Operation Silver-lining
ECKARDT, W. V.
There is little hope of emigration for displaced persons in the new 'emergency' refugee relief program OPERATION SILVER-LINING By W. V. Eckardt Washington, D. C. The President recently listed...
...Maria Tortora, who wished to be reunited with her sister in Clarksburg...
...and a total of 75,000 Italians, Greeks and Dutch, for whom the term "refugee" has been conveniently stretched...
...Many die along the way to freedom...
...The Act is very specific in breaking down the various categories of people in different countries who may be issued immigration visas beyond the regular quota...
...By way of contrast, the first boatload under the Displaced Persons Act arrived in New York with 1.070 immigrants on October 30, 1948...
...At any rate, the bill was considered an urgent matter both by the President and by its advocates in Congress...
...McLeod's office is now hiring a large number of special investigators conversant with the required foreign languages...
...The initial appropriation of $3 million will soon be exhausted...
...In a letter to Mrs...
...Watkins, feel that the State Department should make more of an effort to induce other nations to accept escapees...
...They have been sent the proper forms...
...From Trieste to Stettin, it is clearly visible...
...One hundred thousand have made it since 1948...
...Twenty-four American voluntary agencies, among them the Catholic Welfare Conference, the World Council of Churches, and ORT, the American Organization for Rehabilitation through Training, work hard in 250 camps to make the long waiting period useful and pleasant for the refugees...
...Once the new forms are filled out and sent to the Visa Office of the State Department, actual "processing" and eventual investigation of the refugees can begin...
...A number of Senators, who favor the program and fought hard to get it through, are disappointed and impatient...
...and Vincenzo Barone...
...The Refugee Relief Act, which takes its place, was signed by the President on August 7, 1953...
...Dramatic escape stories have captured the imagination of many Americans who are willing to reward such bravery...
...It cannot, obviously, show much progress...
...Under the auspices of and largely financed by the Foreign Operations Administration, voluntary workers provide medical care, organize language courses, and guide the bewildered newcomers through the red tape they face before permanent settlement...
...In the words of President Eisenhower, "the alleviation of the physical, mental and moral distress of these unfortunate people is very much on the minds and in the hearts of the American people...
...His complete personal history covering the two years of his life before his application must be known...
...On these forms (now coming off the presses), Americans who are willing to sponsor an eligible refugee give assurances for his housing, support and employment...
...Aside from bringing a good portion of people who escaped Communism to this country, these Senators, like Mr...
...Of these, more than 25,000 are still in Europe awaiting resettlement...
...The long delay in getting "Operation Silver-lining" on the road is perhaps partly explained by the fact that Congress explicitly prohibited setting up a special office, such as the defunct Displaced Persons Commission, to expedite matters...
...At the time of the Naples ceremony, which marked the launching of the "first phase" of the program early in December, the official forms indispensable to "develop cases" for the second phase??namely, getting refugees from Communism settled??were not yet printed...
...under the Refugee Relief Act, however, the Administration may have to go before Congress once more...
...At least one man was recently seen here in Washington, however, who speaks Greek and had hired out to the program in Greece, where it will turn next...
...If anything goes sour after the escapee reaches these shores, he must be equipped with a statement to the effect that the country in which he now resides will readmit him...
...The pretty nickname given to the operation to bring them here is merely a pun, alluding to the name of its administrator, W. R. Scott McLeod, former administrative assistant to Senator Styles Bridges and now administrator of the Bureau of Security, Consular Affairs and Personnel in the Department of State...
...W. Va...
...For some mysterious reason, this letter, dated October 1, 1953, was never made public in this country...
...4,000 orphans...
...55,000 German expellees, who were driven from their homes when Communist Poland annexed the lands beyond the Oder and Neisse Rivers...
...There is little hope of emigration for displaced persons in the new 'emergency' refugee relief program OPERATION SILVER-LINING By W. V. Eckardt Washington, D. C. The President recently listed the Refugee Relief Act as one of the accomplishments of his administration...
...Meanwhile, fortunately, the escapees are not without care...
...Before any of them can come to the U.S...
...The Junior Chamber of Commerce in Sioux City, Iowa, for instance, on reading about Vaclav Uhlik, a Czech who crashed to freedom in a self-made tank, insisted on having him in their midst...
