The War Refugee Board has appointed Dr. Robert C. Dexter as special representative in Portugal, Executive Director John W. Pehle announced today.
Dexter, acting commissioner for Europe of the Unitarian Service Committee, has been in Lisbon since the fall of 1942. As special attache to the legation there, he will work with public and private agencies in developing programs and implementing measures for the rescue, transportation, maintenance and relief of refugees, according to the announcement.
Dexter spent three months in Europe surveying refugee needs in 1940. At that time he visited 13 countries and was instrumental in securing the release of 1,500 prisoners in Hungary. In 1938 he was head of the commission for service in Czechoslovakia and was decorated by the Czech Government-in-Exile for his work with Czech refugees.
Before the war he travelled in Hungary and Rumania and attended many sessions of the Assembly and Council of the League of Nations in Geneva. A graduate of Brown University, Dexter was for 10 years a social worker in the United States and Canada and taught social and political science at Skidmore College and Clark University. In 1926 he was one of 50 university professors sent to The Hague and Germany by the Carnegie Endowment.
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