340.1115A/553: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Consul General at Stockholm (Johnson)
100. Your 81, April 22. The Department greatly appreciates the facilities being granted by the Swedish Government for the admission of Americans into Sweden from the dangerous areas in Norway. However, it is not the policy of the Government to repatriate citizens at Government expense and Congress has not appropriated funds for the purpose. Consequently, the Department cannot enter into an engagement to do so. As an emergency procedure, the Department has used special funds available to it to advance loans to Americans in dangerous areas needing funds for repatriation expenses. The Department is willing so to assist Americans entering Sweden from Norway so long as it considers an emergency situation exists in Norway involving Americans there. Such assistance will only be rendered bona fide Americans desiring repatriation whose citizenship is satisfactorily established and who are found to be entitled to passports, and to their accompanying alien spouses and unmarried minor children properly documented for admission into the United States. Loans will not be made until after investigation has determined that the persons concerned do not have funds of their own and are unable to obtain them from relatives, friends or employers here. In this connection you are referred to the Department’s telegrams 62,34 77 and 10435 and telegram 251 sent to Stockholm for Oslo, the provisions of which latter telegram are to be considered equally applicable in Sweden.
You may inform the Swedish authorities in the above sense and, in your discretion, point out to them that this Government has long followed a practice of temporarily admitting aliens into its territory in emergency cases, without documentation and without requirement for their repatriation by their respective governments.