Refugees, referred to in this article are stored at NARA II in College Park, Maryland, and are available on microªlm (rolls 37–70) of the “Records of the Department of State Relating to the Problems of Relief and Refugees in Europe Arising from World War II and Its Aftermath 1938–1949.” Other State Department telegrams referred to can be found in decimal ªles: for 1940–1944, NARA, 701.5864 (250/31/30/2, box 1856); for 1945–1949, NARA, 701.5864 (250/36/6/5, box 2977). Documents referred to with labels such as RA,HP80Ea,RA,HP1Er,RA,HP21Eu,RA,andP2Euarestored in the archive of the Swedish Foreign Ministry in the Riksarkivet. References are also made to documents in the Russian Foreign Ministry archive (Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii, or AVPRF) and The National Ar- chives of the United Kingdom (TNAUK). 2. V. Dekanozov to S. Söderblom, 16 January 1945, in AVPRF, Fond (F.) 0140, Opis’ (Op.) 30, Delo (D.) 10, Portfel’ (P.) 120, List (L.) 1. 3. Eliasson Commission, Ett diplomatiskt misslyckande: Fallet Raoul Wallenberg och den svenska utrikesledningen Statens offentliga utredningar (SOU) No. 18 (2003), pp. 187–307. Aside from the Eliasson Commission’s report, the Swedish handling of the case has been analyzed in several reports and articles over the years. See for example Rudolph Philipp, Raoul Wallenberg: Diplomat, kämpe, samarit (Stockholm: Fredborgs förlag, 1946); Elsa and Hans Villius, Fallet Raoul Wallenberg (Stock- holm: Geber, 1966); Susanne Berger, “Swedish Aspects of the Raoul Wallenberg Case,” unpublished report, 2001; Susanne Berger, “Stuck in Neutral: The Reasons Behind Sweden’s Passivity in the Raoul

98 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944 eign Minister Christian Günther failed to convey to his staff a message he received in February 1945 from the Soviet ambassador to Sweden, Aleksandra Kollontai, regarding Wallenberg’s whereabouts. Second, the Swedish minister in Moscow, Söderblom, was consistently unwilling to pursue the question of Wallenberg—a potential serious bone of contention with Moscow—and wanted to have the issue removed altogether from the agenda of his legation and transferred to a new Swedish diplomatic mission in Hungary. Third, the

Swedish Foreign Ministry was indefensibly uncritical when it received incor- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 rect information claiming that Wallenberg had died in Hungary. This disin- formation may have been part of a deliberate Soviet campaign to mislead Swe- den (though conªrmation of such a claim is not yet available). Kollontai’s message, indicating that Wallenberg was under Soviet protection, was probably given to Foreign Minister Günther’s wife, Ingrid, sometime before 18 February 1945. Because of the foreign minister’s neglect, however, this important piece of news, which conªrmed Dekanozov’s earlier comments, was not conveyed to the staff of the Foreign Ministry until three years later, in December 1948.4 Söderblom’s unwillingness to deal with the case, especially after he received word on 7 March 1945 from the Swedish legation in Romania that “Wallenberg disappeared on 17 January after declaring his intention to leave by car,” was in line with his general avoidance of all issues that could possibly endanger his efforts to improve diplomatic relations with the USSR.5 When instructed by Stockholm on 8 March to ask Soviet ofªcials when Wallenberg could return to Sweden, Söderblom simply redirected this instruction to the Swedish legation in Bucharest and failed to bring it up when he met with a

Wallenberg Case,” unpublished report, 2004, http://www.raoul-wallenberg.eu/wp-content/uploads/ 2005/08/Stuck_25Oct05.pdf; Göran Rydeberg, Raoul Wallenberg—Historik och nya forskningsfält (Stockholm: UD, 2003); and Helene Carlbäck-Isotalo, “Glasnost and the Opening up of Soviet Ar- chives: Time to Conclude the Raoul Wallenberg Case?” Scandinavian Journal of History, No. 17 (1992), pp. 175–207. The Swedish Foreign Ministry’s internal memorandum of 1986 on the history of the Wallenberg case, written by Ambassador Rune Nyström (RA, P2 EuI), provides a thorough examination of the Swedish government’s handling of the case. The report issued by the Swedish- Russian Working Group on the Raoul Wallenberg case, Raoul Wallenberg: Redovisning från den svensk- ryska arbetsgruppen (Stockholm: Aktstycken utgivna av Utrikesdepartementet, Ny serie II:52, Elanders Gotab AB, 2000), although primarily aimed at clarifying what happened to Wallenberg after his incar- ceration in the USSR, also deals with the Swedish government’s handling of the matter. Paul A. Le- vine’s book Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest: Myth, History and Holocaust (London: Valentine Mitchell, 2010) analyzes the recruitment of Wallenberg and how he was perceived within the Swedish diplomatic establishment. 4. Letter from Ingrid Günther to Raoul Wallenberg’s sister, Nina Lagergren, 29 October 1949, in Raoul Wallenbergarkivet 1:2, Brev och utredningsmaterial 1944–74, Brev från Christian Günther, Östen Undéns arkiv, Kungliga biblioteket; and Swedish Foreign Ministry to former Foreign Minister Christian Günther (envoy to Rome), 3 December 1948, in RA, P 2 EuI, 1107. 5. Swedish legation in Bucharest to Söderblom, 7 March 1945, in RA, P 57.

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Soviet diplomat on 11 March.6 When instructed again, on 27 March, to ask the Soviet government for information about Wallenberg, he declined to do so and referred the issue to the Hungarian government.7 Söderblom’s somewhat cryptic cable to Stockholm on 8 February 1945 inquiring into Wallenberg’s status does not mean that Söderblom was actually concerned about Wallenberg’s security and whereabouts.8 On the contrary, as Söderblom himself explained in a later cable, his inquiry was primarily aimed

at having Wallenberg installed as chargé d’affaires in Debrecen, which was un- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 der Soviet control and was seen by Söderblom (though not the Swedish government) as the “only legal authority” in Hungary.9 The Eliasson Commission interpreted Söderblom’s request as stemming from his desire to forgo responsibility for all issues pertaining to Swedish interests in Hungary.10 On 15 March 1945, Vilmos Böhm, a Hungarian refugee in Sweden working for the British legation’s Press Reading Bureau, furnished the Swed- ish Foreign Ministry with a written transcript of a statement broadcast on So- viet-controlled Hungarian Radio Kossuth on 8 March saying that “all signs indicate that Gestapo agents murdered Raoul Wallenberg.”11 Böhm sent the transcript to the Foreign Ministry shortly after the leading Swedish newspa- per, Dagens nyheter, published a front-page article praising Wallenberg’s and Valdemar Langlet’s efforts to save Budapest’s Jews.12 This information, together with information stemming from Hungarian refugees arriving in Ro- mania after the fall of Budapest to the Red Army, undoubtedly contributed to the disorientation of both the Swedish Foreign Ministry and the U.S. Depart- ment of State, although Söderblom’s handling of the case in its early phase most likely did more harm.13 When Böhm was serving as Hungary’s ambassador to Sweden in November 1946—in the immediate wake of the publication of Rudolph Philipp’s scathing book Raoul Wallenberg: Diplomat, kämpe,

6. Söderblom to Swedish legation in Bucharest, 9 March 1945, in RA, HP 80 Ea; and Söderblom to Swedish Foreign Ministry, 12 March 1945, in RA, P 2 Eu, 175. 7. Söderblom to Swedish Foreign Ministry, 29 March 1945, in RA, HP 80 Ea, 215. 8. Guy von Dardel, “Adjö, herr Wallenberg,” Dagens nyheter, 7 August 1997, p. 4. Söderblom’s request of 8 February 1945 is ªled in RA, P 2 Eu,. 9. Söderblom to Swedish Foreign Ministry 14 February 1945, in RA, P 2 Eu. 10. Ett diplomatiskt misslyckande, pp. 205–214. 11. Böhm to the Swedish Foreign Ministry, 15 March 1945, in RA,P2EuI,165. See also the Swedish Foreign Ministry’s internal memorandum of 11 November 1947, in RA, P 2 EuI. 12. “Svensk bragd i Ungern,” Dagens nyheter, 6 March 1944, p. 3. 13. On Böhm, see, for example, Bernt Schiller, Varför ryssarna tog Raoul Wallenberg (Stockholm: Natur och Kultur, 1991), p. 153; and Wilhelm Agrell, Skuggor runt Wallenberg: Uppdrag i Ungern 1943–45 (Lund, Sweden: Historiska media, 2006), p. 266. Arkadii Vaksberg claims in his biography of Aleksandra Kollontai that the Soviet government used Bucharest as a channel for spreading disin- formation about Wallenberg’s disappearance. Vaksberg’s claim cannot be conªrmed, however. See Arkadii Vaksberg, Aleksandra Kollontaj (Stockholm: Norstedts, 1996), p. 304.

100 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944 samarit—he again provided the Swedish Foreign Ministry with information to the effect that Wallenberg had died in Hungary. On a visit to State Secre- tary for Foreign Affairs Karl Ivan Westman, Böhm said he was convinced that Wallenberg was no longer alive, that Wallenberg together with his Soviet guards had been ambushed by the Arrow Cross in a suburb of Budapest, and that Rudolph Philipp was “ein ganz verrückter Kerl” who was “ªlled with a burning hatred against the Soviet Union.”14

Wallenberg’s other employer, the U.S. government, was nearly as inept as Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 the Swedes in handling the matter. The policymakers responsible for Wallenberg’s mission—primarily Secretary of State Edward J. Stettinius and Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr.—were not informed until early April 1945 about the disappearance, almost two-and-a-half months after the U.S. legation in Stockholm was informed of Dekanozov’s report.15 A U.S. offer of help was presented not to the Foreign Ministry in Stockholm but to Minister Söderblom in Moscow, who turned down the offer and failed to mention it to his government.16 U.S. ofªcials never questioned this rejection and eventually concluded, like the Swedes, that Wallenberg most probably had died in Hungary.17 On 25 September 1945, George Kennan at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, in response to information about an eyewitness account that Wallenberg was still alive, reported to Washington that

As Department is aware the Soviet authorities pay little attention to our inquiries re welfare whereabouts American citizens in Soviet Union or Soviet controlled areas. They are particularly reticent in cases of persons in hands of

14. See Westman’s memorandum of conversation, 29 November 1946, in RA, P 2 EuI. 15. The content of Dekanozov’s message was forwarded to Washington by Johnson in a cable dated 20 January 1945, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/1-2045, 246. Johnson notiªed the State Department of Wallenberg’s disappearance on 4 April. See Johnson to Secretary of State, 4 April 1945, in NARA 701.5864/4-445, 1251. 16. Secretary of State and WRB to Harriman, 9 April 1945, in NARA, 701.5864/4-445, 824,. Söderblom told the U.S. ambassador to Moscow, Averell Harriman, that he did “not feel that an approach to the Soviet Foreign Ofªce [by the US] would be desirable.” He also claimed that “Wallenberg had left Budapest alone by automobile for an unknown destination and had disappeared” (Harriman to Secretary of State, 12 April 1944, in NARA, 701.5864/4-1245, 1137). See also Söderblom’s cable to the Swedish Foreign Ministry, 19 April 1944, in RA, HP 80 Ea. On 19 April 1944, George Kennan reported that the members of the Swedish mission in Budapest “who passed through Moscow a few days ago had no information concerning Wallenberger [sic].” Kennan to Secre- tary of State, 19 April 1944, in NARA, 701.5864/4-1945, 1264. Kennan probably relied on Söderblom for this information. It seems highly unlikely that he met with Danielsson and Anger himself. 17. The content of a front-page article in a leading daily, Dagens nyheter (“Svensk bragd i Ungern”), on 6 March 1945 had been sent by the U.S. ambassador in Stockholm, Herschel V. Johnson, to Washing- ton on 7 March 1945 (NARA, 840.48 Refugees/3-745, 891, 7 March 1945). In a telegram of 4 April 1945 to Secretary of State Edward J. Stettinius (NARA, 840.48 Refugees/4-445, 1251), Johnson reported that “unconªrmed radio reports [claimed] that [Wallenberg had] been murdered.” What John- son referred to was most probably the statement broadcast by Radio Kossuth on 8 March 1945.

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NKVD and if Wallenberg is alive it must be presumed that he is in custody of that organization which rarely pays even perfunctory heed to the normal demands of diplomatic practice. We consequently feel that any action here on our part on behalf of Wallenberg, a Swedish national, would serve no useful purpose (re Department’s 2042, September 20. Sent Department 3367 repeated Stock- holm as 77). The Swedish legation here has taken up Wallenberg case on many occasions with Foreign Ofªce but has thus far received no reply to its representations. It Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 also is of opinion that we could be of little assistance here in obtaining information re Wallenberg. We assume Department has requested our mission in Buda- pest to make inquiries regarding Wallenberg.18 State Department telegram 2042, cited by Kennan, had been prompted by a Swedish aide-mémoire handed to the U.S. embassy in Stockholm on 3 Sep- tember 1945. The telegram indicates that M. Takacsy, the director of the Hungarian National Bank, had stated “that Raoul Wallenberg was still alive and that the Russians who [had] taken him with all his notations and documents [were] intent to utilize Wallenberg’s information in connection with future proceedings against compromised Hungarians.”19 On 20 September, acting Secretary of State Dean Acheson forwarded this information (i.e., cable 2042) to the U.S. embassy in Moscow and remarked that the Swedish Foreign Ministry “hopes foregoing may assist you in making further inquiries about Wallenberg.” He added, however, that the Swedish Foreign Ministry “feels that even if the info is true the Soviets will never produce Wallenberg alive.”20 Before being sent, the telegram was edited in collaboration with Albert Clattenberg, head of the State Department’s Special War Problems Ofªce, who advised that this last sentence be removed. Scholars have long speculated who at the Swedish Foreign Ministry could have said, “the Soviets will never produce Wallenberg alive.” One clue to the origin of this statement could be the handwritten note on the Swedish aide- mémoire to the U.S. embassy indicating that it was sent via courier by the

18. Kennan to State Department, 25 September 1945, in NARA, 701.5864/9-2545, 3367. Kennan was wrong in presuming that Wallenberg was in the custody of the NKVD. Wallenberg was at this point being held by the Soviet military counterintelligence service, SMERSH. But Kennan was correct in assuming that the U.S. mission in Budapest had been instructed to make inquiries regarding Wallenberg. On 30 April 1945, George L. Warren, the State Department’s adviser on refugees and dis- placed persons, notiªed WRB Executive Director William O’Dwyer that the chief U.S. representative on the Allied Control Commission for Hungary, General William S. Key, had been instructed to “ask the Soviet military authorities for information concerning Mr. Wallenberg’s whereabouts and expressing concern of this Government in his welfare because of meritorious activities in protecting Jews from persecution by the German and Hungarian Nazis.” See Warren to O’Dwyer, 8 May 1945, in NARA, 701.5864/4-1245. 19. Swedish Legation, Bern, to Swedish Foreign Ministry, 28 August 1945, in RA, P 2 Eu, 291; and Swedish aide-mémoire to U.S. embassy, 3 September 1945, in RA, P 2 Eu. 20. Acheson to U.S. embassy in Moscow, 20 September 1945, in NARA, 701.5864/9-2045, 2042.

