‘A Façade for Inaction’? Governmental Actors,the Bermuda Conference and the Non-Rescue of Jewish Refugees

Abstract

The article, ‘A Facade for Inaction’, explores the production of inaction by governmental actors during the 1943 Bermuda Conference. It focuses on how the Allied governments used the war effort as a pretext for not assisting Jewish refugees. By employing the theory of political inaction by Allan McConnell and Paul t’Hart, the study argues that inaction was produced to decrease pressure within British and American societies for intervention on behalf of persecuted Jews in Europe. This approach allows a more nuanced understanding of the complex negotiation processes regarding the rescue of Jewish refugees during the Second World War and its immediate aftermath.

Many years after the 1943 Bermuda Conference, Richard K. Law, head of the United Kingdom delegation, described that meeting between his government's envoys and those of the United States of America as ‘a façade for inaction’. ¹ In holding the meeting from 19 to 29 April 1943 to address the ‘refugee problem’, ² the British Foreign Office and the US State Department responded to growing public pressure to take action on behalf of the persecuted Jews of Europe. It was clear to both states, however, that the conference was a tool to reduce this public pressure rather than set in motion rescue measures. As this article will demonstrate, Bermuda was not simply a failed meeting. Instead, the production of inaction while maintaining the appearance of concern was the outcome desired by the conference's organizers and, in turn, their superiors within the governmental apparatuses. Behind this production of inaction stood an emergent strategy born out of the practice of not getting involved in refugee questions or rescue operations, but adapted to the ever-changing and unforeseeable circumstances dictated by the events of the Second World War on the one hand and public opinion on the other.

Jewish organizations subsequently expressed their disappointment at what they saw as the ‘meagre results’ of the ‘failed conference’. While successful in creating a ‘foundation of mutual understanding and cooperation between the two Governments’ ³ on an international issue, the meeting was remembered as a waste of time and resources. Arthur Morse, with his study While Six Million Died (1968), and David Wyman's contemporaneous Paper Walls (1968) introduced core themes and research questions regarding the Allies’ inactivity to rescue European Jewry. By doing this, they laid the foundation for subsequent research addressing the Bermuda Conference as a manifestation of this failure by Henry Feingold (1970), Saul Friedman (1973), Yehuda Bauer (1978), Monty Noam Penkower (1983 and 1989), as well as some nowadays less frequently considered authors such as Herbert Druks (1977), with Feingold famously dubbing the conference a ‘Mock Rescue for Surplus People’. ⁴ With his 1984 study The Abandonment of the Jews, Wyman himself provided one of the most comprehensive treatments of this complex of topics to date, not least thanks to the subsequently published 13-volume sourcebook America and the Holocaust. The sourcebook includes excerpts from relevant archival material, including on ‘The Mock Rescue Conference: Bermuda’. ⁵ More recent studies reproduce this verdict of the failed conference: if scholars of the Second World War, the Shoah, and forced migration during the 1930s and 1940s have paid attention to the events on the subtropical archipelago in April 1943, they use Bermuda as an example for the Allies’ failed rescue policies. ⁶

Several historical approaches have attempted to explain why the Allies chose not to act: They focused on the war effort or domestic political problems, had antisemitism in their ranks, did not feel responsible for humanitarian issues, or did not want to bolster the Nazi propaganda narrative that ‘world Jewry’ had orchestrated the war. ⁷ By doing so, several authors also touch on the question of what the Allies could and should have done, ranging from opening up the gates of Palestine as a haven or taking in more refugees to the US or UK to bombing Auschwitz. ⁸ In Michael Marrus’ words, ‘there is a strong tendency in historical writing on bystanders to the Holocaust to condemn, rather than to explain’. ⁹ Until today, little attention has been paid, in contrast, to how the various actors involved in the Bermuda Conference produced this state of inaction.

To claim that ‘nothing can be done’ is to construct oneself as subject to circumstances and thus absolved of blame for any negative outcome of a situation that is not yet precisely foreseeable. In the case of the Bermuda negotiations, the chief governmental representatives responsible for the negotiations’ outcome knew about the systematic mass murder of the European Jews, yet they told themselves and the world that the war effort tied their hands. As Tony Kushner argues, however, the Allied non-response to the Shoah was a matter less of tied hands than of choice. ¹⁰ Following his verdict, this article offers a new analytical perspective by examining the Allies’ inaction in rescuing the Jews of Europe at Bermuda not as a passive failure but as an emergent strategy.

