Courageous US Diplomat

 

Important 1943 issued passport.

 

Much has been written and talked about the courageous and extra ordinary Japanese individual Chiune Sugihara, when acting as Japanese consul to Lithuania in the years 1939-1940, issued close to 2,400 lifesaving visas; visas that aided the users, mostly Polish Jewish refugees, to survive the war. He was working together with Dutch consul, Philips representative as well, Jan Zwartendijk.

 

But the article today will not be about a travel document baring visas by the two above mentioned men, but of another visa issued by a famed US diplomatic officer who has touched many during the war and left his mark for future generations to learn more about what one individual can do during times of horror and darkness.

 

Hiram Bingham IV (1903-1988) was a diplomat who’s career came to an end at the beginning of 1946 due to what some believe was connected to his actions taken at the start of WW2, 6 years earlier.

 

Hiram Bingham served in the Foreign Service, starting with Kobe, Beijing, Warsaw, London then in Marseilles, France in 1939. It was here that his life and that of many others changed due to actions taken by him the following year, following the German invasion of France. At the US consulate he was placed in charge of issuing entry visas into the country.

 

The US government tried to maintain “good relations” with the Vichy Government and refrain from allowing refugees enter the country, thus instructing, or “discouraging”, putting it mildly, its diplomatic staff from issuing entry visas as much as possible into the United States. It was at the time, when many who were on official service and chose to take the unmoral stand, diplomat Hiram Bingham stood out, like a beacon of light in the raging storm: he personally toured refugee camps and pushed for American aid, issuing Nansen passports as well. Together with US rescue worker Varian Fry many refugees found refuge in the US, among them Marc Chagall, Hannah Arendt and Lion Feuchtwanger.

 

For his actions at Marseilles, his courage and humanity, he was “awarded” by the United States Department of State by being abruptly pulled out of his post, sent to Portugal, briefly, then to Buenos Aires which was his last posting.

 

Have attached images of a US consular passport issued in 1943 in Argentina to an American airway’s worker. The amazing wartime passport was signed by Hiram Bingham three times! US passport number 213 was issued to 26-year-old Ernest Libby Foss from Portland.

 

 

 

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