102 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944 deputy foreign minister, Vilhelm Assarsson. The head of the Swedish Foreign Ministry’s Political Department, Eric von Post, in a letter to Chris Ravndal of the U.S. legation on 2 November 1945, also mentioned that the document had been handed over to the U.S. minister by Assarsson.21 The remark about Soviet unwillingness to release Wallenberg may have been given at a later point, as a clariªcation; for example over the phone by Assarsson. It seems a reasonable guess that the ofªcial who voiced this quite realistic assessment of

Soviet conduct was Assarsson, who had been Swedish ambassador to the So- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 viet Union from 1940 to 1944. He was declared persona non grata in Decem- ber 1943, ofªcially on charges of espionage.22 It is also worth noting that on 27 October 1945 Assarsson gave the U.S. government another aide-mémoire containing an eyewitness account by two Hungarian Jewish women who claimed, correctly, that when Wallenberg was last seen he was accompanied by his driver, Vilmos Langfelder.23

Unanswered Questions

Three major unanswered questions still haunt the Wallenberg affair. First, why did the Soviet Union decide to have him arrested? Second, what happened to him after his imprisonment? Third, why did the governments that had assigned him to Budapest remain so indefensibly passive and seemingly uninterested in his largely traceless disappearance?24 Until more material is released from the Russian archives, the prospects of moving further on the ªrst two questions are bleak.25 When it comes to the third, one may with some sat-

21. Post to Ravndal, 2 November 1945, in RA, P 2 Eu1, 518. 22. See Gabriel Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999); and Sven Grafström, Anteckningar 1938–1944 (Stockholm: Kungl samfundet för utgivande av handskrifter rörande Skandinaviens historia, Handlingar, del 14, 1989), p. 623. 23. Swedish Foreign Ministry to U.S. embassy in Stockholm, RA,P2Eu,506. See also, Memoran- dum from head of the Foreign Ministry’s Judicial Department, Gösta Engzell, 15 October 1945, in RA, P 2 Eu. 24. Bits and pieces of what happened to Wallenberg in the Lefortovo and Lubyanka prisons in Mos- cow, at least until 1947, are known from eyewitness accounts by former prisoners released in the 1950s. See Raoul Wallenberg: Dokumentsamling jämte kommentarer rörande hans fångenskap i Sovjet- unionen (Stockholm: Kungl. Utrikesdepartementet, 1957); Raoul Wallenberg: Dokumentsamling rörande efterforskningarna efter år 1957 (Stockholm: Kungl. Utrikesdepartementet, 1965); and Raoul Wallenberg: Redovisning från den svensk-ryska arbetsgruppen. 25. Most of the Soviet archival material on the Wallenberg case has not yet been released. Some of the encrypted cables between the Soviet embassy in Stockholm and the Soviet Foreign Ministry were declassiªed in 2012, but all documents stored in the former archives of the Soviet state security organs remain off-limits. See Johan Matz, “Sanningen om Raoul Wallenberg i ryska arkiven,” Dagens nyheter, 21 May 2012, p. 5. The Eliasson Commission as well as the Swedish-Russian working group on the Wallenberg case expressed interest in the Soviet ªle on Count Mikhail Tolstoy-Kutuzov, who worked

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isfaction note that at least the Swedish government’s mishandling of the case has been investigated by a commission of distinguished independent research- ers from Sweden, Finland, and Norway led by Ingemar Eliasson, a former county governor and marshal of the realm. Although further research may be well called for, the Eliasson Commission managed to shed light on the many Swedish errors and mistakes that in part led to the tragic outcome. There has been no equivalent to this commission in the United States, and much about

the U.S. role in the mission remains unexplored. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 There were four phases or sequences in the overall narrative of Raoul Wallenberg. First was the preparatory phase (25 May through 7 July 1944), when Sweden and the United States agreed to launch a humanitarian mission in Hungary and spelled out the goals and objectives of the mission and re- cruited Wallenberg for the assignment. Next was the implementation phase (early July 1944 through early January 1945), when Wallenberg was on location in Budapest conducting the mission. Then came the transformation phase (February 1945 to November 1946), when Wallenberg’s case became that of a Swedish citizen who was “missing in a foreign country.” Fourth and ªnally was the political phase (reaching its climax in the 1950s), when the publication of Rudolph Philipp’s book exposing the Foreign Ministry’s mishandling of the case transformed it into the politically controversial “Raoul Wallenberg affair.”26 Besides highlighting both individual and structural shortcomings during phases three and four, the Eliasson Commission drew at least one central conclusion from an in-depth analysis of the preparatory and implementation phases; namely, that Wallenberg was “a Swedish diplomat on an American assignment.” This circumstance, the commission said, may have “contributed to the Swedish foreign policy leadership’s palpable lack of interest in the security of Raoul Wallenberg during the critical months after his disappearance in January 1945.”27 Noting that the United States ªnanced and issued all instructions for the mission—Sweden, by contrast, issued none—the commission argued that this may have accounted for the Foreign Ministry’s enigmatic reaction when receiving Dekanozov’s comments on 17 January 1945. Rather than activating the Foreign Ministry or instructing Söderblom to conªrm receipt with Dekanozov or even sending a direct message to Wallenberg himself, senior

at the Swedish legation in Budapest in the autumn of 1944, but the entire ªle is still classiªed. See UD II: 52, 2001, p. 54; and Eliasson Commission, Ett diplomatiskt misslyckande, p. 602. 26. Philipp, Raoul Wallenberg, diplomat, kämpe, samarit. Every now and then, interest in the case re- surfaces. See, for example, Joshua Prager, “The Wallenberg Curse,” The Wall Street Journal, 28 Febru- ary 2009, p. 14. 27. Eliasson Commission, Ett diplomatiskt misslyckande, p. 29.

104 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944 ofªcials decided simply to convey the content of the message to the U.S. and British legations in Stockholm and leave it at that.28 Not until 17 March, two months after ªrst learning of Dekanozov’s message, did senior Foreign Minis- try ofªcials tell Söderblom that he must “energetically” demand information from the Soviet authorities concerning the whereabouts of Minister Carl Ivan Danielsson, First Secretary Per Anger, and Raoul Wallenberg.29 In addition, after receiving Dekanozov’s information, the Swedish For- eign Ministry asked U.S. ofªcials to forward an instruction from the War Ref- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 ugee Board (WRB) to Wallenberg via the U.S. embassy in Moscow and then through the Soviet authorities, rather than through the Swedish Foreign Min- istry (the ministry had been the standard route for such instructions during Wallenberg’s tenure in Budapest).30 Although the ministry’s passivity after Wallenberg’s capture has been exhaustively investigated, almost no attention has been given to the fact that the mission’s prelude—its preparatory phase—was also plagued by tardiness and a lack of interest. An analysis of this initial period of passivity can afford

28. It might be argued that conªrmation of Wallenberg’s status was all the more important because his diplomatic passport expired on 31 December 1944. However, the importance of this should not be exaggerated. Because of the Soviet siege, the city of Budapest had been cut off from the surrounding world since Christmas 1944 and was still a war-zone in mid-January 1945. The fact that his diplomatic passport had expired almost certainly played very little if any role in the Soviet decision to arrest him. His name was still on the Budapest legation staff-list that Söderblom had sent to Dekanozov on 31 December 1944 (RA, HP 80 Ea). One may also note that the diplomatic immunity of the legation chief, Carl Ivan Danielsson, and Secretary Per Anger were breached as well. Both were held in custody and isolation for several weeks, as noted in a cable of 29 September 1947 (R 20 Eu, 29). See also the undated and unsigned memorandum “Nr. 48, 86,” in which Per Anger describes the situation in Bu- dapest in January 1945, in Raoul Wallenbergföreningens arkiv, 1:5; and Lauer’s letter to Marcus Wallenberg, Jr., 20 April 1945, reproduced in Gert Nylander and Anders Perlinge, Raoul Wallenberg in Documents 1927–1947 (Stockholm: Banking and Enterprise, No. 3, 2000), pp. 109–111. There were plenty of other reasons for the Soviet Union’s interest in Wallenberg. Notations on meetings in his cal- endar—for instance, on 12 June 1944 (“18.00 Mr. Olsen”) and 28 June (“13.00 Am. minister”)— surely did more harm to his case than did the absence of a valid diplomatic passport. 29. Foreign Ministry to Söderblom, 17 March 1945, in RA,P2Eu,183. The Foreign Ministry undoubtedly saw Dekanozov’s message as a reassuring piece of news—after all, other diplomats at the Budapest legation remained there for another month and a half. See, for example, the Foreign Minis- try’s telegram to the Swedish consulate in Vienna of 17 February 1945 stating that “Wallenberg in Sicherheit seit einem Monat. Betreffend die Übrigen fehlt noch jede Nachricht” (RA,P2Eu,17Feb- ruary 1945). Söderblom’s only action as a result of the 17 March instruction was to bring up the issue of “the Budapest Swedes” on 21 March 1945 with the Soviet ambassador to Sweden, Aleksandra Kollontai, who had returned to Moscow in March 1945 (RA, HP 1 Er). On 21 April, the Swedish Foreign Ministry issued a “deªnite instruction” to Söderblom to get in touch with Dekanozov and, referring to his note of 16 January, demand “a thorough investigation of Raoul Wallenberg’s fate” (RA, HP 80 Ea, 21 April 1945). 30. Johnson to Secretary of State, 20 January 1945, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/1-2045, 246. The Foreign Ministry might not have had much of a choice at this point. Because of the Soviet siege of Bu- dapest, the Swedish legation had been cut off from all communication with the surrounding world since Christmas 1944. The WRB’s instruction, which had been cabled from Washington on 21 De- cember 1944 (NARA, 840.48 Refugees/12-2144, 2566), was subsequently stuck in Stockholm. An al- ternative option would have been to ask Söderblom to forward the instruction via the Soviet Union, but this was apparently deemed inappropriate by the ministry.

105 Matz new insights into both parties’ lack of interest after Wallenberg’s disappearance in January 1945. As rightly noted by Paul Levine, one cannot narrate or understand Wallenberg’s story without taking Swedish diplomatic sources into account.31 However, given the key role played by the United States both in initiating the project and during its implementation, U.S. diplomatic sources are equally crucial. On the basis of a comprehensive review of the WRB’s archive, as well as Swedish diplomatic sources, this article sets out to address three areas of in- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 quiry pertaining to the mission’s contractual and institutional foundation.

Three Areas of Inquiry

The ªrst issue that needs to be investigated is the notion that Sweden “wholeheartedly” agreed to the U.S. demands spelled out in the 25 May 1944 cable, which urged the neutral states of Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and Turkey to increase their diplomatic and consular presence in Hungary.32 Although this claim is partly true, it fails to account for the particular nature of Sweden’s acceptance. Sweden’s response to the request was neither an outright rejection nor “wholeheartedly” favorable. Sweden did not agree to increase the number of government personnel at the legation in Budapest. What the Swedes did agree to, after some hesitation and procrastination, was a sui generis solution whereby the Foreign Ministry agreed to dispatch, for a limited time, a private citizen—a businessman who had no previous diplomatic experience and

31. Levine, Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest, p. 8. 32. This conception was ªrst spelled out by WRB Executive Director John W. Pehle in a report to his superiors on 15 July 1944 (NARA, 840.48 Refugees/7-1544), in which he noted that “we instructed our representatives in the neutral countries to request the Governments to which they are accredited to increase to the largest possible extent the number of their diplomatic and consular personnel in Hun- gary in the hope that such representatives would use all means available to persuade individuals and ofªcials in Hungary to desist in the persecution of Jews. Turkey, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland did not respond favorably to this appeal. Sweden, in view of the humanitarian considerations, agreed wholeheartedly and immediately arranged for extra diplomatic personnel in Hungary.” This image has since become the established version. For example, Richard Breitman argues that “only in Sweden did Johnson and Olsen work smoothly; only in Sweden was the Foreign Ofªce cooperative and quick to act. And only in Sweden was there a Raoul Wallenberg, ready and eager to walk into the lion’s den in Hungary.” See Richard Breitman, “American Rescue Activities in Sweden,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Fall 1993), pp. 202–215. Steven Koblik appears unaware of the 25 May request and fails to note that the other neutrals turned it down. As a result, he does not reºect on the nature of the Swedish acceptance. See Steven Koblik, The Stones Cry Out: Sweden’s Response to the Persecution of the Jews, 1933–1945 (New York: Holocaust Library, 1988), pp. 73–74. By contrast, Paul Levine is aware of the U.S. request, which, however, he incorrectly claims to have been made on two different occasions in May 1944. He makes no mention of the other neutrals’ response and fails to discuss the nature of the Swedish acceptance. See Levine, Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest, pp. 133, 139, 157.

106 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944 whose formal afªliation with the ministry was limited to a temporary diplomatic passport. Wallenberg was given a mission with two sets of goals: one to which Sweden had ofªcially agreed (i.e., that he should follow and report on the persecution of Jews) and one that Sweden appears to have tacitly accepted but was anxious to know as little about as possible (i.e., that he was to “devote his entire time to humanitarian efforts” “furthering the relief and rescue of refugees” and “to save lives”).

The second issue needing to be addressed is how the Swedes perceived Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 their role in the mission. Although the Swedes did at times appear to have wanted to move quietly on certain aspects of the mission—particularly the U.S. component and the second set of goals mentioned above—they had no coherent and conscious policy of doing so.33 In fact, both during and after the project’s completion, the Swedes were vacillating between a secretive stance and near-complete openness about almost all aspects of the mission. The third issue warranting investigation is the U.S. role in the mission, something that the Eliasson Commission and most other analysts have largely neglected. Although the commission should not be faulted for this—its remit was to explore the Swedish side only—two claims in the literature are in particular need of scrutiny: (1) that the United States played a limited role in the initiation as well as the implementation of the project (as argued by Steven Koblik and more recently and more forcefully by Levine); and (2) that U.S. ofªcials pressured Sweden to embrace a clear set of goals and objectives (as suggested by the Eliasson Commission).34 The United States not only ªnanced Wallenberg’s mission but also issued at least twelve sets of instructions for the Swedish diplomat during his six months in Budapest. Sweden by contrast issued none.35 The symbolic importance of this circumstance should not be underestimated. By deªning a mission, instructions are key for shaping collective institutional identities and interests as well as individual ofªcials’ professional identities and loyalties. The

33. THE ELIASSON COMMISSION CONTENDS (IN Ett diplomatiskt misslyckande, p. 124) that the Swedes may have wanted to keep their distance from the project in order to acquire deniability, but the commission does not claim that deniability was a prerequisite for the mission or that the ensuing handling of Wallenberg’s disappearance was determined by a quest to maintain deniability. 34. Koblik, The Stones Cry Out, pp. 73–74; and Levine, Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest. 35. The following are the numbers and dates of the WRB’s instructions to Wallenberg: 1349 (drafted 4 July, sent 6 July), 1353 (drafted 4 July, sent 7 July), 1364 (drafted 7 July, sent 10 July), 1386 (drafted and sent 12 July), 1503 (drafted and sent 28 July), 1550 (drafted 2 August, sent 3 August), 1551 (drafted and sent 3 August), 1606 (drafted 11 August, sent 12 August), 1883 (drafted 19 Sep- tember, sent 20 September), 1976 (drafted and sent 2 October), 2040 (drafted 10 October, sent 11 October), 2566 (drafted 20 December, sent 21 December 1944). All are ªled in NARA, 840.48 Refugees, Records of the Department of State Relating to the Problems of Relief and Refugees in Eu- rope Arising from World War II and Its Aftermath 1938–1949.

107 Matz issuing and receiving of instructions is a symbolically important sequence of acts signaling, inter alia, that decision makers have conªdence in an individual ofªcial’s, or a group of ofªcials’, ability to act intelligently and in accordance with pre-established goals and institutionalized standard operating procedures. By deªning an in-group of people entrusted with sensitive policies and an out-group (i.e., private citizens or ofªcials of other governmental organizations), the dispatch of instructions helps to foster a deeper psychological sense of belonging and “being chosen” among those set to execute the Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 orders.36 Only by taking account of the symbolic importance of the interaction between the issuer and the recipient of instructions can we fully understand the complexity of the Wallenberg mission. The institutional arrangement in itself, with Wallenberg receiving instructions from U.S. Secretaries of State Cordell Hull and Edward J. Stettinius, deªned his sense of institutional belonging. For example, in a cable of 28 June 1944, Johnson noted that “the newly designated attaché, Raoul Wallenberg, feels...that he, in effect, is carrying out a humanitarian mission [on] behalf of the War Refugee Board,” and on 1 July Johnson noted that Wallenberg “was not interested in going to Budapest merely to write reports to be sent to the [Swedish] Foreign Ofªce.”37

Three Extraordinary Circumstances

The origins of the Wallenberg mission lie in three extraordinary circumstances: ªrst, that the WRB was a special institution; second, that its request of 25 May 1944 was problematic in several respects; and third, that the choice of Wallenberg for the assignment was unusual.

The WRB The WRB was established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on 22 January 1944 as part of the Executive Ofªce of the President and consisted of Under- secretary of State Edward Stettinius, Jr. (representing Secretary of State Cordell Hull), Secretary of War Henry Stimson, and Secretary of the Treasury

36. For an in-depth discussion of bureaucratic organizations and institutional identities, see Graham T. ALLISON AND PHILIP ZELIKOW, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 1999); and James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It (New York: Basic Books, 1989). 37. Johnson to Secretary of State, 28 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6-2944, 2360; and John- son to WRB, 1 July 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees//7-144, 2412.

108 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944

Henry Morgenthau, Jr. The WRB’s assignment was to take “action for the immediate rescue and relief of the Jews of Europe and other victims of enemy persecution.”38 Assistant Treasury Secretary John Pehle was the board’s ªrst executive director. Although the WRB was a government institution, it was different from regular institutions in many ways. It was set up on an ad hoc basis to tackle an extraordinary situation; it consisted of three high-proªle politicians assisted by a small secretariat; it lacked established institutional routines and proce- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 dures as well as most other traits of regular government organizations; it was supposed to function across the departmental boundaries of the State, Trea- sury, and War Departments; and it was heavily dependent on other agencies, especially the Department of State, to conduct its work. For example, all instructions to its representatives in Europe had to go via State Department channels.39 This dependence was all the more sensitive because, as shown elsewhere, the establishment of the WRB was preceded by a struggle between the State and War Departments, on the one hand, and Treasury Secretary Morgenthau, on the other.40 Whether out of anti-alien, anti-immigrant policies (as argued by David S. Wyman),41 or out of institutional and bureaucratic priorities and interests (as argued by Richard Breitman and Alan M. Kraut), the State and War Departments in various ways obstructed the WRB’s work.42 Wyman notes, for example, that WRB cablegrams were often stuck for months in the

38. Secretary of State to U.S. embassy, London, 25 January 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6, 634. 39. Final Summary Report of the Executive Director, War Refugee Board, Washington, DC, 15 Septem- ber 1945, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/9-1544, pp. 3–6. The WRB had appointed representatives in Bern (Roswell McClelland), Lisbon (Robert C. Dexter), and Stockholm (Iver C. Olsen). See State De- partment/WRB cables to Harrison (Bern), 26 February 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/5060, 651; to Norweb (Lisbon), 4 April 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/5060, 949; to Johnson (Stockholm), 24 March 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/5066, 527; and U.S. Embassy London, 18 April 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/5060, 3109. 40. The controversies surrounding the establishment and activities of the WRB have been analyzed by Ariel Hurwitz, “The Struggle over the Creation of the War Refugee Board,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1991), pp. 17–31. However, Hurwitz’s article does not address the extent to which this struggle affected the Wallenberg mission. Koblik’s The Stones Cry Out is primarily focused on Sweden—his analysis assumes that the mission was a Swedish initiative—and he devotes limited attention to the U.S. side. On international reactions to the establishment of the WRB, primarily the British standpoint, see Tony Kushner, “Rules of the Game: Britain, America and the Holocaust in 1944,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 5, No. 4, (April 1990), pp. 381–402. 41. Wyman contends that the paucity of Jews in senior State Department posts reveals a generally anti-Semitic atmosphere. Direct proof of anti-Semitism in the department is, however, limited. See David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941–1945 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985), p. 190. 42. Richard M. Breitman and Alan M. Kraut, American Refugee Policy and European Jewry, 1933–45 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), pp. 191–221. See also Memorandum of Conversa- tion, 14 February 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/2-1444.

