Herschel V. Johnson, U.S. Minister in Sweden, to Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, on the Cooperation of the Swedish Foreign Office in Assigning Raoul Wallenberg to Budapest:

MAE-910 Stockholm
Distribution of true reading only by special arrangement.

Dated June 29, 1944

(SECRET-W)
Recd 6:35 a.m.

Secretary of State,
Washington.

2360, June 28, 9 p.m.

THIS IS NO. 40 FOR WAR REFUGEE BOARD.

Reference is made to our No.31 for War Refugee Board (Legations 2231, June 27, 11 PM, with respect to cooperation of Swedish Foreign Office on assigning an attache to its legation in Budapest for the purpose of furthering the relief and rescue of refugees.

We should emphasize that the Swedish Foreign Office in making this assignment feels that it has cooperated fully in lending all possible facilities for the furtherance of an American program. It is not likely, however, that it will provide the newly appointed attache with a concrete program; but instead will probably give him rather general instructions which will not be sufficiently specific to enable him to deal promptly and effectively with situations as they develop in Hungary. The newly designated attache, Raoul Wallenberg, feels however that he, in effect, is carrying out a humanitarian mission in behalf of the War Refugee Board. Consequently he would like full instructions as to the line of activities he is authorized to carry out and assurances of adequate financial support for these activities so that he will be in a position to develop fully all local possibilities. We are very favorably impressed with Wallenbergs ability to act intelligently and with discretion in carrying out any responsibilities that the WRB may delegate to him and urge strongly that appropriate instructions be forwarded as soon as possible. Arrangements have been made to communicate with him in Budapest through the Swedish Foreign Office and vice versa and it should be possible for us to keep currently informed on developments in Hungary.

JOHNSON

Source: David S. Wyman (ed.), "America and the Holocaust. War Refugee Board: Hungary," Vol. 8, Garland Publishing, Inc., 1990, p. 54.
Yad Vashem

Raoul Wallenberg: Johnson Message to Hull Regarding Assignment of Wallenberg to Budapest