To understand the Bermuda Conference as more than a historical footnote or failed meeting, we need to re-conceptualize inaction itself. Political scientists Allan McConnell and Paul t’Hart define ‘inaction’ as ‘an instance and/or pattern of non-intervention by individual policymakers, public organizations, governments, or policy networks in relation to an issue within and potentially within their jurisdiction, and where other plausible potential policy interventions did not take place’. ¹¹ The authors distinguish three primary forms of inaction: deliberate, reluctant, and inadvertent. To them, deliberate inaction occurs when policymakers consciously decide not to act to achieve specific goals or avoid risks. Therefore, this deliberate inaction can turn into action when the circumstances appear more convenient at a later point in time. In contrast, reluctant inaction arises from external constraints: resource limitations or political opposition can be both reason and explanation for preventing a desired action. The third type, inadvertent inaction, stems from organizational failures, miscommunication, or oversight. Applying these categories to the Bermuda Conference allows us to analyze the various dynamics of Allied decision-making. ¹²

As early as 1941, both British and American intelligence intercepted messages about the ‘successes’ of the Einsatzgruppen in Poland and the occupied parts of the Soviet Union. The press on both sides of the Atlantic, including discourse-defining periodicals like the New York Times, published reports of mass killings. However, hesitancy and deliberate inaction marked governmental responses to the horrifying news. For example, the British government chose to keep much of this information secret, a decision Shlomo Aronson attributes to the desire to conceal the effectiveness of British radio intelligence and avoid provoking changes in Nazi encryption methods. ¹³ Furthermore, the mass murder of millions had little impact on the UK's military strategy. The Blitz had only recently ended, and Britain was still struggling with scarce resources and limited military support until the US joined the war later that year. For the same reasons, reports from traveling merchants and journalists from neutral countries, as well as the Polish underground and Jewish organizations, were ignored. ¹⁴

As a result of the government's attitude toward the suffering of European Jews, the media – and consequently the public – similarly failed to take the reports seriously. ¹⁵ Although reports of mass killings appeared in the American press they hardly attracted attention among the increasing flood of war-related news. The US government could only be pleased with this attitude. It was hard enough to explain to its citizens why, once again, Americans should fight in a war that was primarily taking place in other parts of the world. Both the US and UK governments were anxious to avoid giving the impression, domestically and internationally, that they were waging war on behalf of ‘world Jewry’. They feared promoting antisemitism at home and thus sympathy for the Nazi regime and its goals. ¹⁶ To achieve this, as Raul Hilberg observes, they waged a strictly controlled war, minimized their losses, and simplified their language when communicating the war's aims to their populations. ¹⁷ Both governments understood that acknowledging the plight of European Jews might create expectations for action. Therefore, subordinating humanitarian concerns to other priorities, i.e., the war effort, was a calculated decision. The rescue of the persecuted Jews could only be a byproduct of Allied victory, and any distraction from the military endeavor was highly unwelcome.

Such distractions increased in the summer of 1942. In June, a detailed report compiled by Warsaw resistance organizations affiliated with the Jewish socialist party, the Bund, was submitted to the Polish government in exile in London. Its contents received attention from certain members of parliament, who campaigned for its dissemination in the media, emphasizing that the reports were not British propaganda. ¹⁸ In August, World Jewish Congress President Rabbi Stephen Wise in New York received credible information from Switzerland that the European Jews were being systematically killed. Forming a grassroots movement, the WJC and other Jewish organizations, as well as non-Jewish Allies, put pressure on the Allies on both sides of the Atlantic to come to the Jews’ aid. ¹⁹ Although, as Meredith Hindley writes, ‘[in] democracies waging war, decision-making becomes more isolated from and less responsive to public opinion’, ²⁰ the governments could not ignore this movement. A careful balance was needed: While voices demanding the rescue of the Jews of Europe grew louder in the second half of 1942, those opposing rescue measures were just as vociferous.

However, by December, neither the US nor the UK government could continue to ignore the increasing pressure in favor of rescue measures. Careful not to stir those opposed to governmental action on behalf of the Jews of Europe in the process, they relied on gestures to soothe this public agitation. British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden took up WJC official and member of Parliament Sydney Silverman's suggestion that the Allied powers issue a joint declaration condemning Nazi crimes. ²¹ His subsequent overtures to Moscow and Washington coincided with Roosevelt's meeting with representatives of leading Jewish organizations on 8 December. Although the President spent most of the meeting on the exchange of condolences, Roosevelt promised that the US government would issue a public statement warning the Germans that they would be held accountable for their crimes. ²² The declaration, finally published on 17 December 1942, presented a harsh criticism of the Nazi's ‘bestial policy of cold blooded extermination’, ²³ as well as a threat of consequences, but it contained no hint of immediate or imminent rescue measures. However, the declaration did not have the intended calming effect. On the contrary, it was perceived as an official confirmation of the systematic mass murder of the European Jews. Public pressure increased still further. In response, the Western Allies again resorted to gestures and began planning a joint conference at the start of 1943 to discuss what they referred to as the ‘refugee problem’. ²⁴

