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    "label": "Memorandum from George Elsey to President Harry S. Truman, with Attachments",
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    "title": "Memorandum from George Elsey to President Harry S. Truman, with Attachments",
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    "ocrText": "UNCI\nSECRED\n- 11 -\nwould also be helped if more orders for military equipment could be\nplaced in Italy. Finally, he hoped that the NATO structure could make\nmore rapid progress in developing Western European economic strength.\nMr. Acheson said that we all recognize the importance of helping\nItalians find new homes, but U.S. hands are tied by our immigration laws.\nThe President said that we would do our best but that this is a\nmost difficult subject. He explained how he had asked the chairmen of the\nSenate and House Immigration Committees to go to Europe in 1945 to study\nthe displaced persons problem. The President said he wanted 400,000 D.P. is\nadmitted to the United States. These congressional committee chairmen\nflatly refused to go along with him. After a bitter fight, we finally\ngot a Displaced Persons bill through Congress that admitted, he thought,\nabout 230,000 persons. He had forgotten the exact figures.\n\"I am in entire sympathy,\" the President said, \"with your wish\nto send Italian workers abroad. That is part of my Point IV program, the\ndevelopment of under-developed areas. There aren't any better workers any\nplace than Italians, as we know very well in the United States. I would\nlike to see Italians free to go to under-developed countries all over the\nworld.\"\nThe President referred again to congressional opposition, but\npromised he would do whatever he could.\nSECRET"
}