109 Matz

State Department awaiting clearance. The board’s effectiveness was thus se- verely hampered.43

The 25 May Request In late March 1944, before the WRB had established a working agenda, it encountered its ªrst major crisis when Hungary was occupied by Germany.

Adolf Hitler’s immediate motive for the invasion was to forestall Hungarian Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 attempts at brokering a separate peace agreement with the Allied powers—the United States, the United Kingdom, and the USSR.44 With a new pro-Nazi government under Döme Sztójay installed in Buda- pest, Hungary’s comparably lenient policy toward its Jewish minority changed dramatically. Under the supervision of Adolf Eichmann, and in close cooperation with anti-Semitic elements within the Hungarian government, large- scale plans for deporting Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Po- land were drawn up. The WRB had outlined some basic features of a working agenda that was cabled to the U.S. embassy in London on 10 March, but the practical results were limited.45 Facing the Nazi takeover in Hungary, the U.S. government, short of other means at its disposal, resorted to waging psychological warfare. Using the facilities of the Ofªce of War Information (OWI), radio transmis- sions were beamed at Hungary stating that the United States and its allies viewed any assistance to Hitler’s extermination program as “criminal partici- pation in organized murder.”46 On 24 March 1944, Roosevelt, in accordance

43. Hurwitz, “The Struggle over the Creation of the War Refugee Board (WRB),” pp. 17–31. 44. László Borhi, “Secret Peace Overtures, the Holocaust, and Allied Strategy vis-à-vis Germany: Hungary in the Vortex of World War II,” Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Spring 2012), pp. 29–67. 45. In the 10 March cable (NARA, 840.48 Refugees/5260, 1812), the WRB outlined two major strat- egies: psychological warfare and evacuation. The board also listed three ongoing projects; (1) requests to Turkey to relax border controls to allow for an increased ºow of refugees and to set up reception camps in Turkey with U.S. funding; (2) attempts to charter Turkish and Swedish ships for transporting refugees across the Black Sea; and (3) the issuance of licenses to six U.S. private organizations in Switzerland to engage in ªnancial transactions for relief and evacuation operations in enemy territory. In a memorandum to Stettinius of 10 March 1944 (NARA, 840.48 Refugees/3-1044), Pehle admitted that “the War Refugee Board in its ªve weeks of operation has barely scratched the surface of the problem.” He could, however, point to several accomplishments; for example, arranging for rail transportation of 150 children every ten days from Bulgaria and Romania. 46. See the transcripts from 24 March 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/54980, 991. The 10 March 1944 document (NARA, 840.48 Refugees/5260, 1812) said that “all available means for effecting the widest dissemination of our attitude not only to the governments themselves but to the largest number possible of the people of satellite countries” should be employed and that “the Ofªce of War Infor- mation is cooperating with the War Refugee Board in bringing home to the people in Germany and the satellite countries the fact that we consider this matter to be of paramount importance and intend vigorously to pursue all possible means of accomplishing our objective.”

110 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944 with this policy, went on air to proclaim “that none who participate in these acts of savagery shall go unpunished.”47 The immediate impact on developments in Hungary was minuscule.48 Having divided Hungary into six zones, Eichmann’s Sondereinsatzkommando together with the Hungarian gendarmerie initiated the ªrst step in the annihi- lation campaign on 16 April: Jews, mainly of the eastern zone in Carpatho- Ruthenia and northeastern Hungary, were forcibly deported from their homes and concentrated in ghettos. In late May, the Swedish minister in Bu- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 dapest, Carl Ivan Danielsson, reported that the deportation of Jews from Hungary to territories controlled by Germany was going on daily using sealed freight cars that each contained 70 people, with no sanitary facilities and no food.49 From April through July 1944, approximately 437,000 Jews were rounded up all over Hungary, conªned to ghettos, and sent by train to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Three-quarters of them were murdered within hours of their arrival.50 The psychological warfare strategy was paralleled by a policy of evacuation by chartered boats across the Black Sea.51 Several thousand lives were res- cued this way, though mainly in areas adjacent to Hungary. The failure to have any tangible effect inside Hungary was due in part to the aggravated conditions in the country itself, and in part to the difªculty of obtaining safe passage for vessels through the war zones in the Black Sea.52 Because the WRB

47. Roosevelt’s speech is available online at http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/ h-roos-statement.htm. 48. On 4 April the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland, Leland Harrison, had reported that the Germans planned for the “destruction 800,000 Jews within six months: Usual preliminary steps just announced such as registration yellow badge. Arrest and deportation under supervision German SS guards will follow. Jews at above named three isolated places will be dealt with by guards as has been done in Po- land. We propose that these plans should be repeatedly and vigorously denounced by radio that Jews should be told to seek shelter in all conceivable ways outside or inside Hungary or to join partisans if possible.” See Harrison to Secretary of State, 4 April 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/5524, 2082. As noted in a cable of 10 June 1944 from Stettinius to the U.S. legation in Moscow (NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6269B, 1470), a contributing reason for the general failure of the psychological warfare strategy may have been that most Hungarians in the affected regions did not possess radios. 49. Danielsson to Swedish Foreign Ministry, 26 May 1944, in RA, HP 21 Eu, 115. 50. By early July 1944 around 150,000 to 200,000 Jews were left in the city of Budapest. For an in- depth account of the Eichmann-led operation in Hungary, see David Cesarani, Eichmann: His Life and Crimes (London: Heinemann, 2004). 51. The WRB’s 10 March 1944 document (see note 45 supra) said the board “is determined to do what it can to bring these people out, in as large numbers as possible.” By March 1944 the Interna- tional Red Cross, acting as a proxy for the WRB, had chartered at least six Bulgarian-registered ships to take Jews from Constanza in Romania across the Black Sea to Istanbul, from which they would be taken to Palestine by rail. In its ªnal report, the WRB claims that approximately 7,000 Jews were brought out of Bulgaria and Romania this way, together with 539 from Greece. In addition, another 7,000 Jews were taken from Hungary to Italy by way of Yugoslavia. See Final Summary Report, pp. 21, 26. However, compared to the 750,000 Jews in Hungary who had been put in acute danger by the German occupation, the numbers of those saved was meager. 52. Pressure on the Jews increased in April and May 1944, but their chances of leaving Hungary grad-

111 Matz

was anxious not to arouse German suspicion, it relied on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for the chartering of boats and on neutral powers such as Sweden and Switzerland to obtain assurances from Ger- many of safe passage. On 5 April 1944 the State Department ordered Johnson to ask the Swedish government to support in its own name the request for safe conduct made to the German government by the ICRC.53 On 21 April, John- son reported that “Soderblom today [advised] that Swedish Government has

supported requests of International Red Cross for safe conduct for steamships Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 Tari and Bellacita and that German Government did not refuse to accept this support of International Red Cross.”54 Similar assurances had to be ob- tained from the USSR. On 4 April the Soviet government expressed readiness to assist in the safe passage of three Bulgarian vessels transporting Jewish refugees.55 The process of proxy-chartering and obtaining assurances of safe passage was complicated, time-consuming, and fraught with pitfalls. In early May 1944, for example, Germany was reportedly unwilling to grant safe conduct for a vessel in order “to strike back at the Turks for their action in discontinu- ing all shipments of chrome.”56 To accelerate the evacuation, the WRB attempted to increase transport capacity. On 10 April, Sweden offered the ship Bardaland, which was one of twelve to ªfteen ships active in shipping relief to Greece.57 But on 5 June Johnson reported that the “German Government had ºatly refused to authorize use of Bardaland for evacuation of refugees [and even] expressed resentment at Swedes making request.”58 This and other ob- stacles forced the abandonment of the project. In addition to the problems associated with charter and granting of safe passage, the limited railway capacity from Istanbul to Palestine allowed for only around 500 refugees to be transported each month.59 In late May 1944, the U.S. ambassador in Turkey, Lawrence Steinhardt, warned that the resul-

ually diminished. On 2 May for example, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Laurence Steinhardt, noted that “no Jewish refugees have arrived of late from Hungary” and that “every Jew who enters the Turk Consulate in Budapest is immediately arrested on leaving the consulate and deported to an unknown destination.” See Steinhardt to Secretary of State, 2 May 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/5876, 794. Likewise, on 18 May, Steinhardt reported (NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6056, 895) that “the difªculties in effecting the exit of Jews from Hungary are virtually insurmountable by reason of lack of transportation and the impossibility of obtaining Hungarian exit visas.” 53. Secretary of State to Johnson, 5 April 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/5556A, 593. 54. Johnson to Secretary of State, 21 April 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/5782, 1382. 55. Harriman to Secretary of State, 4 April 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/5522, 1164. 56. Steinhardt to Secretary of State, 2 May 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/5875, 795. 57. Steinhardt to Secretary of State, 10 April 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/5585, 642. 58. Johnson to Secretary of State, 5 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6220, 1213. 59. WRB, “Developments during the Week of April 17–22,” April 1944, p. 2, in NARA, 840.48 Ref- ugees.

112 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944 tant congestion of the substantial number of refugees coming from the boats and “limited rail facilities from Istanbul to Palestine” might well “result in an unwillingness on the part of the Turk authorities to permit the refugees” and thus “threaten this steady though illegal movement which the [Turkish] Min- ister for Foreign Affairs has been tacitly sanctioning.”60

Mass Extermination Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 On 20–22 May 1944, the WRB asked the neutral governments of Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the Vatican “to secure detailed information from [their] mission[s] in Budapest concerning treatment of Jews in Hungary as speedily as possible.” A few days later, the WRB received several chilling cables about developments inside Hungary.61 The U.S. legation in Ankara reported that “approximately 200,000 [Jews] are...invarious concentration camps in Hungary. Large deportations to Poland are said to have begun from these concentration camps.”62 Reporting from the U.S. legation in Stockholm, Johnson maintained that “German authorities have evacuated all Jews from northern and southern frontiers of Hungary and have concentrated them in ghettos.” The Jewish Agency Joint Rescue Committee in Jeru- salem reported via State Department cables that “refugees who reached Pales- tine yesterday having escaped from Hungary during May relate terrible facts regarding Jews in Hungary. There is clear evidence that mass extermination is prepared there according methods in Poland.”63 On 25 May, the WRB dispatched cables, each with identical wording, to the U.S. legations in the neutral capitals of Europe—Ankara, Bern, Lisbon, Madrid, and Stockholm—as well as to the ICRC. The cable to Stockholm reads as follows:

According to persistent and apparently authentic reports, systematic mass- extermination of Jews has begun in Hungary. Kindly represent this to Swedish Government. On the restraint which may result from the presence in Hungary

60. Steinhardt to Secretary of State, 31 May 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6177, 985. The Turk- ish evacuation route was quite unofªcial, as noted in a cable of 2 June (in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/ 6203, 1000): “[T]he Turks are cooperative and passage by special cars to refugees without visas arriving by boats. This is unofªcial and dependent on the Foreign Minister’s friendship for Ambassador Steinhardt.” 61. The cables are stored in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6079B, 968 (Sweden, 20 May 1944); NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6107A, 1431 (Spain, 20 May 1944); NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6112A, 1785 (Vati- can via Bern, 22 May 1944); NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6112B, 1786 (Switzerland, 22 May 1944); NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6112C, 458 (Turkey, 22 May 1944); and NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6112D, 1459 (Portugal, 22 May 1944). 62. Steinhardt to Secretary of State, 25 May 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6125, 950. 63. Johnson to Secretary of State, 25 May 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees /6132, 1859; and Jewish Agency Joint Rescue Committee report, 25 May 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6137, 72.

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of the greatest possible number of foreign observers may well depend the lives of 800,000 human beings in that country. Please urge appropriate authorities, in the interest of humanities, to take immediate steps to increase the numbers of Swedish diplomatic and consular personnel in Hungary to the greatest possible extent and to distribute them throughout the country as widely as possible. Naturally, it is hoped that all means available to such diplomatic and consular representatives to persuade individuals and ofªcials to desist from further barba- rism will be used by them. The extent to which the Swedish Government is co- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 operating should be reported to the Department immediately.64 This request, whereby Swedish ofªcials were to be sent into the fray, markedly altered the WRB’s approach to the matter. Most likely this shift reºected both the urgency of the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe and a growing frustra- tion with the paltry results of psychological warfare and evacuation. Although other drastic measures were under consideration at the time—on 2 June, for example, the Jewish Agency Joint Rescue Committee proposed bombing the railways between Hungary and Poland that were being used for deportations of Jews—this was still unchartered territory for both the WRB and the neutrals.65 Two of the neutrals—Turkey and Switzerland—rejected the idea altogether. The U.S. ambassadors to Portugal and Spain did not even bring up the request with their host governments because they felt there was no prospect of success.

Raoul Wallenberg’s Candidacy

Raoul Wallenberg’s candidacy for the project was arguably as improbable as the project itself. Wallenberg at the time of his assignment was a managing director of Mellaneuropeiska Handels AB, a small company trading in food products. Although Wallenberg’s family was well known to the Swedish government—his grandfather had been a diplomat and two of his father’s cousins were major bankers with substantial power and inºuence over Swe- den’s economy and foreign policy—Wallenberg himself was not a diplomat

64. The cables are stored in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6151A, 468 (Ankara); NARA, 840.48 Refugees/ 6139B, 1805 (Bern); NARA, 840.48 Refugees, 1806 (Intercross via Bern); NARA, 840.48 Refugees/ 5645, 1479 (Lisbon); NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6163A, 1515 (Madrid); and NARA, 840.48 Ref- ugees/6139A, 1010, (Stockholm). Levine incorrectly asserts (in Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest, p. 139) that the request was sent on 23 May 1944. As is evident from notes and stamps on the cables, the request was drafted on 23 May and dispatched to Stockholm on 25 May 1944 at 2:00 p.m. 65. On 24 June, the U.S. legation in Bern sent detailed information on railway lines used for deporting Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau and noted that “sources of this information urge that vital sections of these lines particularly bridges...bebombed.” U.S. Legation Bern to Secretary of State, 24 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6387, 4041 sec. 1–2.

114 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944 and had not yet made any bigger impact on the establishment. He was most likely not a stranger to those in charge, but he was hardly well known, either. To U.S. and British ofªcials, Wallenberg was more than anything else a businessman. According to a British intelligence brieªng of June 1944, Wallen- berg, in a conversation with Hungarian refugee Vilmos Böhm of the press reading bureau at the British legation in Stockholm, said that he (Wallenberg) “had hitherto imported from and exported to Hungary” and “emphasized that he Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 was no politician and understood very little of politics.”66 In U.S. telegrams and documents, he is almost always referred to as a “Swedish businessman.”67 So why did Johnson, seemingly out of the blue, in a cable to Washington on 12 June 1944, propose Wallenberg as a suitable candidate for the project? Koblik contends that the idea of sending a private citizen bearing a diplomatic passport to Hungary to lead a rescue operation with the assistance of the Swedish embassies in Hungary and Romania was ªrst broached in a letter from the representative of the World Jewish Congress to Sweden, Norbert Masur to the chief rabbi in Stockholm, Marcus Ehrenpreis, on 18 April 1944.68 In his letter, Masur wrote that “we should try to ªnd a personality, skillful, with a good reputation, non-Jewish, who is willing to go to Romania/ Hungary to lead a rescue operation of the Jews. The person in question must have the conªdence of the Foreign Ministry, be endowed with a diplomatic passport, and the Foreign Ministry must instruct the legations of Bukarest and Budapest to be of the best possible assistance.”69 The Masur letter, however, is not mentioned in WRB cables and internal memoranda from this period.70 Hence, linking the 25 May request with Masur’s letter is problematic. The Jewish Agency Joint Rescue Committee in Jerusalem on 25 May had likewise recommended “that neutral powers or In- ternational Red Cross appoint special representatives to deal with rescue and

66. A copy of the brieªng is stored in TNAUK, FO/188/463, 3/001, and is also available in RA, P 2 EuI. 67. See “Summary of Steps Taken by War Refugee Board with Respect to the Jews of Hungary,” 15 July 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/7-1544; and Final Summary Report. 68. Koblik, The Stones Cry Out, pp. 79–80. 69. Masur to Ehrenpreis, 18 April 1944, in Raoul Wallenbergföreningens arkiv, 1:5, RA. 70. In a lengthy report to Pehle of 22 April 1945 (NARA, 840.48 Refugees/5896, 3210) detailing reactions to and press coverage of his appointment as WRB representative in Sweden, Iver C. Olsen, the ªnancial attaché at the U.S. legation in Stockholm, noted that “the press items brought a deluge of callers into the ofªce and telephone calls far into the night” and that “there have been many callers who were simply seeking some possible personal prestige but certain others who, I am sure, will come back very soon with a concrete program.” Possibly Masur was one of those offering a concrete program, but there is no way to claim with any certainty, as Koblik and others do, that Masur was the originator of the Wallenberg mission or inspired the WRB to dispatch its 25 May request.

115 Matz

protection [of] Hungarian Jews.”71 Although this cable did not reach Wash- ington until 11:28 p.m. on 25 May (i.e., several hours after the WRB had dispatched its request to the neutral countries), it is an indication that ideas to this effect were circulating at the time.72 The Swedish historian Lars Brink has shown that as early as 14 May 1944 Wallenberg had requested permission from his reserve army command to go to Hungary for six months (from 1 July until 31 December 1944) “to distribute

supplies for Hungarian Jews through a committee that will be formed for this Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 purpose.” This ªnding indicates that by mid-May the proposal for a rescue mission was taking concrete form and that Wallenberg even before the 25 May request was destined to conduct some sort of relief operation in Hungary.73 Most likely, these plans were familiar to Johnson, who in early May 1944 reported to the WRB on his discussion with Rabbi Ehrenpreis concerning relief operations in Poland that were planned to “expand...into Hungary and Romania.”74 Although this may help us to understand why Wallenberg a few weeks later—on 12 June—was deemed a suitable candidate for the project, less clear is why the architects of the mission went beyond the established bureaucratic structures to meet the U.S. request for increased neutral representation in Hun- gary. Why did the Swedish Foreign Ministry not send one of its own career diplomats who would have been familiar to senior ministry ofªcials and would have been accustomed to diplomatic practice and Sweden’s national interests? Sending a trained ofªcial—rather than a private citizen who lacked experience and knowledge of the ministry’s institutional culture and behavior—seems more sensible. The notion that Wallenberg was simply the right man at the right place and time is not sufªcient to clear up this mystery. The nature of Sweden’s acceptance of the U.S. request also has to be taken into account.