...They include 45,-000 escapees, that is, people who have fled the Iron Curtain since 1948...
...To conduct the exhaustive security investigations required under the program, Mr...
...who will now be with his father in Brooklyn...
...They are concerned not only for humanitarian reasons, but because they are conscious of the profound effect our performance in providing a haven for escapees has on their countrymen behind the Iron Curtain...
...Four major Government agencies??the State Department, the Treasury, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare??are now involved in the complicated proceedings...
...It is hoped that Austria and West Germany, the principal host countries, will be so happy to be relieved of their numerous guests that they will readily supply the statements...
...a small number of Far and Middle Eastern refugees...
...2,000 members of the former Polish Army stranded in England...
...Dorothy D. Houghton, who helps direct the Foreign Operations Administration program of caring for escapees while they await resettlement, the President added: "Eventually, those who have fled to the free world must be given legal status in the free world??the right to work, the right to move, the right to cooperate and a chance at personal economic security instead of charity...
...Strong criticism is also expected from other quarters, particularly from the voluntary agencies which deal with escapees in Europe...
...People who live under Communism have become quite realistic, if not cynical," a voluntary agency worker said recently...
...As they pass their time jn dismal refugee camps, the silver-lining of hope for a permanent haven in the U.S...
...in the past the agencies' findings were considered good enough without individually executed forms...
...They judge our anti-Communism by our deeds, not our works...
...There is no lack of sponsors...
...An American voluntary agency usually finds such a sponsor for the refugee...
...The officials involved in administering it call it "Operation Silver-lining...
...On top of exhaustive investigations, Congress requires that the burden of proof be on the applicant that he is not an agent or conspirator, that he is of good character and reputation, mentally and physically healthy, and otherwise eligible for admission to the U.S...
...More jobs for investigators, to supplement the many U.S...
...is dim and distant...
...and Allied intelligence people now rushing each new arrival from Communist countries, still go begging...
...This poetic designation is not meant to imply that any appreciable number of the recent refugees from Communism will soon bask in the sun of freedom shining on this country...
...The Displaced Persons Act, under which 5,900 escapees found a permanent home in this country and 1,900 elsewhere during the last two years, expired on December 31, 1952...
...One hundred and nineteen days after the President had signed the Act...
...It is a bare strip of land, cleared of trees, bushes and even stumps, laced with barbed wire, land mines, signal rockets and other devices ingeniously designed to trap any trespasser who may elude the many armed guards and their dogs...
...Of this total, 15,000 (all Italians) had their visas pending before the Act was passed with the intention of joining brothers, sisters, sons and daughters who are citizens of the United States...
...Each new arrival is handed a welcome kit, containing toilet articles and other essentials, which says "A gift from the people of the United States" on the wrapper...
...It has been bitterly opposed by strong forces in the Senate, lead by the formidable Pat McCarran, who succeeded in making many restrictive changes...
...To this latter group, McLeod devoted his attention first...
...After all," says the Senator, "this country will soon have 200 million people itself...
...Yet, several hundred people a month still manage to crawl, creep, swim, stow away, tunnel, bluff or force their way across...
...Over the next three years, at the end of which the Act expires with a specific Congressional recommendation that it not be extended, a total of 209,000 persons may be admitted...
...Rumors still persist that the Administration could only get it passed on the promise that the Eighty-third Congress has heard the last of any Administration attempts to revise the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act...
...he was on hand in Naples, Italy to ceremoniously issue visas to its first benefactors: Michele Sonnino, who was to join his mother in Newark, N. J...
...Unless the escapee has already spent two years this side of the Iron Curtain, it would seem difficult to verify such an autobiographical account...
...The Iron Curtain, of course, is no longer the symbolic political phrase it was when Churchill coined it in 1946...
...Its sponsor, Senator Arthur V. Watkins of Utah, said that the bill must show "in a concrete fashion this country's concern for and support of escapees from Communism, expellees from Communism and distressed nationals of certain European nations...
...fifty-three days after the Act got under way...
...This process, too, is time-consuming, since the potential investigators, naturally, first have to be investigated themselves...
Vol. 37 • January 1954 • No. 4
