The Onrush

A polite and icy command from the State Department ordered closed all Italian consulates in the U. S. A diplomatic prelude was at an end. Within a week in swift moves and countermoves the U.S. had frozen German and Italian funds, ordered all Axis consuls out of the country, clamped down on Nazi propaganda agencies, and barricaded its borders against German and Italian travelers trying to get out or in. In retaliation Germany and Italy closed U.S. consulates in most of Europe and blocked U.S. funds. Caught in the onrush of this diplomatic war were thousands of Germans, Italians, and U.S. citizens, here and abroad--innocents and conspirators.

With the freezing of Axis funds in the U.S., the German-American Bund, Axis propagandists, many an agent of espionage suddenly found no funds. Banks stopped withdrawals from any accounts that gave off the faintest Axis whiff. Also hit by the order were many an irreproachable corporation, foreign interest, alien shopkeeper, citizen. Shocked and shaken was Mrs. Abby Morrison Ricker, Manhattan socialite, daughter and granddaughter of bank presidents, who awoke one morning to discover that checks she had written were bouncing. She had returned a month ago from a two-and-a-half-year stay in Italy, had forgotten to tell her bank that she no longer had an Italian address.

Some 330,000 German nationals found U.S. borders closed to any exodus. The State Department had no intention of allowing Nazis to filter into Mexico and South America and operate from there against the U.S. Furthermore, they might come in handy as hostages to guarantee the safety of U.S. nationals in Europe.

Up & down the U.S., Axis consuls and employes frantically packed, burned and destroyed their documents. Deadline for some 300 Nazis to vacate their offices was July 10 ; for 105 Italians, July 15. How they would be sent home had not yet been announced, but they would probably be loaded on ships, guaranteed safe passage. A good bet was that they would not be permitted to shove off until U.S. citizens on the other side of the Atlantic had done likewise.

Closing of the 31 U.S. consulates in Europe severed the last thread by which U.S. businessmen kept some contact with an estimated $1,327,000,000 worth of holdings in Axis-controlled countries. Now hopeless were Jews who still hoped to flee from Germany to the U.S., for closed consulates give out no visas. Furthermore, in its new, hard-boiled foreign policy the U.S. was frowning heavily upon any more immigration, had dusted off an old order that visas should not be issued to any European refugees who were leaving close relatives behind them in Germany. Possible reason: such people would be too vulnerable to Nazi pressure, might be forced into espionage or subversive activity.

In a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan, handsome Dr. Hans Thomsen, German Charge d'Affaires, sadly puffed a cigar, remarked to reporters: "It is not the first time that this has happened and things just take their course." Dr. Thomsen had not yet been invited to leave Washington; the final break in U.S.-Nazi diplomatic relations had not yet been made. But they were badly cracked.

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