The Swedish Sui Generis Solution

By early June 1944 the WRB had already been notiªed that Turkey had turned down the board’s request and that the U.S. ambassadors to Portugal

71. Message from Jewish Agency Joint Rescue Committee, 25 May 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees 6137, 72. 72. On 6 March 1944, in a letter sent via the WRB to “Allan Degerman, senator Hjalmar Branting [sic] and professor Gunnar Myrdal,” Louis Dolivet requested the names of private citizens of Swedish nationality who could act as representatives of humanitarian and religious organizations and go on humanitarian missions to various areas, especially Romania. See memorandum from Dolivet, 6 March 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/5803. 73. Lars Brink, När hoten var starka: Uppkomsten av en väpnad folkrörelse (Mölndal, Sweden: Billes AB, 2009), pp. 202–204. See also Levine, Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest, p. 138. 74. Johnson to Secretary of State, 8 May 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/5922, 1622.

116 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944 and Spain were unwilling to comply with the instruction. Not until 9 June, however, did Johnson bring up the matter up with Swedish Foreign Secretary Erik Boheman, who, while reacting “favorably to suggestion of increasing Swedish representation at Budapest,” also stated that such an increase “might have some effect in saving the threatened people and certainly in securing more detailed and accurate information in regard to conditions.”75 Although this statement can be interpreted in several ways—as is often true of diplomatic language—the safest conclusion is that it was deliberately hedged. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 Johnson’s report on the conversation indicates that Boheman carefully avoided going into any practical details. At the end of the report, Johnson made the following remark:

[Boheman] told me that an exhaustive report on conditions in Hungary with particular reference to persecution of Jews has been received from Swedish Min- ister Danielson [in Budapest] and at my request he promised to make available to me the substance of this report. . . . Substance of this report will be cabled as soon as received and full copy by air mail. When I have received it I will go back again to Mr. Boheman and endeavor to get concrete suggestions from him as to what it may be practicable to do in Hungary as well as further expression of his ideas regarding increased Swedish representation.76

Aside from promising a report, Boheman offered no binding commitments.77 Moreover, he did not transmit the report to Johnson until almost two weeks later, on 21 June—a fairly long time given that it had been registered as received in the Foreign Ministry’s log as far back as 31 May.78 Even if the Swedes

75. Quoted in Johnson’s memorandum of conversation, 9 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/-, 2069. In The Stones Cry Out, p. 74, Koblik claims that the attaché on ªnancial and refugee matters at the U.S. legation in Stockholm, Iver C. Olsen, asked the Swedish Foreign Ministry for assistance in aiding Hungarian Jews by the end of May 1944, but Koblik provides no evidence to back this statement. Nor can it be substantiated in the Swedish or U.S. archives. Koblik also claims that Olsen, not Johnson, was the one who met with Boheman on 9 June, but Johnson’s report to the State Depart- ment gives no indication that Olsen was even present at the meeting. In Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest, pp. 134, 139, Levine claims that the 25 May request was communicated to the Swedish Foreign Min- istry before 6 June, but no evidence is available to support this notion. 76. Johnson, memorandum of conversation (see note 75 supra). 77. The report that Boheman gave to Johnson was signed on 26 May 1944 by the Swedish minister in Budapest, Carl Ivan Danielsson, and is stored in RA, HP 21 Eu. This report was one of several informed accounts on the persecution of the Jews in Hungary in the spring of 1944 signed by Danielsson. The reports are ªled in the Swedish Foreign Ministry’s archive and can be found in the following dossiers: RA, HP 21 Eu (1 April, 16 April, 3 May, 24 June, and 25 June) and RA, HP 21 Eu (30 June 1944). Rudolph Vrba’s and Alfred Wetzler’s written accounts on the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp were attached to the 24 June report. 78. See the Foreign Ministry’s log (“Inkommande diarium UD: Skrivelser till utrikesministern”). Danielsson’s report was summarized in a cable from Johnson to the WRB on 21 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/-, 2238. The full report was sent via air pouch on 23 June 1944 and is now stored in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/-, 2271.

117 Matz were not as negative as the other neutrals of Europe, Johnson must have sensed their clear lack of enthusiasm. However, unlike his colleagues in Ankara, Bern, Lisbon, and Madrid, Johnson was unwilling to take “no” for an answer. Three days later, on 12 June, he informed the WRB that he had “found Swede who is going to Hungary in very near future on business trip and who appears willing to lend every possible assistance on Hungarian problem.”79 The process of recruiting

Wallenberg for the mission took just nine days, from 12 June until 21 June, Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 when the Swedish Foreign Ministry notiªed Johnson and the Budapest legation of Wallenberg’s assignment. The details of what went on during those nine days need not preoccupy us here.80 Two parallel processes were under way, one aimed at acquiring information on the situation in Hungary—Vilmos Böhm authored an extensive report—and the other at getting ªrm support from those in charge for Wallenberg’s candidacy for the mission.81 As is evident from Raoul Wallen- berg’s diary and from Kálman Lauer’s letter to Marcus Wallenberg, Jr., of 20 April 1945, Raoul met with a WRB representative, Iver C. Olsen, on 15 June 1944. Olsen “considered that Raoul was the right man for the assignment and declared...that the American Legation would provide the material foundation for his mission.” Lauer also noted that Raoul had met with Ehrenpreis.82 Although precise documentation is lacking, Johnson must somehow have persuaded Boheman and the Swedish Foreign Ministry to pursue the idea as well. In a letter to Prime Minister Tage Erlander of 23 November 1946, the

79. Johnson to Secretary of State and WRB, 12 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6273, 2098. 80. Eliasson Commission, Ett diplomatiskt misslyckande, pp. 106–127. See also Lauer’s letter in Nylander and Perlinge, eds., Raoul Wallenberg in Documents, pp. 106–111. Lauer also wrote an undated, unsigned memorandum on the Wallenberg mission (Wallenbergaktionen) with a particular fo- cus on the recruitment process. This memorandum, however, is less reliable for a number of reasons, which are outlined in further detail in Eliasson Commission, Ett diplomatiskt misslyckande, p. 106. However, because Lauer is probably the one who wrote the memorandum, it should not be overlooked altogether. The memorandum can be found in Raoul Wallenbergföreningens arkiv 1:6 (Kálman Lauers arkiv, RA). 81. Johnson to Secretary of State, 17 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6333, 2187, sec. 1–3. See also Johnson to Secretary of State, 27 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6-2744, 2344. The WRB received information from other sources as well. See, for example, four cables from McClellan (in Bern), 17 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6316, 3867; 24 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48.Refugees/6384, 4041; 27 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6-3044, 4170; and 30 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6-3044, 2381; and also the cable from Danielsson/Boheman via Johnson, 1 July 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/7-144, 2412, sec. 1. 82. Iver C. Olsen’s ofªcial title at the U.S. legation in Stockholm was attaché for ªnancial matters. He was also working for the Ofªce of Strategic Services (OSS), the predecessor of the U.S. Central Intelli- gence Agency. See Lauer to Marcus Wallenberg, Jr., 20 April 1945. On Raoul’s meeting with Ehren- preis, see Nylander and Perlinge, eds., Raoul Wallenberg in Documents, p. 107. Johnson does not mention these parallel negotiations in his reports to Washington.

118 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944

Swedish section of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) claimed that Wallen- berg’s candidacy for the mission in Hungary had been presented to the Swed- ish Foreign Ministry during negotiations between the WJC’s representatives and the head of the Foreign Ministry’s Judicial Department, Gösta Engzell. Although no exact dates for these negotiations are given in the letter, they apparently took place sometime between 12 and 19 June 1944 and were important in convincing the Foreign Ministry to accept the mission.83 On 19 June,

Wallenberg himself wrote to Boheman and, referring to a personal conversa- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 tion, thanked him for “the conªdence that had been shown to him.”84 Two days later, on 21 June 1944, the Foreign Ministry informed the Swedish legation in Budapest that the Jewish question should be followed closely and that ideas on postwar aid missions should be elaborated. “The American legation,” the telegram said, had given “substantial attention to this issue,” and because the legation’s staff was “not enough to see through this special mission” the ministry would be “dispatching Raoul Wallenberg who [had] connections and good knowledge about Hungary.”85 That same day, Johnson reported to Washington that “Mr. Boheman has informed me that Mr. Raoul Wallenberg will be appointed an Attaché to the Swedish Legation at Budapest for the speciªc purpose of following and reporting on situation with respect to persecution of Jews and minorities.”86 The instruction to the Swedish legation in Budapest and in Boheman’s statement indicates that Wallenberg was supposed to “follow and report” on the persecution of Jews in Hungary and to consider how to conduct postwar aid efforts.87 However, this uncontroversial job description was not the full picture. In the same report, Johnson noted that Boheman had “made it clear that [the Swedish] Foreign Ofªce and his government are disposed to cooperate as fully as possible in all humanitarian endeavors.”88 Similar statements indicating that the mission had a wider range of goals and instruments can be found in other documents from Johnson. On 27 June he wrote that Wallenberg “is now going in full diplomatic status and will de-

83. WJC Swedish Section to Erlander, 23 November 1946, in RA, P2 EuI. 84. Wallenberg to Boheman, 19 June 1944, in RA, HP 21 Eu. 85. Swedish Foreign Ministry to Budapest Legation, 21 June 1944, in RA, HP 21 Eu, 175. 86. Johnson to Secretary of State and WRB, 21 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6398, 2231. 87. This additional goal, which was of particular interest to the U.S. legation, was a potential bone of contention with Soviet leaders, who opposed having Western aid programs in countries occupied by the Red Army. The goal received no further mention in the negotiations between Johnson and Boheman before the mission began in July 1944. Wallenberg returned to this idea in a letter to Kálman Lauer on 19 December 1944, saying he would “stay in Budapest for a couple of months after the Russian invasion...inordertoform an international association for the restoration of Jewish assets.” The letter is transcribed in Nylander and Perlinge, eds., Raoul Wallenberg in Documents, p. 105. 88. See note 86 supra.

119 Matz

vote his entire time to humanitarian efforts.”89 The next day, Johnson noted that the Swedish Foreign Ministry was “assigning an attaché to its legation in Budapest for the purpose of furthering the relief and rescue of refugees,” and that “the newly designated attaché, Raoul Wallenberg, feels...that he, in effect, is carrying out a humanitarian mission in behalf of the War Refugee Board.” Johnson also said that he and Olsen were “very favorably impressed with Wallenberg’s ability to act intelligently and with discretion in carrying out any responsibilities that the WRB may delegate to him.”90 Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 In a telegram of 1 July, Johnson reºected on Wallenberg’s perception of the mission: “I have talked to Wallenberg myself and I have no doubt of the sincerity of his purpose. He told me that he was not interested in going to Bu- dapest simply to write reports to be sent to the Foreign Ofªce but he wanted to be able to be of some effective help and to save lives.”91 Johnson’s understanding of Wallenberg’s perception of the mission is cor- roborated by two documents authored by Wallenberg himself: the ªrst a letter he wrote to “the State Secretary of Foreign Affairs” on 6 July 1944 claiming that the Foreign Ministry had agreed to let him conduct negotiations and use available ªnancial resources as he saw ªt, and the other a somewhat cryptic, undated and unsigned nine-point memorandum titled “A Talk with State Sec- retary of Foreign Affairs Assarsson.” In the latter document, Wallenberg said he was entitled to conduct negotiations and would use bribes if necessary, and he requested the ministry’s permission to establish contact with Hungarian Prime Minister Döme Sztójay.92 Although these documents did not reºect any agreement or understanding between Wallenberg and the Foreign Minis- try about the purpose of the mission—the letter may never have been sent, and the memorandum may just have been Wallenberg’s private and highly tentative notations—they conªrm that Wallenberg considered his mission to include a wider range of activities than just following and reporting on developments in Hungary.93

89. Johnson to Secretary of State and WRB, 27 June 1944 (see note 81 supra). 90. Johnson to Secretary of State and WRB, 28 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6-2944, 2360. 91. Johnson to Secretary of State and WRB, 1 July 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/7-144, 2412. 92. Wallenberg gave the wrong title for Assarsson, who was actually deputy state secretary of foreign affairs. Both documents are attached to Kálman Lauer’s memorandum describing Wallenberg’s post- ing, in Raoul Wallenbergföreningens arkiv 1:6 (RA). 93. The letter to Assarsson, signed by Wallenberg, can be found in Lauer’s archive (Raoul Wallenbergföreningens arkiv 1:6) but is not in the UD archive, and there are no traces of it in the ministry’s log (Kabinettet/UD, huvudarkivet. Ingående diarier. Inkommande skrivelser från enskilda personer, juli–dec. 1944, RA, C3B:374). Levine depicts the nine-point memorandum as a “‘letter of agreement’ negotiated with [the Foreign Ministry]” and claims that Wallenberg had “apparently received permission [from the ministry] to use money for bribes.” See Levine, Raoul Wallenberg in Buda- pest, pp. 174, 255. This interpretation is dubious. See Lauer’s letter to the Swedish Foreign Ministry of

120 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944

WRB Instructions to Wallenberg

Although the WRB had not yet decided how best to use Wallenberg, U.S. ofªcials evidently had in mind far more than monitoring and reporting. This is clear from the ªrst major WRB instructions for Wallenberg, the “general outline of a program,” which was cabled to Stockholm on 7 July.94 The 6-page document indicates that the mission was designed partly to “motivate action impeding, relaxing or slowing down tempo of persecution” and partly to “fa- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 cilitate escape and concealments.” The WRB said Wallenberg should bring with him copies of ofªcial statements made by the U.S. government con- demning the Nazi policy of extermination, which “he might on proper occasions call to the attention of appropriate persons, expressing the view...that there is no question of American determination to see to it that those who share the guilt will be punished.” He was to offer both money and the prospect of “favorable post-war consideration” to those who would impede the ongoing genocide, and he should determine in “what quarters such induce- ments may be effective.” The instructions referred to a cable of 23 June from the WRB to Johnson containing a list of Hungarian parliamentarians, government ofªcials, and private citizens said to have inºuence over the Hungar- ian bureaucracy.95 Wallenberg was also to facilitate escapes:

In connection with unofªcial channels an informed source suggests that ships and barges going down the Danube are generally empty and may afford a means of escape for a limited number of refugees in the guise of seamen or otherwise. Same source suggests that skippers can be approached on ªnancial basis and crews through so-called communist channels. Board is also advised that railroad line from Budapest to Mohacs...might afford similar opportunities if contacts made with trainmen through what are termed communist channels.96

The instructions were in line with the WRB’s previous understanding of how to deal with “its problem.” Psychological warfare and evacuation were still seen as the principal tools for the mission, and Wallenberg was to do more than simply monitor and report on the persecution of Jews.

18 July (RA, HP 21 Eu) noting that Wallenberg had been dispatched to the Budapest legation with “the special assignment of succoring Hungarian citizens of Jewish origin.” 94. In Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest, p. 151, Levine claims incorrectly that the detailed program mentioned by Pehle in his 15 July 1944 report to the WRB (“Summary of Steps”), has never been located. In reality, Pehle was referring to the 7 July instruction (NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6-2944, 1353), which, as shown in this article and elsewhere, is located in the “Records of the Department of State Relating to the Problems of Relief and Refugees in Europe Arising from World War II and Its After- math 1938–1949.” 95. Secretary of State and WRB to Johnson, 23 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6273, 1246. 96. WRB Instructions (see note 94 supra).

121 Matz

The board’s understanding of the mission is evident also from the way the instructions were put together. On 4 July 1944, the same day the instructions were drafted, the WRB sent another cable to its representative in Bern, McClelland, informing him that a “neutral government [was] about to dispatch [a] new attaché to its diplomatic mission in Budapest.” The cable added:

New attaché prepared to deal with Board’s program through any available chan- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 nels on practical basis as he is generally familiar therewith and has had extensive talks with Board’s representative regarding immediate problems. He also prepared to operate on Board suggested speciªc projects. You may desire, in line with your 3390 of May 27 that he undertake speciªc projects or contact spe- ciªed persons. Please inform Board promptly if so.97 Cable 3390, which had been sent by McClelland to Stettinius on 27 May 1944, reported on “an examination on relief and maintenance possibilities for the ever increasing numbers of victims of Nazi and satellite oppression.” The cable had offered two main conclusions: ªrst, that “any really effective action must be taken through (illegal) underground channels at least insofar as actual operations in enemy occupied countries are concerned”; and, second, that “money constitutes the principal tool which WRB can most effectively and quickly use to obtain whatever results possible at this late date: Funds must be provided in affected regions for (1) extrication imperiled persons and (2) sus- tenance victims detained or in hiding and can be effectively disbursed through secret channels of agencies hereafter described.”98 The reference to “illegal underground channels” pertained mostly to underground operations in France and the Netherlands, but the cable also noted that the “Jewish Hechaluz left Zionist organization” had been carrying out “pioneer rescue work” in Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary. Locating such channels for underground operations in Hungary and elsewhere became a priority for the WRB in early June 1944. On 10 June, for example, Stettinius urged the U.S. legation in Moscow to persuade the Soviet government to associate itself “with the declaration of the President on the event of the establishment of the War Refugee Board”:

If, like the British Government, the Russians would associate themselves with this initiative certain channels of particular value (especially Communist) would be opened up through which relief and rescue operations could be carried on in the Balkans from Switzerland. Unless the Soviet Government issues such a declaration, several well-organized underground channels will either be only partly

97. Secretary of State to McClelland, 4 July 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/-, 2276. A similar cable was sent to the U.S. legation in Lisbon on 12 July (NARA, 840.48 Refugees/7-1244, 1976). 98. McClelland to Stettinius, 27 May 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6156.

