From the U.S. consulate in Tangier, Rives Childs (18871987) risked his career to save more than 1,200 Jews fleeing Vichy and Nazi persecution. A veteran of World War I and a seasoned Foreign Service officer, Childs persuaded Spanish authorities to issue transit visas and established safe houses for Jewish families until Allied forces reached North Africa. He worked quietly with Renée Reichmann of the Joint Distribution Committee to coordinate relief under the cover of diplomatic activity, defying strict limitations on immigration and refugee assistance. Few U.S. diplomats confronted the Nazi regime as directly as Raymond Geist (1885-1955), who served as U.S. consul general in Berlin. Geist intervened personally with German officials to secure the release of Jews from concentration camps and ensured that every available U.S. visa under the German quota was issued between 1938 and 1939. His office became a refuge for desperate families seeking a path to safety, and his insistence that Germany’s visa allotment not be redistributed to other posts resulted in thousands of lives saved. Geist’s tenure in Berlin stands as one of the most consequential examples of principled action within the constraints of prewar U.S. immigration policy. In Switzerland, Ambassador Leland Harrison (1883-1951) turned his position into a lifeline for victims of persecution. A career diplomat with postings in Sweden, Romania, and Switzerland, Harrison relayed early reports of Nazi atrocities to Washington, supporting Gerhardt Riegner’s detailed accounts of mass killings. Despite bureaucratic resistance in the State Department, he championed the efforts of relief agencies, including the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the International Red Cross, and facilitated communication between the War Refugee Board and Jewish organizations operating in Europe. His dispatches from Bern helped ensure that the full scope of Nazi crimes reached Allied policymakers. Ambassador Herschel Johnson (1894-1966), U.S. minister to Sweden from 1941 to 1946, likewise refused to let virtuous action be muted by overly cautious diplomatic policy. In Stockholm, he pressed Washington to take more active measures to protect Jewish refugees, reported on Swedish rescue operations for Danish and Norwegian Jews, and worked to build public and political support for humanitarian action. Johnson’s recommendation that the War Refugee Board send Raoul Wallenberg to Budapest as Sweden’s special envoy would ultimately save tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews; Wallenberg himself issued protective passports and sheltered Jews in buildings he declared Swedish territory before he was detained by the Soviets and disappeared. Working in Geneva as the War Refugee Board’s representative, Roswell McClelland (1914-1995) became one of the central figures in the Allied relief effort. A former Red Cross representative, McClelland managed $10 million in aid for humanitarian operations across occupied Europe, channeling funds to support Jewish refugees and coordinate relief convoys. His collaboration with Swiss, Vatican, Affidavit for Eva Feigl signed by Myles Standish. Myles Standish (front row second from right) and Hiram Bingham (front row left) with consular staff in Marseilles. COURTESY OF SCOTI WOOLERY-PRICE THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2026 33 COURTESY OFSCOTI WOOLERY-PRICE World War II refugees lined up at the U.S. consulate in Marseilles in 1941. COURTESY OF SCOTI WOOLERY-PRICE
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