Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-346) and index.

Two wars -- Revelation -- John Pehle -- State Department hubris -- On the acquiescence of this government -- A War Refugee Board -- Getting started -- Hirschmann in Turkey -- Warnings -- Protective papers -- Blood for goods -- Free ports -- Whether to bomb, whether to ransom -- The Horthy offer -- Adrift -- Midnight sun -- What kind of peace -- A coup in Hungary -- McClelland's report -- War at Christmas -- Prisoner exchanges -- Packages -- Liberation -- Afterword.

January 1944. For more than a decade, the Jews of Germany had sought refuge in the United States and been stymied by Congress's harsh immigration policy. At the meeting treasury lawyer John Pehle made his best case-- and FDR created the War Refugee Board. Over the next twenty months a team of D.C. pencil pushers, international relief workers, pirates, diplomats, millionaires, confidence men, and rabble-rousers tricked the Nazis, forged identity papers, smuggled food into concentration camps, recruited spies, leaked news stories, negotiated ransoms, and funneled millions of dollars into Europe. Erbelding uses archival materials and interviews with survivors to tell the dramatic unknown story of America's last-ditch effort to save the Jews of Europe. -- Provided by publisher.