122 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944

available to War Refugee Board activities from Switzerland or remain entirely closed.99

In formulating the instructions to Wallenberg, the WRB thus solicited ideas about what could be done in Hungary, with a clear emphasis on practical steps. The recommendations from cable 3390 were incorporated into the instructions to Wallenberg, but the document failed to reach the Swedish capital before Wallenberg had departed for Budapest.100 Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021

Sweden’s Perception of Its Role in the Mission

The WRB executive director, Pehle, wrote his 15 July memorandum shortly after Wallenberg’s arrival in Budapest. The document claims the Swedes were in agreement regarding the goals and methods of Wallenberg’s mission:

The Swedish Foreign Ofªce has cooperated closely with our representative and has made available to him various ofªcial reports received from Swedish diplomatic personnel in Hungary. In addition, the Swedish Foreign Ofªce has arranged to send Mr. Wallenberg, a prominent Swedish businessman, to Budapest as attaché in refugee matters with the express purpose of saving as many lives as possible. The Swedish Foreign Ofªce has gone so far as to indicate that Wallen- berg would be available for any work the War Refugee Board might wish to assign to him.101

The program for the mission corresponded almost entirely to what the WRB had originally requested, except that Wallenberg was not a Swedish government ofªcial. Having initially turned down the request, Sweden less than two weeks later decided to fulªll it, albeit in a modiªed form. Why was this so? And did the Swedes and the Americans see eye-to-eye about the mission’s purpose and working methods? Judging from Johnson’s reports, which are the only source available concerning the negotiations with the Swedish Foreign Ministry, U.S. and Swed- ish ofªcials did agree about the mission. Iver Olsen, in a note to Pehle on

99. Stettinius to Legation in Moscow, 10 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6269B, 1470. The Soviet Union turned down this proposal on 18 June. NARA, 840.48 Refugees/-, 2184, 19 June 1944. 100. Wallenberg departed for Budapest at 1:50 p.m. on 7 July. The telegram was not sent until 7:00 p.m. that day. In a memorandum to Pehle on 10 August 1944 (in RA,P2EuI), Olsen conªrms that “Wallenberg left in a hell of hurry with no instructions.” It is not clear how and when the instructions reached Wallenberg. Lauer wrote to Olsen on 24 July 1944 that Wallenberg was “complaining over being left without instructions and money” (Raoul Wallenbergföreningens arkiv, 1:6, RA), but this does not necessarily mean that at that point he had still not received the 7 July instructions. He may simply have considered them too imprecise to qualify as instructions. 101. “Summary of Steps,” 15 July 1944.

123 Matz

10 August 1944, expressed some doubts, but his remarks need to be kept in perspective:

I get the impression indirectly that the Swedish Foreign Ofªce is somewhat un- easy about Wallenberg’s activities in Budapest, and perhaps feel that he has jumped in with too big a splash. They would prefer, of course, to approach the Jewish problem in the ªnest traditions of European diplomacy, which wouldn’t help too much. On the other hand, there is much to be said for moving around quietly on this type of work. In any case, I feel that Wallenberg is working like Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 hell and doing some good, which is the measure.102

High-ranking Swedish ofªcials had clearly been aware of the full scope of the mission well before it was initiated in July 1944. Johnson and Boheman were experienced diplomats who had met on several occasions in the spring of 1944 to discuss humanitarian operations and other matters.103 They had met at least three times to deal with the recruitment of Wallenberg: on 9 June, 21 June, and 1 July.104 Although Johnson in his report may have overstated Sweden’s eagerness to cooperate, the claim that the Swedes were deceived by the Americans or failed to understand the mission’s true purpose is baseless. Boheman had consented to let the WRB communicate with Wallenberg in Budapest “through the Swedish Foreign Ofªce,” and subsequently he must have understood that the board would issue detailed instructions for the mission.105 A memorandum from the deputy head of the Swedish Foreign Ministry’s Political Department, Sven Grafström, to the Swedish chargé d’affaires in Bu- dapest, Per Anger, on 6 July 1944 bears out Johnson’s account:

The legation has already been notiªed that Mr. Raoul Wallenberg has been assigned by the Ministry to follow the Jewish issue and to report to Stockholm, as a member of the Legation, for a couple of months. It is believed that Mr. Wallenberg will arrive in Budapest simultaneously with this letter. In accordance with standard routines, he should be reported as Secretary at the Legation. In his work he is to be fully subordinated to the Head of the Legation, whom he is to keep informed on his activities. I have emphasized this to Wallenberg, and it is

102. Olsen to Pehle (see note 100 supra). 103. See, for example, Johnson to Secretary of State, 13 February 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/ 5181, 481; and Johnson to Secretary of State, 16 March 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/5371, 908. 104. The mission may also have been discussed at a meeting between the two on 26 June 1944. See Memorandum of Conversation, 26 June 1944, in NARA, in 840.48 Refugees/6398, 2316. 105. Johnson to Secretary of State and WRB, 28 June 1944 (see note 90 supra). One may also note that Johnson, in a 19 May 1944 report to Washington on discussions with the Swedish consul general in Oslo, Claes Westring, regarding U.S. assistance to relief activities in Norway, mentioned that “communications to and from Westring would be channeled through [an] appropriate ofªcial in [the Swed- ish] Foreign Ofªce.” NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6058, 1772. Hence, such communications through Swedish diplomatic facilities were not unique to the Wallenberg mission.

124 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944

your responsibility, being Head of the Legation, to see to this. It seems reasonable, that he establishes close cooperation with Mr. Langlet, who has been appointed representative of the Red Cross. Mr. Wallenberg is not charged with any assignment from the Red Cross and could obviously not appear in this organization’s name. Because a project of this particular nature, with which Wallenberg has been assigned, obviously is very delicate, the support of the Legation, in the person of Chargé d’affaires Per Anger, will be of key importance. Any incidents with the authorities should be avoided, and I expect that you will give Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 Wallenberg appropriate directives in this regard.106

The document shows that Swedish ofªcials were aware that Wallenberg was to do more than just write reports in Budapest. On the one hand, Wallenberg should “keep himself informed of the development as regards the Jewish issue and report to Stockholm”; on the other hand, the mission was “of a special nature,” “very delicate,” and in need of the legation’s support. However, keeping the Foreign Ministry informed about various topics is exactly what embassies are expected to do, and such routine work can hardly be considered “special” and “very delicate.” Instead, the mission had a wider range of goals and objectives than Grafström considered wise to admit openly. Likewise, a December 1944 remark in Grafström’s diary—“the young Raoul Wallenberg who had been sent [to Budapest], with American money, to help the persecuted Jews”—conªrms that his view of the mission corresponded to Johnson’s.107

Sweden’s Compliance

The Eliasson Commission claimed that Sweden may have been under pressure from the United States to take a cooperative stance.108 Pointing to Graf- ström’s diary, the commission noted that Foreign Minister Christian Günther on 13 March 1944 received a “very brusque note” urging Sweden to end all exports to Germany of ball bearings as well as steel for manufacturing ball bearings.109 In addition, on 11 November 1944, Grafström noted that “the Americans are not kind to us. All our measures to please the Allies have not been of slightest help. According to cipher telegrams from Washington, the Department of State still talks of us in a very harsh language.”110 The problem with the commission’s hypothesis about U.S. pressure is

106. Grafström to Anger, 6 July 1944, in RA, P 2 Eu, 66. 107. Grafström, Anteckningar, p. 625. 108. Eliasson Commission, Ett diplomatiskt misslyckande, pp. 126–127. 109. Grafström, Anteckningar, p. 564. 110. Ibid., p. 618.

125 Matz

that well before June 1944 Sweden had declared itself willing to facilitate a humanitarian mission aimed at easing the plight of the Jews. In February 1944, just days after Roosevelt announced the formation of the WRB, John- son reported that he had “personally explained to Boheman . . . policies outlined in President’s executive order. He has assured me that Swedish Govern- ment will cooperate and continue past policy of assisting refugees from Nazi tyranny in every possible manner.”111

Sweden’s offering of the Bardaland was a case in point, as was Sweden’s as- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 sistance to WRB operations in the Baltics, Finland, and Norway, not to mention Sweden’s provision of a safe haven for 9,000 Jews from Denmark in the fall of 1943.112 Moreover, a Swedish humanitarian mission on behalf of Jewish children, women, and elderly people in Hungary was being discussed within the Foreign Ministry by early June, before the 9 June meeting between John- son and Boheman.113 Although German resistance thwarted this initiative, it shows that humanitarian considerations did play a part—perhaps even a substantial part—in the Foreign Ministry’s thinking at this time.114 Another indication that Sweden was not an unwilling partner of the Wallenberg mission is evident in Johnson’s report from a talk with Boheman on 26 June 1945:

[Boheman] believes however that we are under genuine misapprehension as to the German reasons [for refusing to grant authorization for Bardaland]. These reasons he thinks are to prevent Jews from getting out of German territory to go anywhere as it is contrary to the general Hitler policy of exterminating all Jews. He regards very seriously the possibility that before they go down the Nazi regime will massacre as many Jews as is physically possible.115

Most important of all, there is no indication in any Swedish document from the preparatory phase or thereafter, not even in private diaries like Graf- ström’s, that the Wallenberg mission came about under U.S. pressure.116 Al-

111. Johnson to Secretary of State, 13 February 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/5181, 481. 112. The WRB directed rescue operations in the Baltic countries that brought some 1,200 Jews to Sweden. An extensive account of the WRB rescue missions in the Baltics can be found in the Final Summary Report, pp. 27–28. Olsen described these operations in further detail in his memorandum to Pehle on 10 August 1944 (see note 102 supra). See also Meredith Hindley, “Negotiating the Boundary of Unconditional Surrender: The War Refugee Board and Nazi Proposals to Ransom Jews, 1944– 1945,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Spring 1996), pp. 52–77; and Breitman, “American Rescue Activities in Sweden,” pp. 202–215. 113. See Danielsson to Swedish Foreign Ministry, 2 June 1944, in RA, HP 21 Eu, 157; and the For- eign Ministry’s response to Danielsson, 6 June 1944, in RA, HP 21 Eu, 150. 114. Danielsson to Swedish Foreign Ministry, 19 June 1944, in RA, HP 21 Eu, 179. See also Paul Le- vine, From Indifference to Activism: Swedish Diplomacy and the Holocaust 1938–1944 (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 1996). See also Koblik, The Stones Cry Out, p. 68. 115. Johnson to Secretary of State and WRB, 26 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6318, 2316. 116. Grafström’s diary is remarkably detailed and outspoken, and if U.S. ofªcials had been exerting pressure for a bold initiative, he would have mentioned it.

126 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944 though the 25 May request ordered U.S. ambassadors to report immediately on the extent to which the neutral governments were willing to cooperate, Johnson in his many cables never referred to any policy or instruction to exert pressure on the Swedes to cooperate in this particular case. Likewise, in his memoirs, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull notes that Sweden had yielded to informal pressure on issues pertaining to trade with Germany, refusal to grant refuge to war criminals, and other matters, but he makes no mention of pressuring Sweden to cooperate on humanitarian issues generally or the mis- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 sion in Hungary speciªcally.117 Even if we cannot absolutely rule out that the Swedes perceived themselves to be under a modicum of pressure to cooperate, there is little doubt that, as exempliªed in Grafström’s letter, they wanted to keep a low proªle. Why was this so?

Maintaining Deniability

The Eliasson Commission contends that the Swedes may have tried to keep the recruitment of Wallenberg on an informal basis because they wanted to maintain deniability.118 Grafström’s letter also suggests that the Swedish For- eign Ministry wanted to present an ofªcial version of the mission while quietly going along with an unofªcial version, which Sweden could plausibly keep at arm’s length. During the preparations, Boheman agreed to give John- son secret reports on developments in Hungary from the Swedish legation in Budapest, but he repeatedly stressed that the source should not be revealed.119 Wallenberg’s reports from Budapest in the autumn of 1944 were ªled in the ministry’s archive, but U.S. instructions sent via Swedish diplomatic couriers to Budapest were not.120 Wallenberg received a temporary diplomatic passport

117. Cordell Hull writes in his memoirs that Sweden yielded to informal pressure on three issues: (1) insurance on Swedish vessels operating between Swedish and German ports was cancelled, resulting in a two-thirds reduction of trade; (2) Sweden would not grant refuge to war criminals or war loot; and (3) all trafªc through Sweden between Germany and Norway would cease. See Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1948), Vol. 2, pp. 1346–1348. Assurances of U.S. and British “sympathetic consideration” of Swedish requests for increases in Swedish blockade quotas to provide for refugees to Sweden from areas under German domination, communicated to the Swedish government on 20 July and 2 August 1944 (in RA, HP 21 Eu), can hardly be interpreted as “rewards” for Swedish cooperation in the Wallenberg mission. 118. Eliasson Commission, Ett diplomatiskt misslyckande, p. 124. See also note 33 supra. 119. Boheman’s repeated requests for conªdentiality are cited in Johnson’s memorandum of conversation, 9 June 1944 (see note 75 supra), and his reports of 21 June 1944 (NARA, 840.48 Refugees/636, 2238), 1 July 1944 (NARA, 840.48 Refugees/7-144, 2412, Section two), and 7 July 1944 (NARA, 840.48 Refugees/7-744, 2510). 120. A WRB cable on 19 August (in NARA, 840.48.8 Refugees/8-1944, 3182) stated: “The message

127 Matz and the formal title of Secretary, but, unlike for other Swedish diplomats, no ofªcial dossier was ever created for him. Moreover, his letter to Assarsson of 6 July, outlining key details of the assignment, was not registered in the ministry’s log.121 After Wallenberg’s disappearance, there were several possible indications of Swedish attempts to maintain deniability. In communications with Soviet diplomat Mikhail Vetrov on 26 March 1945, with U.S. Ambassador to Mos-

cow Averell Harriman in early April 1945, and with the Swedish government Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 on 14 April, Söderblom endorsed rumors that Wallenberg had disappeared by car for an unknown destination and then somehow been killed in Hungary.122 He even said to Dekanozov in a meeting on 25 April that Wallenberg had “died in a car accident.”123 He repeated this false claim to Soviet diplomat Aleksandr Abramov on 26 December 1945, adding that “it would be excellent if the legation could be given a reply in this spirit, that is to say, that Wallenberg is dead.” On 9 March 1946, Söderblom conªded that he had “once more reached the conclusion that Wallenberg apparently was no longer alive.”124 When meeting with Iosif Stalin on 15 June 1946, he claimed to believe that “Wallenberg had been through an accident or fallen prey to robbers,” and he asked for an ofªcial Soviet statement to the effect that “all measures had been taken to ªnd him, although to this point, with no results.”125 contained in WRB (Department’s 1550 of August 3) will be delivered personally to Wallenberg by First Secretary of Swedish Legation Budapest [Anger] who is temporarily here and will return to Buda- pest in about a week. It was not considered advisable to request Swedish Foreign Ofªce to transmit message of this nature.” 121. Without an entry in the ministry’s log, we cannot take for granted that the letter (see note 92 supra) was ever sent. 122. “Delo R. Vallenberga,” compiled by the Soviet Foreign Ministry on 22 February 1952, is available online on the Swedish Foreign Ministry’s database on witnesses and documents pertaining to the Wallenberg case: http://wallenbergdatabase.ud.se. Vetrov was head of the Fifth (Scandinavian) De- partment of the Soviet People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (NKID). Söderblom wrote to Harriman on 14 April 1945 (in RA, HP 1 Eu) that “Wallenberg, who had been sentenced to death by the Arrow Cross and the Germans, snuck on his own initiative to the Russians. I was notiªed as soon as he was found. Thereafter, Wallenberg seems to have left for Debrecen by car and is said to have been killed during the trip. There are a number of theories: accident (very likely), murder with robbery, am- bush by the Arrow Cross. I am afraid we will never know for certain.” But Per Anger maintained that Wallenberg’s contact with the Soviet military authorities in Budapest was quite in accordance with instructions from Ambassador Danielsson. See the undated and unsigned memorandum “Nr. 48, 86” (note 28 supra) and Lauer’s letter to Marcus Wallenberg on 20 April 1945 (see note 28 supra). 123. “Priem shvedskogo poslannika Sederblioma,” 25 April 1945, in AVPRF, F. 012, Op. 6, P. 89, D. 349, L. 10. 124. “Zapis’ besedy so shvedskim poslannikom Sederbliomom,” 26 December 1946, in AVPRF, F. 06, Op. 7, P.52, D. 858, Ll. 89–194. Abramov succeeded Vetrov as head of the NKID’s Fifth Department in late 1945. See also “Zapis’ besedy so shvedskim poslannikom Sederbliomom,” 9 March 1946, in AVPRF, F. 0140, Op. 31, D., 7, P. 133, Ll. 6–7. 125. Memorandum of Conversation, 18 June 1946, in RA, HP 1 Er 430.

128 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944

One may also point to a telegram from Söderblom to the Swedish For- eign Ministry in August 1945 referring to Wallenberg as “a representative of the Red Cross,” as well as a statement made by the head of the Swedish For- eign Ministry’s Judicial Department, Gösta Engzell, in June 1946 that “Wal- lenberg’s mission was not carried out by order of the Swedish Govern- ment.”126 Foreign Minister Östen Undén’s silence on the case when he met with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov in New York on 21 Novem- ber and again on 9 December 1946 was equally conspicuous.127 But why was Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 there a need for distance? Why would Swedish policymakers not have taken up Wallenberg’s case with the Soviet authorities, rather than endorsing dubious information that Wallenberg was dead?