Initially, Jewish NGOs and other nongovernmental actors had high hopes for the Bermuda Conference. They expected that the Allied governments would follow the declaration of 17 December with action. As the organizers did not invite them to participate, the Jewish NGOs handed in memoranda detailing their demands for the rescue of Europe's surviving Jews. For example, in April 1943, just days before the conference, several Jewish organizations in the United States joined forces as the Joint Emergency Committee for European Jewish Affairs and submitted a detailed Program for the Rescue of Jews from Nazi Occupied Europe. Pointing out that the Jews had been ‘singled out for extermination’ their proposal outlined five measures: first, approaching Nazi Germany through neutral intermediaries to negotiate the release of Jewish civilians; second, establishing temporary refuges in Allied or neutral territories; third, utilizing existing US immigration quotas fully by providing American consuls with blank visas for immediate issuance; fourth, opening Palestine as a temporary haven; and fifth, providing immediate relief supplies through neutral countries. ²⁵ British Jewish organizations submitted similar proposals. For example, the Board of Deputies of British Jews advocated for the temporary admission of Jewish children from France and the establishment of transit camps in North Africa. ²⁶

The UK Foreign Office and US State Department, however, had different plans for their meeting. In the eyes of Breckinridge Long, Assistant Secretary of State responsible for the department's Visa Division, the ‘refugee problem’ was not confined to the persecuted Jews. He considered it unwise to concentrate exclusively on their fate because this ‘may lend color to the charges of Hitler that we are fighting this war on account of and at the instigation and direction of our Jewish citizens’; ²⁷ an opinion shared by both his State Department colleagues and their UK counterparts in the Foreign Office. Instead, the discussions should take place on a more general level, hence the conference's title: ‘On the Refugee Problem’. ²⁸

As one of the main organizers of the Bermuda Conference, Long was in a position to ensure that the meeting would not result in any changes to existing US or UK refugee policies. ²⁹ The appropriate setting and selection of delegates were vital to achieve this. At first, the organizers had planned to hold the meeting in Ottawa, Canada. However, the organizers decided to switch the location to Bermuda; on the one hand, the Canadian government was not keen on hosting the conference, fearing it might reflect poorly on the similarly restrictive Canadian refugee policy. On the other hand, Ottawa was deemed too accessible and public; Bermuda's remote location would hinder Jewish organizations and the press from disturbing the negotiations. Especially in times of war, reaching the archipelago was practically impossible; even the delegates had to arrive by military plane. Access to the conference was thus subject to the organizers’ maximum control. ³⁰

The British delegation consisted of officials from various government departments. Richard K. Law, head of the delegation, was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office. As an elected member of the government Law's appointment had political weight. However, as a junior minister, he was not a decision-making authority. Instead, he was expected to align with the overall direction set by the Foreign Secretary and report to Anthony Eden directly on his actions while representing the UK. Osbert Peake, who held a similar representative yet non-decision-making position at the Home Office, accompanied Law as a fellow delegate. The third delegate was George Hall, Financial Secretary to the Admiralty and previously a junior minister at the Colonial Office. Responsible for the budget and financial operations of the Admiralty, Hall was also limited in his actions by the strategic and policy framework set by the First Lord of the Admiralty and required the approval of the Treasury for larger expenditures. While contrary to the Admiralty, both the Foreign Office and the Home Office had political ties to refugee matters, neither Law nor Peake were experts in this field of action. However, Alec Randall, a senior civil servant within the Foreign Office, head of the Refugee Department, and thus a bureaucratic authority on refugee policy, accompanied the delegation as its secretary. Due to his knowledge, Randall, who had previously demonstrated a relatively conservative stance on refugee matters, also served as a major advisor for Law, Peake, and Hall. Sir Bernard Reilly of the Colonial Office, Sir Frank Newsam of the Home Office, Bernard Picknett of the Ministry of War Transport, and William Hayter, First Secretary of the British Embassy in Washington, completed the group of advisors to the three delegates while at the same time representing the interests of their respective departments which primarily regarded the war effort, not the refugee problem. ³¹

