Harold Trobe, Joint Distribution Committee director for Austria, this week-end branded Hungarian charges of “suspicion of espionage” made against Israel Jacobson, J.D.C. director since 1947 in Hungary, as “utterly fantastic and completely baseless.” Mr. Trobe was one of the last persons to see Mr. Jacobson before his arrest Dec. 15 by the Hungarian political police at the Austrian border as he was heading for Budapest.
“I cannot understand,” Mr. Trobe said, “why the Hungarians would permit Jacobson to remain in their country for two years and then permit him to leave and suddenly decide to arrest him on his return from a three-months leave. I am certain that Jacobson stuck closely to the line of duty in directing J.D.C. relief work in Hungary.”
Mr. Trobe spiked reports circulating here that the Hungarians had closed the J.D.C. office in Budapest and arrested Arnold Berkowitz, another American and Mr. Jacobson’s assistant. “According to may knowledge,” he said, “the Budapest office is still functioning, directed by Berkwritz.”
(A dispatch from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent in Budapest confirms that the Hungarian office of the J.D.C. is continuing its operations unmolested.)
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