Reasons for Deniability

Maintaining any form of diplomatic relations with the Nazi puppet regime in Hungary in the aftermath of the German takeover was bound to be controversial. On 9 June Boheman almost went out of his way to explain to Johnson why Sweden had kept diplomatic links with Hungary:

[Boheman] also said that he would like to make entirely clear and hoped that I would report it to my government, that the only reason that Swedish Govern- ment had consented to receive a Chargé d’affaires of present regime at Budapest was in order to be able to continue Sweden’s own representation in Hungary. He said that the Government had ºatly refused to give an agreement to a Quisling Hungarian Minister but that it had been felt here after much consideration that to refuse a Chargé d’affaires would imperil the whole Swedish representation in Hungary and its possibility of assisting people in distress.128

This issue was of greatest potential concern vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, with which Hungary, as a German satellite, was in a state of war. In a cable to Dekanozov on 31 December 1944 asking the USSR to render protection

126. Söderblom to Swedish Foreign Ministry, 14 August 1945, in RA,P2Eu;andGösta Engzell to Swedish Legation in Budapest, 14 June 1946, in RA, HP 21 Eu, 208. 127. Memorandum of Conversation, 7 December 1946, in RA, HP 1 Er; and Memorandum of Con- versation, 14 December 1946, in RA, HP 1 Er. 128. Johnson to Secretary of State (see note 75 supra). On 27 May 1944 Johnson reported to the Sec- retary of State (in NARA, 701.5864/3, 1899) that “Grafstrom, Acting Chief Political Department of Foreign Ministry, told Ravndal May 26 that new regime in Hungary had requested agreement for a new Minister to Sweden but Swedes had refused.” However, Sweden considered receiving a Hungarian chargé d’affaires to handle the interests of foreign governments that Sweden, because of the ongoing war, was representing in Hungary, and also “to strengthen position of Swedish Legation in Budapest which Swedish Government is very anxious to maintain because of its work in aiding persecuted peoples.”

129 Matz to the Swedish diplomatic staff in Budapest, Söderblom explained why Swe- den had decided to keep its diplomats in the Hungarian capital.129 In this con- text, an increase in the ofªcial diplomatic and consular presence in Hungary was apt to be sensitive.130 Doing so as part of a U.S.-Swedish deal involving the WRB was potentially controversial, particularly because of U.S. interest in undertaking postwar aid efforts in Hungary. Grafström’s 6 July memorandum to Anger characterizing Wallenberg’s assignment as “very delicate” should

possibly be seen in this light. The arrangement’s controversial nature is also Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 indicated in Lauer’s letter to Marcus Wallenberg, Jr., on 20 April 1945: “I ask you to treat my information about the American Legation in strictest conªdence, since I have not been authorised to reveal anything about this.”131 The Soviet stance on the WRB more generally was complicated.132 Sev- eral documents pertaining to the persecuted Jews in Europe show that the So- viet Union was consistently unwilling to cooperate with the WRB and at times was deeply suspicious of the board’s agenda, especially regarding Nazi proposals to exchange Jews for goods or money.133 All Nazi ransom proposals were forwarded to the British and the USSR in accordance with an established WRB policy “to do so with all such proposals no matter how dubious their nature or origin.”134 However, when Harriman in Moscow was instructed on 6 January 1945 to inform the Soviet side about discussions on the

129. Söderblom speciªed that they had stayed to defend the interests of the USSR—Sweden was the protective power of the Soviet Union—and to look after the 15,000 Jews who were under the legation’s protection. See Söderblom to Dekanozov, 31 December 1944, in RA, HP 80 Ea. 130. The Swedes were anxious to keep Soviet Ambassador Kollontai apprised of relations with Hun- gary. Johnson’s report on Ravndal’s meeting with Grafström on 27 May (in NARA, 701.5864/3, 1899) to discuss Sweden’s relations with Hungary noted that “Grafstrom added that Boheman had May 25 told Madame Kollontay that Swedish Government might agree to receive a junior ofªcer as charge d’affaires since Swedish Government has found in past three weeks that it has become almost impossible to handle interests of foreign governments Sweden is representing in Hungary as well as Hungarian interests in various foreign countries without having here a representative of present regime in Hungary.” 131. Lauer to Marcus Wallenberg, Jr., 20 April 1945. 132. See, for example, Rydeberg, Raoul Wallenberg, p. 16. 133. See especially Kennan to Secretary of State, 26 January 1945, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/ 1-2645, 238. On WRB approaches to Moscow, Harriman noted that “during the period of the war at least, the only immigrants likely to be welcomed here would be persons with a Communist back- ground, and in all probability very few others would wish to enter the country. Under these circumstances, I do not think it would be advisable to approach the Soviet government on this subject unless, in developing our own speciªc plan of action, we ªnd that the cooperation of the Soviet Union is needed in its execution.” See Harriman to Secretary of State, 9 March 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Ref- ugees/5332, 775. On 19 June Harriman reported that “the Soviet Government has instructed Vyshinski to state that it does not consider it expedient or permissible to carry on any conversations whatsoever with the German Government on the questions touched upon in the Embassy’s note.” See Harriman to Secretary of State, 19 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/-, 2184. 134. Secretary of State to McClelland, 10 July 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6-2844, 2360. On the Joel Brandt affair, the WRB noted in a cable on 7 July 1944 (in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6337, 1641) that “the Soviet Government will of course be currently informed of developments and details

130 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944

Swiss border between “representatives of Jewish groups in Budapest, accompanied by reputed Gestapo agents, and Swiss citizens representing the Swiss Jewish community,” Kennan advised against it:

After giving careful consideration to the request made by the War Refugee Board, I am obliged to say that I do not feel that it would be in the interests of our Government to transmit this information to the Soviet Government. In view of the extreme suspicion with which the Soviet Government views all Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 ªnancial transactions with Germany conducted through Swiss channels and in view of the marked lack of enthusiasm with which communications on this subject have been received in the past, I feel that to impart this information to the Soviet Foreign Ofªce would have the effect of undermining conªdence here in the integrity of our economic warfare effort and would thus be deªnitely detri- mental to our interests.135

The Soviet Union was equally wary of WRB activities in Sweden. In Novem- ber 1944, Johnson reported that “Boheman informs me Madame Kollontay has told him privately that her government is concerned as to what Americans are doing and might do with regard to Baltic peoples with particular reference to WRB activities here.”136 Not only was the Soviet Union generally wary of the WRB, relations between Stockholm and Moscow had been gradually deteriorating since 1942, particularly after a Soviet citizen, Vasilii Sidorenko, was convicted of espionage in Sweden in March 1943.137 The Soviet authorities retaliated on 17 De- cember 1943 by declaring Swedish Ambassador Assarsson (Söderblom’s predecessor) persona non grata, supposedly because of espionage. In addition to the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, although seriously weak- ened, still constituted a threat to Sweden, at least on a psychological level.138 Allied forces had landed on the shores of Normandy on 6 June 1944, and the Red Army was moving powerfully ahead on the Eastern Front, but, as noted of any practical proposal will be communicated immediately. No action will be taken without prior agreement with the Soviet and British Governments.” 135. Kennan to Secretary of State, 29 January 1945, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/2945, A-27. The WRB cable, 20 October 1944, is in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/10-2044, 2484. The core of the proposal was that “relief supplies might be made available for distribution under International Red Cross supervision to keep surviving Jews alive in return for the halting of the extermination of Jews in Ger- man hands.” See Secretary of State to Harriman, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/1-645, 35. 136. Johnson to Secretary of State, 1 November 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/11-144, 4455. 137. Ambassador Vilhelm Assarsson’s own account before the Swedish Riksdag’s Committee on For- eign Affairs (in RA, HP 1 Er, 29 February 1944) provides an excellent summary. 138. Hull notes in his memoirs that “during 1944 we concentrated largely on inducing the Swedish Government to reduce or eliminate Swedish shipments of ball bearings to Germany....Inournegoti- ations with Sweden, we encountered opposition arising from the fact that Sweden still had lingering fear of German armed reprisals, despite the growing strength and successes of the United Nations.” See Hull, Memoirs of Cordell Hull, Vol. 2, p. 1347.

131 Matz

by Cordell Hull in his memoirs, the Swedes still feared that complying with Allied demands to curtail exports of ball bearings would imply that Sweden was at war with Germany.139 The Germans were aware that King Gustav V had appealed to the Hungarian leader, Admiral Miklós Horthy, on 3 July 1944 to stall the deportations,140 but if they had known about the full extent of U.S.-Swedish cooperation on Hungary, they undoubtedly would have re- acted diplomatically or by denying a transit visa for Wallenberg. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021

Sweden’s Ambiguous Stance

Although Sweden may have had good reason to keep a healthy distance from the project, the notion that efforts to maintain deniability were what spurred Söderblom and other Swedish ofªcials to declare Wallenberg dead is too sim- plistic. As the Eliasson Commission pointed out, the purported death of Wallenberg was questioned numerous times by Swedish Foreign Ministry ofªcials in 1945 and 1946.141 Moreover, on several occasions both during and after the Wallenberg mission, the Swedes were not particularly careful to maintain deniability. On 27 July 1944, for example, the Press Reading Bureau of the British legation in Stockholm reported that Wallenberg was about to return to Stockholm for a few days and that Boheman had promised to put the envoy in touch with the British legation.142 On 20 October 1944, at a meeting with Ilya Chernyshev of the Soviet embassy in Stockholm, the head of the Swedish Foreign Minis- try’s Political Department, Eric von Post, outlined Sweden’s policy toward Hungary and mentioned that Sweden had issued protective documents to a few thousand Jews in Budapest. Von Post even asked Chernyshev whether the Soviet government was interested in Sweden’s efforts to protect Jews in Buda- pest.143 In a letter to Marcus Wallenberg on 20 April 1945, Lauer wrote that a

139. Ibid. 140. King Gustav V to Miklós Horthy, 3 July 1944, in RA, HP 21 Eu. 141. Eliasson Commission, Ett diplomatiskt misslyckande, pp. 357–361. Grafström, for example, in a memorandum to Söderblom on 12 February 1946 (RA,P2Eu),cited a new eyewitness account from a man in Budapest who reported seeing Wallenberg on 17 January 1945 in a car with the Soviet major Dimitrii Demshinko. He noted that this report conªrmed Dekanozov’s message and that it could be of help for Söderblom in ªnding out what had happened to Wallenberg after 17 January 1945. 142. Memorandum from the Press Reading Bureau, British Legation in Stockholm, 27 July 1944, in TNAUK, FO/188/463. According to the Eliasson Commission, the British legation in Stockholm received copies of Wallenberg’s reports, which were handed over by the deputy head of the Swedish For- eign Ministry’s Judicial Department, Svante Hellstedt, to Herbert Caird North at the legation. See Eliasson Commission, Ett diplomatiskt misslyckande, pp. 131, 135–136. 143. “Beseda s nachal’nikom politicheskogo otdela MIDa von Posta,” 20 October 1944, in AVPRF, F. 0140, Op. 30, D. 9, P. 129, Ll. 12–14.

132 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944

Soviet foreign trade ofªcial in Sweden had told him in November 1944 that the Soviet Union regarded Wallenberg and his mission “with the greatest sympathy.”144 Neither von Post nor Lauer mentioned any U.S. involvement, but the Swedes were not altogether quiet about even this potentially controversial issue. As noted earlier, the Swedish Foreign Ministry returned a WRB instruction for Wallenberg to the United States and said that the U.S. embassy in

Moscow should get in touch with Soviet authorities and have them send it di- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 rectly to Wallenberg. Had the United States heeded this advice, Wallenberg’s American connection would obviously have become known to Moscow, and Sweden apparently had no problem with that. It is also worth noting that the Swedish government did not deny any of the controversial statements made in Rudolph Philipp’s outspoken book Raoul Wallenberg: Diplomat, kämpe, samarit, published in November 1946. Philipp wrote that “if Roosevelt’s grand rescue plan was to succeed, the Swedish king and government would have to authorize Raoul as an ofªcial representative of their neutral country” and that “the Swedish government consented to having Raoul camouºaged as a diplomat.”145 In response to a question from a member of parliament in November 1946 regarding Philipp’s severe criticism of the Swedish government, Prime Minister Erlander did not touch on the institutional arrangements of the mission but did openly say that Sweden had asked the U.S. State Department to assist in investigating Wallenberg’s disappearance in Hungary.146 Finally, even Söderblom in his meetings with Dekanozov (on 25 April 1945), Abramov (on 26 December 1945), and Stalin (on 15 June 1946) was open in saying that Wallenberg had not been an ordinary secretary to the legation and that his primary occupation had been to conduct a humanitarian operation on behalf of Jews in Budapest.147 Although Söderblom made no mention of the U.S. role, he must have been fully aware that the Soviet authorities, in interpreting such a statement, would ªnd parallels to Roose- velt’s 24 January 1944 declaration regarding the WRB.148

144. Lauer did not mention the person’s name or whether his statement could be seen as an ofªcial So- viet view. For the letter, see note 28 supra. 145. Philipp, Raoul Wallenberg, p. 78. 146. Riksdagens protokoll 1946, Andra kammaren, Nr. 38, 27 November 1946, in RA,P2EuI.Anew Swedish legation was established in Budapest by December 1945. 147. “Priem shvedskogo poslannika Sederblioma” (see note 123 supra). See also Söderblom’s report from this meeting, dated 26 April 1945, in RA, P2 Eu. For the meeting with Abramov, see “Zapis’ besedy so shvedskim poslannikom Sederbliomom” (see note 124 supra). Söderblom failed to report on this meeting to Stockholm. A short, incomplete note about it, dated 3 January 1946, can be found in RA, P 2 Eu. For the meeting with Stalin, see Söderblom’s notes dated 18 June 1946, in RA, HP 1 Er. 148. In April 1945 the chief U.S. representative on the Allied Control Commission for Hungary,

133 Matz

Söderblom’s handling of the Wallenberg case caused serious harm, but this does not necessarily mean he was acting out of deliberate malevolence toward Wallenberg.149 The Eliasson Commission argued that Söderblom’s seemingly inexplicable behavior was part of his unauthorized personal effort to shift all thorny matters (including protection of Swedish industrial assets in Hungary and the location of missing Swedes in European war zones) from the legation’s agenda to a new Swedish legation in Budapest. By doing so, he

hoped to be relieved of a series of potential bones of contention between Swe- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 den and the USSR and to achieve a swift improvement in Swedish-Soviet relations.150 Likewise, Söderblom’s description of Wallenberg as a Red Cross representative was in line with his portrayal of Wallenberg as an irresponsible character who was not part of the regular corps diplomatique and who had put Söder- blom “in an awkward position.”151 Engzell’s claim that Wallenberg’s mission

General William S. Key, asked the Soviet military authorities for information concerning Wallenberg’s whereabouts and expressed concern about the well-being of someone who had undertaken such “meritorious activities in protecting Jews from persecution by the German and Hungarian Nazis” (NARA, 701.5864/4-1245, 8 May 1945). This request is interesting in the sense that a high-ranking U.S. military ofªcial of the United States expressed concern for a Swedish diplomat because of activities that corresponded with the WRB’s goals and objectives. The United States, like Sweden, thus presented Wallenberg to the Soviet authorities as a very special secretary to the legation. 149. Before meeting with Stalin on 15 June 1946, Söderblom paid three fairly long visits to Stock- holm: on 22 June–2 July 1945, 2 October–14 December 1945, and 3–23 May 1946. See RA,P2Eu (6 July 1945), P 9 (2 October 1945), P 9 (14 December 1945); RA, P 2 EuI (11 June 1946); and Östen Undén, Anteckningar 1918–1952 (Stockholm: Kungl Samf. för utgivande av handskrifter rörande Skandinaviens historia, 2002). The instructions Söderblom received during these visits have not yet come to light. The Wallenberg case, like other issues pertaining to Soviet-Swedish relations, would have been addressed during Söderblom’s discussions with senior Swedish ofªcials, but his correspondence with Stockholm between the visits does not reveal any instructions he may have received to put an end to the case and obtain a message from the Soviet authorities to the effect that Wallenberg was dead. As noted by the Eliasson Commission, if Foreign Minister Undén had given such an instruction during Söderblom’s stay in Stockholm in May 1946, the ambassador undoubtedly would have raised the matter with Foreign Minister Molotov, with whom he met on 6 June 1946. But both the Swedish and the Soviet notes from that meeting do not mention Wallenberg. See Memorandum of Conversation, 6 June 1946, in RA, HP 1 Er; and “Priem shvedskogo poslannika Sederblioma,” 6 June 1946, in AVPRF, F. 06, Op. 8, P. 925, D. 56, L. 1. Söderblom himself contends (in Veckojournalen, No. 8, 19 February 1980) that he did not see Undén before meeting with Stalin on 15 June 1946. Söderblom did not learn until 6:00 p.m. on 14 June that Stalin would receive him, giving him barely 24 hours to prepare. See Eliasson Commission, Ett diplomatiskt misslyckande, p. 398. One would have expected that Söderblom would report to Stockholm that he had asked Abramov in December 1945 for “a reply in this spirit, that is to say, that Wallenberg is dead” (as cited in “Zapis’ besedy so shvedskim poslannikom Sederbliomom”—see note 124 supra). However Söderblom’s report to Stock- holm dated 3 January 1946 (in RA, P 2 Eu) makes no mention of such a request. 150. Eliasson Commission, Ett diplomatiskt misslyckande, pp. 239–242. 151. See, for example, Söderblom’s telegram to Stockholm of 14 April 1945 (in RA, HP 1 Eu) claiming that Wallenberg “sneaked” to the Soviet authorities “on his own initiative.” This assertion was pa- tently incorrect—Per Anger reported (in Memorandum No. “48, 86”—see note 28 supra) that Wallenberg had been instructed by Danielsson “to try to get over to the Russian side with some of his protégés”—and was also a derogatory remark impugning Wallenberg’s character. See Nylander and Perlinge, eds., Raoul Wallenberg in Documents, p. 109. See also Söderblom to State Secretary for For- eign Affairs Stig Sahlin, 6 July 1945, in RA, P 2 Eu.