Harold W. Dodds, political scientist and President of Princeton University, led the United States delegation. He was not the State Department's first, not even the second or third choice. ³² An internal memo dated 18 March 1943 reveals that Myron Taylor was initially the preferred candidate for the position of delegation leader within the State Department. ³³ However, Taylor, the industrialist and diplomat who had already represented the United States as head of delegation at the Évian Conference in 1938, was not available for the Bermuda Conference. Like Taylor in 1938, Dodds, who was appointed head of the delegation less than a month later, had no background in refugee affairs. Instead, he was chosen as an apparently neutral figure with administrative expertise and prestige but without a political agenda of his own. He lent the US delegation political legitimacy without any fear that he would push for changes in existing refugee policies. The same could be expected from his two co-delegates, the democratic congressman Sol Bloom and Senator Scott Lucas of Illinois. Both were on the original list of possible delegates to the Bermuda Conference and were known to be strong supporters of the Roosevelt administration and its attitude towards both refugees and Zionism. Like Dodds, Senator Lucas did not have a background in refugee affairs, but was a well-respected figure on the domestic political scene, who impressed not only with his humorous manner and polished appearance, but also with a strong, statesmanlike demeanor. ³⁴ In contrast, Bloom was well informed about his government's refugee policy. As chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, he was a member of the Congressional body involved in matters related to the topic. Additionally, a correspondence between him and Dodds after the Bermuda conference indicates that Bloom was also very interested in this topic in general, as Dodds attested that he felt ‘keenly … for the persecuted peoples of Europe’. ³⁵ However, some Jewish organizations met Bloom's appointment with criticism, even anger. Although Bloom was Jewish, he was not a Zionist and saw himself primarily as an elected representative of the entire US population rather than a mouthpiece for the Jews. Members of the Zionist camp, therefore, perceived his appointment as symbolic at best, obstructive at worst. ³⁶ As Assistant Secretary Long assured critics, the delegates representing the United States at the Bermuda Conference were ‘men of wide knowledge and experience in world affairs’. ³⁷ However, like the members of the United Kingdom delegation, none of them had any political power to change existing refugee policies, even if they wished to. This power resided with the Department of State, represented by Robert Borden Reams as secretary to the delegation. As Assistant Chief of the Division of European Affairs, Reams was closely involved in his department's dealings with the refugee problem. He was a staunch opponent of any rescue measures and had even tried to prevent the publication of the declaration of December 17. Apart from George Backer, President of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Reams was assisted only by his colleagues from the Department of State as further advisors to the US delegates: George Warren, Secretary of the President's Advisory Committee on Refugees, Robert Clark Alexander, assistant head of the State Department's Visa Division and Long's right hand, Howard Bucknell, counselor of the US Embassy in the UK, and Julian Foster, a shipping expert in the State Department. ³⁸

Although there is nothing to suggest that the Foreign Office and the Department of State colluded in the composition of their delegations, the existing similarities between the respective groupings are striking. In both cases, three men with general administrative or political expertise, but without real expert knowledge of refugee issues and lacking the political power or ambition to change existing refugee policies, were appointed as delegates. In contrast, the secretaries of delegation were experts in the field due to their positions in the Foreign Office and State Department and were able to guide their representatives through the negotiations on behalf of their ministries. Although Law, Hall, and Peake considered it worth noting in their final report to Foreign Secretary Eden that the US delegation's advisory staff, consisting mainly of State Department officials, ‘took their delegates in hand’, ³⁹ this statement also applies to some extent to the UK Foreign Office, which, likewise, strategically placed figures in the Arena of the Bermuda negotiations to create inaction. The selection of powerless delegates exemplifies what McConnell and ‘t Hart term ‘deliberate inaction’. By appointing representatives without decision-making authority and surrounding them with advisors committed to existing policies, both governments ensured that even genuine sympathy for refugee concerns would not translate into policy change. ⁴⁰

On 20 April, the first day of the conference, Richard K. Law presided. He opened the debate by defining the scope of the conference's mandate and giving an overview of the solutions proposed by NGOs for the ‘refugee problem’. According to Law,

[There] were 15 to 20,000 refugees in Spain[,] of whom half were Jews and half were not Jews. There were children that we want to get out of the Balkans and who were hung up for lack of transport. There were Polish refugees in Persia and Greek refugees in Cyprus whom we should like to move. ⁴¹

Those ‘15 to 20,000 refugees in Spain’ included approximately 14,000 French and 800 other Allied nationals, as well as 6000–8000 Central Europeans, most of them Jews. With the addition of 12,300 Polish refugees in Persia, 16,500 Greek refugees in Cyprus, and 4000 children and 500 adults in the Balkans, the group of people Law claimed to be within the conference's mandate consisted of no more than – generously calculated – 56,100 individuals. ⁴²

Additionally, he underscored the difficulty of aiding refugees in neutral countries due to Nazi restrictions. Law's proposal to ‘define the problem in these limited terms’ and dismiss ‘manifestly impossible’ solutions set the tone for the conference's approach. Following this pattern of deliberate inaction, the conference broke down these ‘manifestly impossible’ solutions into three demands from NGOs: first, to request that Hitler and his government release Jewish people in Nazi-occupied territories; second, to exchange Nazi internees and prisoners of war for Jewish people; and third, to send food through the blockade to feed the surviving Jewish communities in Europe. All three were considered utopian and detrimental to the war effort; therefore, they were rejected. ⁴³

