Speech #810154738

Then we had the matter to deal with when we came to the United Nations. At the first meeting of the United Nations. in London. in January and February. 1945. Vishinsky made a very impassioned and. to my mind. a very frightening plea for sending refugees back to Russia. It was one of the most vicious. violent. and frightening speeches I have ever heard. and it indicated their absolute determination to pursue these poor refugees throughout the world. wherever they might be. and finally to crush them. Of course. that plea was rejected by the United Nations. We went on to set up the International Refugee Organization. the IRO. to replace UNRRA. That was a good change. UNRRA had not functioned very well. The trouble with it was that the free countries. particularly the United States. put up all the money. and much of it was spent behind the iron curtain. where it was used by the representatives of Soviet communism to entrench their political hold upon the people. So we set up a new organization. in replacement of UNRRAan organization which was largely financed. as UNRRA had been. by the United States and the other western democracies. but which functioned primarily in aid of. not in repression of. the refugees. It took care of a good many of the people in the prison camps. and helped them to become relocated. Then we had to go on to deal with this problem at further meetings of the Council of Foreign Ministers. because many of these displaced personsin fact most of themwere in camps within the territory of the exenemy states.