134 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944 had not been authorized by Sweden was clearly incorrect, but it was primarily aimed at refuting a claim for money ªled by a Hungarian businessman who had provided food to Jews under Swedish protection.152 These two statements should thus not be seen as evidence of a coherent policy of denying ofªcial Swedish links to Wallenberg’s mission. Furthermore, Engzell, in a letter from Jakob Wallenberg to Lauer in October 1944, was quoted as saying that “Raoul is employed as Legation Secretary at the Budapest Legation,” thereby conªrming that Raoul Wallenberg was listed on the staff of the Foreign Min- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 istry.153 Grafström, in a memorandum to Johnson’s successor, Ravndal, on 2 July 1945 even explicitly stated that Wallenberg “acted from July 1944 as Chief of the Swedish humanitarian action in favor of the Jewish population in Hungary. In this capacity he was assigned to the Swedish Legation in Buda- pest as Second Secretary.”154 In April 1946, after a year of complex negotiations regarding Swedish citizens in Soviet custody—most notably the Swedish journalist Edward af Sandeberg, as well as the case of the underage Soviet citizen Lidia Makarova, who had escaped from Estonia to Sweden in 1944—Söderblom began to think that Wallenberg might still be alive.155 Söderblom reported his change of mind to Foreign Minister Undén, who declined to pursue the matter further.156 Because of a lack of material, the Eliasson Commission was unable to come up with any conclusive explanation of why Undén remained so passive and seemingly uninterested. The commission suggested that Undén’s quest to improve relations with the Soviet Union as well as his strongly legalistic out- look on international relations may have played some part.157 Whether his in- activity was part of a Swedish policy of distancing itself from Wallenberg cannot be known with any certainty.

152. Memorandum from Yngve Ekmark to the Swedish Foreign Ministry, 4 March 1946, in RA, HP 21 Eu; Memorandum from Swedish Foreign Ministry, 17 May 1946, in RA, HP 21 Eu, 936; and Engzell to Swedish Legation in Budapest, 14 June 1946, in RA, HP 21 Eu, 208. 153. Nylander and Perlinge, eds., Raoul Wallenberg in Documents, p. 102. 154. Grafström to Ravndal, 2 July 1945, in RA, P 2 EuI. 155. Eliasson Commission, Ett diplomatiskt misslyckande, pp. 378–388. Edward af Sandeberg was released on 22 March 1944. He described his experiences in Nu kan det sägas: Sanningen om min fångenskap i Sovjet och Berlins falk (Stockholm: Saxon och Lindström, 1946). 156. Söderblom to Undén, 30 April 1946, in RA,P2EuI.Undén, who succeeded Günther as foreign minister in July 1945, maintained his ignorant, negative attitude toward the case until the early 1950s. On 11 February 1952, Undén, under mounting political pressure, conveyed a note to the Soviet ambassador in Stockholm, Konstantiv Rodionov, demanding that the Soviet Union release Wallenberg. The note is stored in RA, P 2 EuI. State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Arne Lundberg was very interested in the case, and he ensured that it was handled much more actively throughout the 1950s. See Eliasson Commission, Ett diplomatiskt misslyckande, pp. 529–561. 157. Eliasson Commission, Ett diplomatiskt misslyckande, pp. 499–518.

135 Matz

“An American Program”

Reconstructing the Swedish decision to accept a modiªed form of the U.S. request of 25 May 1944 is no easy task. Archival material in Stockholm concerning Swedish perceptions of the mission is sparse. Grafström’s July 1945 memorandum is the only longer description of the project from the Swedish standpoint. However, U.S. documents pertaining to the decision are more abundant, and Johnson’s detailed accounts of his talks with Boheman provide Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 some clues. The report from the Boheman-Johnson meeting of 28 June is of particular interest. At that meeting, Boheman reportedly said that “the Swed- ish Foreign Ofªce feels that it has cooperated fully in lending all possible facilities for the furtherance of an American program.”158 This statement signaled that, although Sweden had consented to a U.S. initiative, Swedish ofªcials believed that primary responsibility for it lay with the United States. The Swedes probably saw this as an easy way to acquire conªdence and goodwill with the Allied powers—the United Kingdom, the United States, and perhaps even the Soviet Union. Sweden’s distant attitude toward the project may not have stemmed from a conscious effort to acquire deniability. Swedish ofªcials may simply have lacked any deeper interest in Wallenberg and his assignment—the very absence of Swedish reºections on the mission points in this direction.

U.S. Hesitancy

The Wallenberg mission would not have happened without Johnson’s ingenu- ity and diplomatic skill in coming up with a solution acceptable to the Swedes.159 Unlike other U.S. ambassadors, Johnson had managed to obtain a fairly positive response to the WRB’s request. Surprisingly, however, Johnson had to work hard to get senior U.S. ofªcials interested in the idea. He had to keep on requesting guidance for the mission. On 12 June, he averred that “any instructions which would coordinate approach to Hungarian problem would be helpful.”160 On 21 June, he afªrmed that he and Olsen were “of opinion that War Refugee Board should be considering ways and means of

158. See note 37 supra (emphasis added). 159. Olsen’s role in the recruitment of Wallenberg has often been emphasized. Although Olsen may have been the one who ªrst recommended Raoul’s name to Johnson (though it seems equally possible that Ehrenpreis was the one who suggested it), it was Johnson rather than Olsen who conducted negotiations with the Swedish Foreign Ministry and who drafted the reports to the State Department on these talks. Hence, Olsen’s role in reaching a formal agreement with Sweden and in selling the idea to the WRB was not as important as Johnson’s. 160. Johnson to Secretary of State and WRB, 12 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6273, 2098.

136 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944 implementing this action of Swedish Government.”161 On 27 June, Johnson wrote that he “would appreciate very much any further instructions that the WRB can supply for the purpose of implementing his mission” and that Wallenberg was “anxious to be fully instructed before he leaves.”162 The next day, Johnson stressed that Wallenberg “would like full instructions as to the line of activities he is authorized to carry out and assurances of adequate ª- nancial support for these activities so that he will be in a position to develop fully all local possibilities.” Johnson once again “urge[d] strongly that appro- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 priate instructions be forwarded as soon as possible.”163 On 1 July, Johnson, this time referring to Boheman, reiterated that “it would be of the greatest beneªt to Wallenberg if our War Refugee Board could formulate some form of directive for him which the Foreign Ofªce will be glad to transmit.”164 Despite these repeated queries, Johnson did not actually receive any guidance until 7 July, six weeks after the request for increased diplomatic representation and almost a month to the day after he had ªrst reported on his talk with Boheman.165 It had taken nine days to convince the Swedes to take part, but it took 25 days to get a green light from the U.S. government. The Swedish government ofªcially approved the mission on 21 June.166 Wallenberg waited in vain for more than two weeks to receive instructions from the WRB before ªnally departing for Budapest on 7 July.167 The WRB sent its instructions for the mission that same day, but they did not reach Stockholm before Wallenberg, in Olsen’s words, had “left in a hell of a hurry with no instructions.”168 Given the urgency of the humanitarian catastrophe in Hungary, the WRB’s tardiness in outlining a program for the mission is puzzling.169 After

161. Johnson to Secretary of State and WRB, 21 June1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6398, 2231. 162. Johnston to Secretary of State and WRB, 27 June 1944 (see note 81 supra). 163. See note 158 supra. 164. Johnson to Secretary of State, 1 July 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/7–144, 2412, sect. 2. 165. See notes 94 and 97 supra. 166. See note 85 supra. 167. On 20 June, Anger wrote a memorandum to Olsen, urging Wallenberg to “hurry up.” The Swed- ish Foreign Ministry appears to have been somewhat concerned and surprised by the delay. On 28 June the ministry sent a cable to the Budapest legation (in RA, HP 21 Eu, 183) declaring that “against the backdrop of the urgent situation [and] the delay in Wallenberg’s departure, [Valdemar] Langlet is ordered by the Red Cross to become its delegate.” 168. Olsen to Pehle (see note 100 supra). 169. Levine’s discussion of why Johnson’s “repeated requests for instructions seem to have been in vain” and “why American instructions should be more detailed . . . than Swedish instructions” is marred by his failure to take full account of the U.S. role in Wallenberg’s mission. As a result he en- gages in vague speculation that “Pehle seems to have believed that Wallenberg [was] familiar with the WRB’s essential tasks, and perhaps this is why the more speciªc set of instructions requested several times by Johnson was never sent.” See Levine, Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest, pp. 149, 151, 157. The instructions were in fact sent to Stockholm on 7 July 1944.

137 Matz

all, the board itself had taken the initiative in seeking an increased neutral diplomatic presence in Hungary, and Sweden was the only country that had shown any interest. Hence, one would expect that the WRB would have been eager to move ahead. Instead, Johnson had to wait three weeks before receiving a reply to his cable of 9 June:

The following refers to your 2069 of June 9, is WRB cable 24 and is for Johnson

and Olsen. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 1. Swedish cooperation along lines suggested in Department’s 1010 of May 25 appreciated by Department and Board. Assume every effort to expedite receipt by you and transmission here of report mentioned being made. 2. Discussions are proceeding between the United States and British Govern- ments looking to program of transmission of food parcels through the blockade to persons in concentration camps through Intercross channels from Switzer- land if adequate supervision and guarantees can be provided. Such program already has the approval of Department, Foreign Economic Administration and War Refugee Board which will give consideration to a similar program from Sweden upon receipt of a Swedish proposal.170 The WRB’s response evinced a surprising lack of interest either in increasing Swedish representation or in heeding Johnson’s pleas for instructions. Rather, the board simply asked for the report that Boheman had offered—a report that had already been sent by pouch on 21 June (and summarized in a telegram on 23 June).171 On 23 June the WRB did in fact suggest that if the “business man about to take [a] trip...isentirely reliable” he should be told to contact “apparently appropriate persons” in Hungary “to ascertain whether they are able to help.”172 The instructions for Wallenberg that eventually reached Stockholm on the evening of 7 July were rather general. Except for the list of key Hungarians and some broad advice about how to conduct psychological warfare and evacuation, the document was of limited practical value. Wallenberg’s main tool for saving lives in Budapest when the situation deteriorated in late autumn 1944 was the issuance of various types of protective documents that would be seen as “legal.” However, this modus operandi, which was already being used at the legation by the time Wallenberg arrived and was well known to the U.S. government, was not mentioned in the WRB’s instructions.173 The board’s

170. Secretary of State to Johnson, 30 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6258, 1299. 171. See note 78 supra. 172. See note 95 supra. 173. The Swedish legation, especially Anger and Danielsson, were already carrying out measures to help Jews by the time Raoul Wallenberg arrived in Budapest. See Koblik, The Stones Cry Out, p. 68; and Levine, From Indifference to Activism. Johnson had reported on 17 June that “Swedish Foreign Ofªce has, in approximately 800 individual cases, instructed its Legation in Budapest to advise Hun-

138 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944 slow and lethargic handling of the mission in its early stages belies the glowing depiction offered by Olsen in his November 1944 report “Operations of the War Refugee Board from Sweden,” which claimed that “operations in Sweden were tremendously facilitated by the complete and clear cut directives ema- nating from the War Refugee Board, and the promptness with which it supported and cleared recommended projects.”174 How can we explain the WRB’s sluggishness?

The delay cannot be attributed to a lack of information. By late May Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 the WRB had been inundated with accounts from Hungarian refugees—the 25 May request was most likely a reaction to these—and though there was some uncertainty about what was going on, the board continued to receive detailed accounts of developments in Hungary from authoritative sources.175 On 28 June 1944, the same day that Johnson sent a cable to Washington requesting instructions for Wallenberg—the only cable that dealt exclusively with the mission—he sent another, much longer cable an hour later. This second cable, divided into three sections, dealt with an entirely different topic, which he described as “bafºing and not a little fantastic in scope.” According to Johnson, “certain inºuential German ofªcials connected to Baltic affairs”—Bruno Peter Kleist and Werner Böning—had made “several approaches locally on the general proposition of freeing Jews in Latvia against a cash consideration.” Under this proposal, Latvian Jews “would be free from ghettos and permitted to come to Sweden against a cash payment of 2 million dollars.”176 Although barter proposals made by Heinrich Himmler and other Nazi ofªcials in 1944—not least the Joel Brandt affair of early June 1944—were a garian authorities that such persons have protection of Swedish Government and have been promised entry visas. This has been helpful in certain cases, in others of no avail.” See Johnson to Secretary of State, 17 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6333, 2187. On 17 July the WRB informed Johnson that “the suggestion has been made to the Board from several sources that the issuance to Hungarian Jews, particularly children and families with children, of Palestine certiªcates, American and neutral visas in quantity might result in the saving of lives. The Board is considering the practicability of such a program....Thesuggested program has not (repeat not) as yet been cleared with the State Depart- ment. In view of your 2511 of July 7, the Board would also appreciate receiving as soon as possible your views and recommendations as to the practicability of the suggested program.” See WRB to Johnson, 14 July 1944 (sent on 17 July), in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/7-744, 1433. 174. “Operations of the War Refugee Board from Sweden,” p. 2. 175. These accounts were provided in cables not only from Johnson but also from Carlton J. H. Hayes (Madrid), 1 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6202, 1943; from McClelland (Bern), 6 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/-, 1946 (a cable declaring “Worst has come true. Deportations have become naked truth and is carried out mercilessly”); from McClelland, 17 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6316, 3867; from Böhm via Johnson, 17 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/ 6333, 2187; from McClelland, 24 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6384, 4041; from McClelland, 30 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6-3044, 2381; and from Danielsson/ Boheman via Johnson, 1 July 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/7-144, 2412, sec. 1. 176. Johnson to WRB, 28 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6-2844, 2362, sec. 3. See also Hindley, “Negotiating the Boundary of Unconditional Surrender,” pp. 52–77.

139 Matz major source of concern for the WRB, this factor alone does not account for the WRB’s delay. The board had long been receiving contradictory information about German intentions but had still managed to proceed with evacua- tions and psychological warfare (albeit with limited success).

The Board and the U.S. Government Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 The WRB was an unusual institution in several senses. Established after a ªerce bureaucratic struggle involving the Departments of Finance, State, and War, the WRB was heavily reliant on these three departments for its work, it was supposed to function across departmental barriers, it lacked standard operating procedures and other traits of regular government agencies, and, most importantly, its legitimacy within the U.S. government was tenuous. The WRB was seen by some at the State Department in the same way that Wallenberg was viewed by the Swedish Foreign Ministry—as something “different,” not part of the corps diplomatique, and out of touch with political realities.177 Kennan’s cable of 29 January 1945 advising against the WRB’s proposal to share information with Moscow reºected this sentiment. The board’s initiative of 20 April 1944 to dispatch a special representative to the U.S. legation in Moscow prompted a similar response from Harriman:

I think that it would be deªnitely inadvisable (repeat inadvisable) for a special attaché on refugee matter to [be] sent here at this time....TheSoviets would not permit a special attaché to travel about the country or to develop direct contacts with various Soviet Governmental activities. . . . The work here vis-à-vis the Soviet Government because of factors I have mentioned can only be handled by me and the senior ofªcers of the Embassy rather than by the appointment of a special attaché.178

This wariness toward the WRB was also reºected in a telegram of 26 May 1944 from the U.S. ambassador in Spain, Carlton J. H. Hayes:

I wish to have it clearly understood that I am in full sympathy with humanitarian purpose for which War Refugee Board was established but that I strongly feel

177. When handing over Wallenberg’s report of 12 September 1944 to the British legation in Stock- holm, the deputy head of the Swedish Foreign Ministry’s Judicial Department, Svante Hellstedt, “pointed out to me that Wallenberg was an unbusinesslike sort of fellow and that his reports contained a number of inconsistencies.” See “Minute Sheet,” 2 October 1944, in TNAUK, FO/188/463. See also Söderblom’s cables of 14 April 1945 (in RA, HP 1 Eu) and 14 August 1945 (in RA,P2Eu). See also Breitman and Kraut, American Refugee Policy and European Jewry, p. 192. 178. Harriman to Secretary of State, 24 April 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/5798, 1417. The proposed representative was Robert J. Scovell.

140 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944

that despite importance of its work it should not be permitted to carry on its operations in such a manner as to jeopardize objectives of more immediate importance to our war effort. Telegrams from Board have in the past, as I have repeatedly attempted to point out, revealed a failure to comprehend implications involved in the implementation of its program in Spain and for this reason I have felt it incumbent upon me to attempt to prevent it engaging in activities which might redound to our own disadvantage in the prosecution of the war as well as in the conduct of our immediate relations with Spain.179 Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 When turning down the 25 May request, the neutral governments and the U.S. ambassadors all claimed that an increase in the diplomatic presence would contravene the U.S. policy of isolating Hungary. The U.S. embassy in Ankara, for example, stated that

the Turkish authorities point out that Hungarian-Turkish relations at the present are virtually nonexistent due to the strain resulting from...theposition taken by the Turkish Government in materially reducing the shipment of strategic materials of Hungary at the request of the American and British Govern- ments. In view of the foregoing, the Turkish Government does not feel that it is in a position to request the Hungarian Government for permission to increase the number of Turkish diplomatic and consular personnel in Hungary.180 The U.S. embassy in Madrid likewise argued that “it would be to no purpose to suggest that further Spanish ofªcial personnel be sent to Spanish mission in Hungary since such action would run counter to the Spanish Government’s policy as enunciated to me by the Foreign Minister, namely, to minimize Spain’s connections with the present Hungarian Government. The Foreign Minister adopted this policy as a result of the representations of my British colleague and me.”181 The U.S. legation in Lisbon wrote that

the WRB may not have been aware of the awkward position in which we ªnd ourselves following the invasion of Hungary seeking to dissuade the Portuguese Government from recognizing the Budapest puppet regime. These representations were vigorously duplicated by the British. In the light of the foregoing it would appear to us that we would be stopped from now approaching the Portu- guese with a request to deal with that same puppet regime on our behalf.182 The Swiss Foreign Ministry avoided replying until 26 June, when a ministry ofªcial “indicated” that the Swiss answer to the U.S. embassy’s request “would

179. Hayes to Secretary of State, 26 May 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6159, 1861. 180. Steinhardt to Secretary of State, 29 May 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6162, 977. 181. Hayes to Secretary of State, 1 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6202, 1943. 182. Norweb (U.S. embassy in Lisbon) to Secretary of State, 1 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6170, 1671.