This did not happen without resistance. Congressman Bloom objected ‘that we should at least negotiate and see what could be done’, ⁴⁴ or not ‘to close the door definitely’ ⁴⁵ with regard to the NGO proposals. According to the US minutes of the meeting, this led to ‘a rather extended argument’, which remains unmentioned in the UK minutes. An unnamed ‘member of the British delegation’ interjected that Hitler would not agree to the release of Jews and would insist on an exchange with prisoners of war, surely ‘asking for things that we could not give’. When Bloom insisted that only opening negotiations would clarify what the Germans were willing to do, Dodds warned that his ‘proposal was completely against the policy of our Government and that we were on record against negotiating on any terms with Nazi Germany’. ⁴⁶ Bloom then withdrew his argument. ⁴⁷

In addition to the fact that both negotiating with the Nazi regime and breaking the blockade would violate the policies of the UK and US governments, Law's colleague Osbert Peake pointed out the problem of potential refugees:

Out of 120 million refugees[,] probably one third were useless mouths as far as Hitler was concerned. This meant that there were 30 or 40 million people whom Hitler would be glad to get rid of as they made no contribution to the war effort. If we approached Hitler[,] he might offer to release 40 million whom we could not possibly handle, and we should then look ridiculous. He might only let ‘useless mouths’ go. If he made such an offer[,] there would be a large section of people both in the U.K. and the U.S.A. who would say that we must try to take them and to attempt this would gravely hinder our war effort. ⁴⁸

This gigantic figure – far exceeding any realistic estimate of potential refugees – created an artificial dilemma that justified inaction. According to Michael Marrus, in 1943, both government officials and those demanding rescue measures for the persecuted Jews had overoptimistic ideas about how many Jews were still alive and could, therefore, be saved. ⁴⁹ Peake's estimate, however, was astronomical; in 1945, Malcolm Proudfoot of the Allied Supreme Command in Germany estimated that over 60 million people in total were involuntarily displaced during the war and its immediate aftermath. This group included 10 million forced laborers and 13 million ethnic Germans. ⁵⁰ The prospect of 120 million potential refugees, of whom 30–40 million could suddenly become mobile once the UK and US governments addressed the issue, was a daunting one. Even in peacetime, it would have been unrealistic to expect that even the two most powerful nations in the world (by their estimation) could care for so many people. Furthermore, Law pointed out that should the Germans release Jews from their sphere of influence, they could smuggle agents and saboteurs into the USA or UK as ‘refugees’. ⁵¹ Fifth-column hysteria in both countries since the rapid fall of France in 1940 had nurtured this fear: Especially in the US view, the swift Nazi victory had been a result of the work of spies among the many refugees seeking shelter in France, which had brought down the country from within. ⁵² The delegates deliberately presented the potential refugee problem as large and threatening to their national interests, making it clear that the Bermuda Conference could not tackle an issue of this magnitude and risk. By focusing on refugees outside the Nazi-occupied territories, they created a group of manageable size for which the conference was to seek solutions.

Having established that they would not implement any of the NGOs’ proposals and that the conference would only seek solutions for the roughly 56,100 people already outside Nazi-controlled areas, the delegates turned towards what they defined as the most significant obstacle in any rescue or relief mission: the ‘shipping problem’. The primary issue was that neither of the two states saw itself in a position to withdraw ships from the war effort to transport refugees. US advisor Julian Foster explained:

[So] far as U.S. ships were concerned[,] there were none available for the purpose of moving refugees at the present time, and it appeared probable that it would be a number of months before there were any ships available. The only possibility was to obtain some neutral vessels. This narrowed down to a few neutral countries – Spain, Portugal, Sweden, possibly a few ships from Turkey, if the destination of the refugees should be the Near East. ⁵³

Foster's claim that there were no American ships available to rescue European refugees, combined with the delegate's emphasis on shipping constraints in general, appears to be a strategic argument rather than a reflection of actual limitations. ⁵⁴ Instead, the delegates focused on neutral shipping. By Foster's estimate, there were about 50 neutral ships available. Whether the Allies could charter them to transport refugees, in his view, depended on whether the relevant ministries would make funds available for this purpose and whether the ships could be guaranteed safe passage. The latter, however, required negotiations with Nazi Germany. ⁵⁵

Although Law reflected that ‘Mr. Foster's statement on the shipping position was much more hopeful than he had expected’, ⁵⁶ several issues regarding the ‘shipping problem’ remained to be solved. In particular, delegates were concerned that the gathering and embarkation of refugees could interfere with troop movements. Foster pointed out that

it would be dangerous to undertake anything of this type while there were any military movements involved. The military authorities would not want refugees in any ports where troops landed. They had the lessons learned from Belgium and France, where the movements of refugees on the roads had proved to be disastrous for the troops. ⁵⁷

