I was very well aware that the State Department was opposed to the rescue of
large numbers of Jews. They didn't know where they would go. They were afraid
that it would open up a whole bunch of bean cans that they didn't want to have
opened up at all.
In retrospect, I feel that the State Department was extremely bad. At that
time, I must say, I didn't pay too much attention to the State Department. I
lumped the State Department as the Administration, and being with Roosevelt. I
thought Roosevelt was a rather kind man and I thought he was wrong and that he
was not paying enough attention as he should to the Jewish problems.
I could not understand the Administration that I supported. I could not
understand their attitude towards the rescue of large numbers of Jews. I
thought it would have been the humanitarian thing, that I would have thought
Roosevelt would have been in favor of. I could not understand why he was not.
And the only reason that I could give was that he was afraid of the Arabs, he
was afraid of oil, he was afraid of Palestine, and of international issues.
The big consideration was saving lives immediately. I could forget all the
other arguments and actually I would walk out when they were occurring.
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