141 Matz

probably be unfavorable.”183 Against this backdrop the delay in issuing instructions for Wallenberg is more explicable. The 25 May request was one of several WRB initiatives whose consequences had not been fully analyzed or properly coordinated with the State Department.184

State Department Consent Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 Despite these bureaucratic glitches, the State Department eventually agreed to send instructions for the mission. More research is needed to explain the department’s motivations fully, but the available evidence suggests that two factors were crucial: the indirect nature of the U.S. engagement, which allowed for deniability; and the role of Herschel V. Johnson, whose diplomatic skill and strong support of the mission earned it wider support from his home agency, the State Department. With regard to the ªrst factor, the WRB evidently distinguished between two different ways of presenting the mission: an “ofªcial” version, which was used when communicating via State Department cables, and an “internal” version, best exempliªed by Olsen’s frank remark in his November 1944 report to Pehle on the WRB’s operations: “The keystone of the entire operation was the willingness of the Swedish Foreign Ofªce to assign an Attaché to its Legation in Budapest exclusively for the purpose of initiating relief actions for the Hungarian Jews. The Attaché sent, Raoul Wallenberg, was personally known to us and was in fact our choice.”185 The ofªcial version was markedly different in tone, emphasizing U.S. distance from the mission and pointing out that Wallenberg would not act in the name of the WRB. The board spelled this out in its 7 July instructions for Wallenberg: “While he cannot, of course, act as the Board’s representative, nor purport to act in its name, he can, whenever advisable, indicate that as a Swede he is free to communicate with Stockholm where a representative of the Board is stationed.”186 In a report to Washington on 15 July 1944, less than a week after Wallen- berg’s arrival in Budapest on 9 July, Pehle reassured the WRB’s political

183. Harrison (U.S. embassy in Bern) to Secretary of State, 24 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Ref- ugees/6391, 4045. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was willing to enlarge its representation in Hungary but found it hard to secure “capable and suitable persons” as candidates. See Harrison to Secretary of State, 11 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6270, 3731; and Harri- son to Secretary of State, 19 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6270, 2103. 184. In the Final Summary Report, p. 24, Pehle’s successor at the WRB, William O’Dwyer, does not mention the 25 May request. 185. “Operations of the War Refugee Board from Sweden,” p. 18. 186. WRB Instructions (see note 94 supra).

142 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944 overseers that “we have, of course, cabled that...Wallenberg could not act as the Board’s representative nor in its name.”187 In the WRB’s correspondence through State Department cables, Wallenberg was not referred to as working for the WRB. He was either “a Swedish businessman,” “Attaché to the Swed- ish Legation at Budapest,” or the Swedish government’s “special representative to Budapest” for handling “all problems in connection with the rescue of Jews.”188 The institutional connection between Wallenberg and the WRB was

ªrst spelled out in a cable in April 1945, which stated that the board had a Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 “special interest in Wallenberg’s mission to Hungary” and in a cable from April 1947 afªrming that “Wallenberg’s mission was undertaken with active cooperation of War Refugee Board.”189 With regard to Johnson’s role, his energy and determination in arranging for the mission were in stark contrast to the demeanor of the U.S. ambassadors in other neutral European countries. What were his motivations and goals? Johnson acted at a time when the WRB was reconsidering the distribution of labor among U.S. legations in the neutral countries. On 22 May 1944 the WRB had suggested in a wire to Stockholm that

relief and rescue with respect to refugees in Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and southern France [could] be handled most effectively from Switzerland. Large sums are being remitted regularly to Switzerland from the United States for such purposes. Your views on this subject would be appreciated. Meanwhile, possibilities of accelerated rescue and relief work from Sweden and Baltic Area very interesting to American organizations. Funds for that purpose will be available. Discuss further with Ehrenpreis.190

The WRB subsequently argued that rescue activities from Sweden should tar- get the Baltics, whereas humanitarian operations in countries like Hungary should be transferred to the jurisdiction of the U.S. embassy in Bern. What

187. “Summary of Steps,” 15 July 1944. In September 1945, O’Dwyer described the mission’s institutional arrangement as follows: “Raoul Wallenberg, a young Swedish businessman, volunteered to proceed to Hungary for the War Refugee Board to aid in the rescue and relief of the persecuted Jews. The Swedish Government granted him diplomatic status and stationed him in Budapest for the sole purpose of rendering protection to these people. The Board furnished Wallenberg with detailed plans of action, but made it clear that he could not act in Hungary as a representative of the Board.” See Final Summary Report, p. 24. 188. Johnson to Secretary of State, 9 September 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/9-944, 3582. 189. Stettinius to Harriman, 9 April 1945, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/4-445, 824; and Acheson to U.S. Legation in Stockholm, 701.5864/4-1147, 380, 8 April 1947. In a cable of 19 April 1945, John- son speaks of the “special interest which the Department and the War Refugee Board had in Wal- lenberg’s mission.” Johnson to Secretary of State, 19 April 1945, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/ 4-1945, 1456. 190. Secretary of State and WRB to U.S. Legation in Stockholm, 23 May 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/5922, 984.

143 Matz the WRB apparently failed to take into account was that Johnson, as outlined in his report of 8 May 1944, had conducted “extensive discussions” with Rabbi Ehrenpreis about relief operations for Jews in Poland—operations that were planned to “expand . . . into Hungary and Romania.”191 Johnson was displeased with the WRB’s initiative, as he indicated on 1 June:

our objective has been to discover local organizations of a responsible nature which could obtain positive and effective results in carrying out relief operations Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 in Europe. When such organizations have been found we have explored with them the possibilities of expanding operations. The fact that some of these operations can presumably be carried out more readily from immediately adjacent areas has not appeared to be controlling. It would seem that everything possible being done from everywhere would fall far short of urgent needs and that any organization in any neutral country which is in a position to help anywhere should be urged and encouraged to do its utmost. In the case under discussion we have been negotiating with what is reputedly that most inºuential and effective organization in Sweden operating in these ªelds, our discussions have been extensive, results are regarded as promising and if we should fail to follow through it would be most difªcult to avoid loss of prestige, not only with the afªliated organizations involved but also with the Swedish Foreign Ofªce which is familiar with these discussions and prepared to cooperate. It is urged that the matter be reconsidered with a view to making an amount of money available to test effectiveness of program. Further clariªcation of Board’s policy in this matter would also be appreciated since other proposed programs are involved.192 The following day, Johnson reported that

we have succeeded in arranging good organization for executing different kinds help work for Hungarian, Romanian and Bulgarian [sic]. Impossible col- lect sufªcient funds here. Therefore applied War Refugee Board, Washington through its representative here for $50,000 for Executive Committee for relief of Jews in Europe which is directed by Chief Rabbi Ehrenpreis. Please, support and hasten this application because funds needed immediately.193 These cables suggest Johnson had invested some prestige in the rescue projects directed from Sweden and was therefore seeking a compromise solu-

191. On 8 May 1944, Johnson reported to the WRB (in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/5922, 1622) that “these two organizations [the Executive Committee for Relief of Jews in Europe and the special committee for saving Jewish children], and particularly Ehrenpreis, have a strong position with Swedish Foreign Ofªce, which has made possible much of their current activities. For example, communication with enemy and occupied territory has been made possible through Foreign Ofªce facilities with Swedish Missions in these countries, and in most instances the Swedish Ministers in those posts have themselves provided every possible assistance in carrying out these operations.” 192. Johnson to Secretary of State, 1 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6192, 1952. 193. Johnson to WRB, 2 June 1944, in NARA, 840.48 Refugees/6205, 1966.

144 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944 tion. Although the U.S. legation in Bern had failed to persuade the Swiss government to heed the 25 May request, Johnson could, as ambassador in Swe- den, at least obtain a relatively positive response from his host government. This project may not have been what the WRB originally hoped for, but it was better than nothing. For Johnson, it meant that his embassy would still be directly involved in rescue operations in Central Europe. Questions of bureaucratic turf aside, sincere humanitarian considerations most probably played a considerable part in Johnson’s thinking as well. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 Johnson’s dedication to the mission is evident from both the number and the content of his cables requesting instructions. For example, his statements “that [the Swedish] Foreign Ofªce and its government are disposed to cooperate as fully as possible in all humanitarian endeavors,” that “the appointment of this Attaché is undoubtedly an evidence of ofªcial Swedish desire to con- form to the wishes in Department’s telegram 1010 May 25, 2 p.m.,” and that Wallenberg “is now going in full diplomatic status and will devote his entire time to humanitarian efforts” are excessively upbeat and optimistic, perhaps because he wanted to convince senior WRB ofªcials of the project’s viability.194 A similar approach is evident in Pehle’s report to Hull, Morgenthau, and Stimson on 15 July 1944, which describes Wallenberg as “a prominent Swed- ish businessman” (rather than Johnson’s description of Wallenberg as a “local businessman”) and says that Sweden “agreed wholeheartedly and immediately arranged for extra diplomatic personnel in Hungary.” In fact, Boheman had been hesitant about this matter when he met with Johnson on 9 June. Pehle also claimed to “have sent a detailed program” for the mission, when in fact he had acknowledged in the 7 July instructions that “it is difªcult to attempt pre- cisely to outline program from here,” and he offered only a “general approach.” The oft-quoted line in Pehle’s 15 July memorandum that “the Swedish Foreign Ofªce has gone so far as to indicate that Wallenberg would be available for any work the War Refugee Board might wish to assign to him” is also problematic. Johnson never made such a far-reaching statement in any of his cables from Stockholm. The closest one can ªnd is his claim on 21 June that Swedish ofªcials “are disposed to cooperate as fully as possible in all humanitarian endeavors” and his statement on 28 June that he was “favorably impressed with Wallenberg’s ability to act intelligently and with discretion in carrying out any responsibilities that the WRB may delegate to him.” How-

194. See note 86 supra, and Johnson to Secretary of State and WRB, 27 June 1944 (see note 81 supra).

145 Matz ever, this was not the same as saying that Wallenberg was available for any work the WRB might assign to him.195 It remains unclear why Pehle made such a statement, though he may have wanted to boost the attractiveness of the deal. Pehle indeed had good reason to promote the mission. The proposed venture would salvage the embarrassing 25 May request and give the WRB a chance to repair this loss of face. Moreover, the U.S. government’s involvement would be only indirect. This proxy arrangement made it easier to sell to Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 the WRB and may indeed have been a prerequisite. Regrettably, neither Johnson nor Pehle left any account of his perception of the Wallenberg mission and its aftermath. In January 1945 Pehle was replaced by William O’Dwyer, and in mid-1945 Johnson was replaced by Chris Ravndal.

Conclusion

Five principal actors were involved in arranging Wallenberg’s mission: the WRB, which issued the 25 May request; the Swedish government, which turned down the request but then went along with a modiªed version of it; the U.S. State Department, which was skeptical of most WRB initiatives including this one; Herschel V. Johnson, who promoted the mission partly out of bureaucratic interest; and Raoul Wallenberg himself, who by mid-May 1944 had consented to take part in a voluntary relief action in Budapest and who had his own perception of his agenda there. In addition, the World Jew- ish Congress had some sort of role during the negotiations, although its precise weight is unclear. The mission suffered because numerous countries were involved, but it was also plagued by a bureaucratic struggle within the U.S. government that pitted the Departments of State and War, each with a ªrm bureaucratic stand- ing, organizational structure, and history, against a temporarily established War Refugee Board, which was more or less completely dependent on those two departments to effectuate its work. Other factors—Sweden’s failure to provide key assistance, the ravages of the war in Europe, and the Soviet Union’s aversion to WRB activities—complicated the mission still further. All of this meant that Wallenberg volunteered for an exceedingly dangerous mission.

195. See notes 37 and 196 supra. The WRB’s Final Summary Report likewise claims (pp. 24–25) that “the Swedish Government...stationed him in Budapest for the sole purpose of rendering protection to [Jews]” and that the “Board furnished Wallenberg with detailed plans of action.”

146 Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg’s Mission to Hungary in 1944

Although the grave dangers of the assignment were clear to everyone involved, Boheman and Johnson apparently failed to discuss many practical aspects of the mission (routines for reporting, ªnancial issues, accounting, etc.) and also overlooked nearly all issues pertaining to Wallenberg’s personal safety.196 Some have argued that the Swedish Foreign Ministry’s extension of a diplomatic passport to Wallenberg should have assured him of diplomatic immunity. No matter how imperfect the deal between Sweden and the United Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 States was, the Soviet Union’s imprisonment of Wallenberg was such a serious breach of international legal practice that it was hard to foresee. Blaming the Swedes or the Americans for not having anticipated this particular scenario, the argument goes, is therefore unfair. What this line of reasoning fails to account for is that the legitimacy of Wallenberg’s diplomatic status—given the unorthodox nature of his assignment—was inherently murky and could be called into question. But the lack of discussion of these matters is hardly surprising in light of the institutional complexities of the project’s origins. To this day we still cannot say with certainty whether a more active stance by either Sweden or the United States, or both, could have helped save Wallenberg. His fate may have been sealed as early as February 1945, shortly after he was brought to the Lubyanka prison in Moscow. Or Soviet leaders may have been unsure how to handle his case. Perhaps they were willing to return Wallenberg alive by exchanging him for one or more Soviet citizens in Sweden. Repatriating refugees from the USSR and its neighboring countries was high on the Soviet agenda at this point, and, as shown in the Eliasson Commission report, high-ranking Swedish ofªcials evidently failed to grasp the importance of this issue in Moscow.197 Soviet diplomats in 1946 gave some vague indications that were interpreted by Swedish diplomats as a possible willingness to negotiate an exchange agreement.198 The Swedish government, however, chose to ignore all such indications. Although the Swedish as well as the U.S. mishandling of the case can be ascribed to several factors, perhaps the decisive one was the frail institutional

196. On the risks involved, see the letter from the World Jewish Congress to Prime Minister Tage Erlander, 23 November 1946, in RA,P2EuI.Johnson’s reports from the negotiations with Boheman barely mention practical issues. According to the Eliasson Commission, Ett diplomatiskt misslyckande, pp. 128–140, this caused signiªcant consternation later on. 197. Eliasson Commission, Ett diplomatiskt misslyckande, pp. 498–508. 198. Ibid., pp. 409–485; Krister Wahlbäck, “Wallenbergärendet 1945–47,” unpublished manuscript, Stockholm, Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 2001; “Undén, Granovskij och Wallenbergärendet 1946,” unpublished manuscript, Stockholm, Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 2001; and “Undéns tystnad offrade Wallenberg,” Dagens nyheter, 13 January 2001, p. 3.

147 Matz basis of the mission.199 The U.S.-Swedish humanitarian joint venture was an extraordinary arrangement for an unprecedented situation. Wallenberg and his colleagues in Budapest were able to save thousands of lives, but the lack of a proper anchoring for the mission within the two countries’ regular bureaucratic structures—the Foreign Ministry and the State Department of State— left the courageous businessman without adequate support when his tragic and ultimately fatal ordeal in the USSR began. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/14/3/97/698041/jcws_a_00249.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Helene Carlbäck, Milton O. Gustafson, Harald Hamrin, Sven Holtsmark, Gellert Kovacs, Attila Lajos, David A. Langbart, Leif Leiºand, Paul Levine, Jan Lundvik, Henrik Matz, Craig McKay, Karl Molin, Gudrun Persson, Hugh Rodwell, Göran Rydeberg, Georg Sessler, Krister Wahlbäck, Gunnar Åselius, and two anonymous reviewers for valuable assistance and comments. Generous funding for this article has been provided by the Swedish government’s grant for independent research on Raoul Wallenberg.

199. Speculation has abounded that Wallenberg was performing special assignments for the OSS and that this may have motivated the two states’ passivity. See, for example, Charles Fenyvesi and Victoria Pope, “The Angel Was a Spy,” U.S. News and World Report, 5 May 1996, p. 23; and Charles Fenyvesi, When Angels Fooled the World: Rescuers of Jews in Wartime Hungary (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), pp. 62–79. Although the OSS certainly valued the information collected by the WRB in Europe, the OSS in a document of 1 July 1944 stated that “Re Garbo’s [WRB] information about the Wallenburg’s [sic] mission. From the subject’s personal history we suppose he would be of doubtful assistance on our activities. However, we take it for granted that you conferred with 799 [Olsen] about the matter and considered whether there was any chance that the mission could be utilized for our beneªt.” (The document is also ªled in RA, P 2 EuI, 17 February 1994). This document does not cor- roborate the notion that Wallenberg was working for the OSS, but Wallenberg’s name is also mentioned in another OSS cable of 7 November stating that Hungarian Foreign Ministry ofªcial Geza Soós, an active member of the resistance movement in Hungary, “may be contacted only through Per Anger Swedish Legation Budapest. Raoul Wallenberg of the same legation will know if he is not in Bu- dapest.” (The document is also ªled in RA, P 2 EuI, 17 February 1994). The mere presence of Wal- lenberg’s name in this document does not, however, mean that he was working for the OSS.

148