On more than one occasion, the delegates discussed the availability of ships of different origins, the number of refugees they could transport, and even the number of people they could provide for using these vessels. In contrast, the discussion remained highly theoretical regarding the refugees’ destinations. Angola, located in western Africa, was considered a suitable destination for German refugees in Spain; however, as the colony belonged to Portugal, it was outside the power of the conference to make such a decision. ⁵⁸ Similarly, Madagascar, revived as a potential destination for refugees after the Nazis had considered sending Jews there in the 1930s, stood under the jurisdiction of the French Committee of National Liberation. ⁵⁹ UK advisor Sir Bernard Reilly declared the British colonies of East Africa unsuitable for receiving Polish refugees from Persia, citing the food shortage in the region. ⁶⁰ Additionally, there were already several thousand Italian prisoners of war in East Africa who, in the eyes of the delegates, had to be moved elsewhere before they could even think of the admittance of refugees. Cyprus was already considered ‘dangerously overloaded’. ⁶¹ Although the British delegates were not opposed to the admission of refugees to Palestine within the framework of the 1939 White Paper, they again referred to a lack of transportation options.

The issue of Palestine was particularly contentious. The Jewish community in Palestine had offered to receive refugees, ⁶² however, this proposal directly challenged the 1939 White Paper, which severely limited Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine. Despite Palestine being one of the few places with existing infrastructure to absorb Jews, the British, according to the head of the delegation, Law, ‘were prohibited from going beyond the White Paper or altering it in any way’. ⁶³ The British government depended on the cooperation of the Arab residents in the region to maintain its lines of communication and transport to the East. ⁶⁴ Any notion of Jewish immigration – even temporary – to Palestine endangered the fragile peace in the region established after the Arab Revolt from 1936 to 1939. Although the popularity of Zionism and thus advocacy for Jewish immigration to Palestine in the US had increased in the aftermath of the declaration of 17 December, the Roosevelt administration – and thus its delegation in Bermuda – agreed with the British on this point: The Allies could not fight the Axis powers effectively if they also had to defend themselves against local populations. Resisting political Zionism and avoiding antagonizing the Arabs was thus the best course of action, although it meant ruling out Palestine as a possible haven for Jewish refugees. ⁶⁵

Instead, the delegates suggested Jamaica and Suriname, the latter being a particularly suitable option for Dutch refugees. ⁶⁶ Military considerations spoke against accepting Greek refugees to Cyrenaica in particular and the establishment of refugee camps in North Africa in general. ⁶⁷ Aside from the military aspect, US advisor Bucknell warned that ‘it would be most dangerous to fool with North Africa [because] any concentration of refugees in camps … would cause an outcry in the U.S.A. that the Jews had been discriminated against’: If the Allies had to set up a transit camp for refugees in North Africa, it would be better placed under British administration. According to Harold Dodds, in any case, the military authorities determined affairs regarding North Africa. Therefore, the Bermuda delegates could do little more than make a recommendation. ⁶⁸ Although not explicitly stated throughout the debates – after all, military strategies were top secret and likely unknown to the delegates – in April 1943, Allied forces were consolidating their position in North Africa following the Tunisia Campaign, while preparing for the invasion of Sicily, planned for July. Therefore, it was unlikely that the military authorities in North Africa would prioritize humanitarian concerns over operational security. ⁶⁹ Despite these limitations, one of the few concrete outcomes of Bermuda was indeed a modest plan to establish a refugee camp in Allied North Africa to accommodate the few thousand Jews who had already escaped to neutral Spain. ⁷⁰

In contrast, the delegates saw less need for change in the refugee policies of their respective countries, not even to fulfill the modest proposal by NGOs to fill existing immigration quotas with Jewish refugees. On behalf of the UK Home Secretary, Osbert Peake reported that ‘[the] system worked satisfactorily and the system had not been questioned in the House of Commons’. ⁷¹ Since 1940, Peake continued, Great Britain had taken in 63,000 refugees of all possible nationalities. Although most of them had arrived without valid visas and in small boats from the continent, after careful examination, the British officials had not turned one of them back. His government had been informed that 20,000 children were still stuck in Vichy France. A ‘vociferous minority of people in the U.K.’ demanded their rescue. However,

the majority there, thought that quite as many refugees as they could cope with in war circumstances had been admitted. If they were asked to take in a large number and alter their restrictions, they should have to refer the matter to the Inter-Governmental Committee[,] and other Nations would have to come in and do their share. ⁷²

Robert Alexander, in turn, explained the United States Quota System and how ‘the quotas were fixed on a statutory formula and could not be changed’. ⁷³ Alexander conceded that currently there was no need to change the quotas, ‘as they had not been filled under present war conditions’. He assumed that these quotas could be filled if shipping was available. Yet, because ‘Immigration into the U.S.A. was by individuals’ and ‘[visas] were only given after transport facilities had been arranged…. It would be impossible to issue block visas’. ⁷⁴ Therefore, the delegates declined the idea of filling existing immigration quotas with Jewish refugees by providing consuls in continental Europe with a larger number of blank visas to issue at their discretion, without an in-depth discussion. Instead, UK delegate Peake praised ‘the generosity of the U.S. immigration policy’. ⁷⁵

