Disclosure of a secret agreement to give broad rescue powers to the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees was seen here today as a blow to the Baldwin-Rogers bill asking the President to set up a new commission to save European Jews.
It is expected that in view of the agreement’s publication the Baldwin-Rogers resolution will be amended to an expression of sympathy with the Jewish of Europe, and will not propose a new body to duplicate the work of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees. The agreement, signed last February by Britain and American representatives at the Bermuda Refugee Conference, was made public yesterday as part of the testimony of Assistant Secretary of State Breckonridge Long, who spoke at an executive session of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives on November 26.
Long pointed out to the committee that in accordance with diplomatic procedure, the agreement was not to be made public until approved by other countries. The agreement provides that the executive committee of the Intergovernmental Committee is “empowered by the member states to undertake negotiations with central or allied states or organizations and to take such steps as may be necessary to preserve, maintain, and transport those persons displaced from their homes by their efforts to escape from areas where their lives and liberty are in danger on account of their race, religion, or political beliefs. The operation of the Committee shall extend to all countries from which refugees come, as a result of the war in Europe, or in which they may find refuge. The Executive Committee shall be empowered to receive and disburse, for the purposes enumerated above, funds both public and private.”
In reading the text of the provisions of the agreement, Assistant Secretary Long interpreted the text to mean that the Intergovernmental Committee has been given plenary authority to do what it can “within and without German and the occupied territories.” His testimony placed the Foreign Affairs Committee in a position where it is faced with the dilemma of either voting down the Baldwin-Rogers resolution and repudiating immediate aid to European Jews, or approving the resolution and implying that the aid given so far has been too little.
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