As expected, the final 13 recommendations articulated by both delegations at the end of the Bermuda Conference contained only a weak request to the UK and US governments to consider opening their borders for limited admission into their territories (Recommendations 3 and 5). Through institutional deflection, another form of inaction, the proposals for reorganizing – or, as Bloom preferred, widening the scope of ⁷⁶ – the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (IGCR) and its remit made up a large part of the list. The first recommendation was ‘that no approach be made to Hitler for the release of potential refugees in Germany or Germany-occupied territory, but that the question be borne in mind by the Intergovernmental Committee in case conditions alter at a later date’. The second addressed the ‘shipping problem’ and indicated that the US and UK governments should enter into joint negotiations with neutral states on the provision of ships for the transportation of refugees, a task ‘to be assumed by the Inter-governmental [sic] Committee after revision of its mandate’. The fourth recommendation urged both the US and UK governments to campaign for the release of military-age refugees from Spain to join Allied forces, while the sixth proposed asking other countries to admit specific groups of refugees (6). The seventh recommendation regarded the adoption of the joint declaration on the postwar repatriation of refugees by the UK and US governments. Recommendations 8 to 11 concerned the reestablishment of the IGCR, which should, with a revised mandate (8), a broadened membership (9), increased funds from both public sources and private organizations (10), and an increased and professionalized staff (11), attempt to implement those recommendations that the US and UK governments could not. The penultimate item recommended ‘That the United States and United Kingdom Governments take immediate steps to implement recommendations (7–10)’, and the last assigned to the IGCR the tasks (a) to find countries of asylum for Polish refugees in Persia, (b) to convince neutral governments to admit refugee children from France, (c) to approach the Portuguese, Canadian, and South American governments regarding the admission of refugees, (d) to secure food and funds to maintain refugees in neutral countries, and (e) to negotiate the admission of refugees to ‘various overseas countries’. ⁷⁷

Only the governments involved saw these detailed recommendations. A communiqué informed the global public that the US and UK delegates had examined the refugee problem in all its aspects and had not ignored the question of potential refugees in Nazi-occupied territories. Concerning the war effort, the delegates explained to the public why they could not meet particular demands to save the persecuted Jews:

From the outset[,] it was realized that any recommendation that the two delegates [sic] could make to their Governments must pass two tests: Would any recommendation submitted interfere with or delay the war effort of the United Nations, and was the recommendation capable of accomplishment under war conditions? The delegates at Bermuda felt bound to reject certain proposals which were not capable of meeting these tests. ⁷⁸

The confidentiality of the entire conference report was justified on military grounds. In the future, the refugee problem would be dealt with by an ‘intergovernmental organization’ designed to be flexible enough to react to ‘any new factors that might come to its attention’. ⁷⁹

Overall, the governments of the UK and the US were pleased with the outcome of the Bermuda Conference. As anticipated, no changes were made to their existing refugee policies, nor was the war effort compromised. However, UK delegate Law was more reserved in his enthusiasm. In his eyes, the restraints imposed on the conference had not allowed for any outcome other than the one presented after the ten days of discussions. ⁸⁰ Public reactions, especially by Jewish communities, to the conference's ‘meagre results’ proved Law right: Assessments ranged from a ‘great disappointment’ and ‘woeful failure’ to ‘cruel mockery’ and ‘another victory’ for Hitler. ⁸¹ Rabbi Dr. Israel Goldstein, President of the Synagogue Council of America, even went so far as to argue that

Victims are not being rescued because democracies do not want them…. The job of the Bermuda conference, apparently, was not to rescue victims of the Nazi terror, but to rescue our State Department and the British Foreign Office from possible embarrassment. ⁸²

Even non-Jewish actors criticized the State Department and the Foreign Office for the ‘failed’ conference. In addition to direct letters and harsh criticism from individual politicians on both sides of the Atlantic, London's Economist reported that the Bermuda Conference had the makings of a new proverb for ‘compromise and deferred hope’. The Los Angeles Times compared the meeting to a ‘second Munich’, referring to the 1938 Munich Agreement and Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement. ⁸³

The image of the ‘failed conference’ dominated and continues to dominate the memory of and historical research on the Bermuda Conference. This is not least because initially, only Jewish academics, intellectuals, and activists, often from those organizations that had fought to save the Jews of Europe, were interested in the topic. ⁸⁴ Although the representatives of Jewish NGOs and the press thus demonstrated greater agency in shaping this narrative, at the moment of the conference itself, governmental officials showed their agency by preventing, through a combination of deliberate, reluctant, and inadvertent inaction, changes to the existing system. As soon as it became apparent that the Allies would win the war, removing their main argument against action on behalf of the persecuted Jews, the situation shifted.

At the end of 1943, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was established, and together with the IGCR, assumed responsibility for caring for refugees and facilitating their eventual repatriation. The mandates of both organizations were limited to people already outside Nazi-occupied territories, yet growing every day due to the liberation of Europe. In the US, however, the War Refugee Board (WRB), founded in January 1944, was given the authority to plan and coordinate rescue missions. The WRB streamlined efforts with private relief agencies to transfer funds and supplies into neutral and enemy-held territories, while American representatives were stationed in neutral countries to oversee these initiatives and apply pressure on behalf of refugees. The US government dissolved the WRB in September 1945, but UNRRA and the IGCR continued in their task, now on behalf of ‘displaced persons’, until 1946. ⁸⁵ The International Refugee Organization subsequently took over and intensified the international collaboration on forced migration that had begun with its predecessors. When its mandate ended in 1952, it transferred responsibility to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which remains an essential pillar of the international refugee regime. ⁸⁶

In a sense, the British delegates were correct when they wrote to Eden that the Bermuda Conference ‘laid a foundation of mutual understanding and co-operation between the two Governments’ on the ‘refugee problem’. ⁸⁷ Law was also correct when he called the conference a ‘façade for inaction’ years later. ⁸⁸ Early researchers, including Henry Feingold, Monty Penkower, Saul Friedmann, and David Wyman, in their studies persuasively documented that the conference was designed to perform concern rather than implement rescue. Standing on their shoulders, this article aims to elaborate not only why the Western Allies remained inactive in the rescue of European Jewry but also how they deliberately produced this state of inaction.

In the context of the Bermuda Conference, the UK and US governments had to balance domestic pressures with the war effort, which was finally beginning to pay off. In this tense situation, neither government prioritized the rescue of Jewish civilians nor was willing to prolong the war on their behalf by diverting resources to such a purpose. In their eyes, a rapid Allied victory was the only way to save the surviving Jews of Europe. In this situation, the Bermuda Conference, on the one hand, served as a tool to alleviate the rising public pressure, especially that exerted by Jewish organizations campaigning for rescue measures. On the other hand, it provided the opportunity to display concern, thus maintaining the Allies’ positive image. To ensure that the conference did not result in unwanted pressure on the Allied governments to act, its organizers in the State Department and the Foreign Office created a highly controlled environment to which only carefully selected and appropriately briefed individuals had access.

The pacing and framing of the conference reflect McConnell and ‘t Hart's concept of strategic inaction, where decision makers choose to wait, buying time to gauge the political temperature of an issue and minimize risks to core goals. By controlling the narrative and emphasizing external constraints, the organizers shielded broader military and political objectives from potential disruption. This calculated use of time and discretion ensured that the conference would serve as a symbolic gesture rather than a substantive policy shift.

The careful management of access is one of the two elements exemplifying McConnell and ‘t Hart's concept of deliberate inaction in the context of the Bermuda Conference: A decision-making apparatus was designed to prevent substantive action while maintaining appearances. The selection of delegates without the authority or ambition to change existing refugee policies, the constraints on the conference mandate, and the deployment of exaggerations about potential refugee numbers – the second element demonstrating deliberate inaction – served to ensure predetermined outcomes. They created a target group of manageable size, including within their mandate only around 56,100 refugees already outside Nazi-occupied territories. Meanwhile, the delegates estimated the number of potential refugees at an off-putting 120 million, a tactic aligned with strategic exaggeration to justify inaction. Additionally, the delegates focused narrowly on politically uncomplicated issues, spending most of the conference discussing logistical challenges such as the ‘shipping problem’. External constraints, particularly the war effort and military priorities, in the context of the Bermuda Conference, served as justifications for non-intervention and, within the analytical framework of this article, as an embodiment of reluctant inaction. Organizers and delegates used the same arguments to explain the scarcity of information on the conference's results published in the aftermath of the events in April 1943. Finally, inadvertent inaction was facilitated by institutional deflection, as responsibility was transferred to organizations ill-equipped to handle the crisis. By assigning responsibility to a body ill-equipped to handle the crisis, the organizers effectively deferred meaningful action while maintaining the appearance of engagement. Before the IGCR could undertake tasks of this magnitude, however, its scope, funding, and capacities had to be significantly expanded, a process that the Bermuda Conference itself could not initiate but could only recommend.

Together, these emergent strategies illustrate how the Allies’ inaction was produced in the context of the Bermuda Conference, combining elements of deliberate, reluctant, inadvertent, and strategic inaction to ensure that the conference aligned with broader political and military priorities without yielding tangible outcomes. The Bermuda Conference thus offers a striking example of how inaction can be institutionally produced and politically instrumentalized. Recognizing inaction as a strategic policy tool – not merely a moral lapse or bureaucratic inertia – invites a broader reconsideration of how state power operates, not only through decisions made, but through those consciously deferred or denied.