Between the Alps and a Hard Place Read Free Page B

claims arising out of properties confiscated during and after the Second World War by the Nazis and their sympathizers or by the communist governments in Central and Eastern Europe”—did not include Switzerland at all. Nevertheless, his pressuring of the Swiss included commissioning a voluminous U.S. government report that bears his name and served as the basis for campaigns against Switzerland and other Western European countries.
    The preface to the Eizenstat report asks, “Why the sudden surge of interest in these tragic events of four decades ago?” And it answers: “[T]he most compelling reason is the extraordinary leadership and vision of a few people who have put this issue on the world’s agenda: . . . Edgar Bronfman, Israel Singer, . . . Senator Alfonse D’Amato of New York, and President Bill Clinton. . . .” 9 The report also leaves no doubt that these extraordinary leaders were adopting judgments that had been aired and rejected during the Roosevelt and Truman administrations. Rather than discovering new facts, the Eizenstat report reversed the values placed on old facts by Americans who had actually fought and defeated Nazi Germany. In presenting his report, Eizenstat said, “Our task is to complete the unfinished business of the twentieth century’s most traumatic and tragic events,” while the report’s principal drafter, William Slany, spoke frankly of reversing the actions of a previous generation, of “doing things now that couldn’t be done then.”
    According to the report, “As late as the end of 1944 Secretary of State E.R. Stettinius, Jr., and his State Department colleagues concluded that, on balance, Switzerland’s neutrality had been more a positive than a negative for the Allies during the War.” 10
But, the report notes, there were people in the U.S. government, primarily in Henry Morgenthau’s Treasury Department and in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), who did not think so well of the Swiss. Indeed there were. The report, however, does not mention that these people lost policy arguments within the U.S. government on the merits (for example, the Morgenthau Plan to pastoralize Germany) as well as because they tended to follow the Soviet line. Nor does it ever explain why the anti-Swiss views should be accorded greater credence than the pro-Swiss views. Rather, the report simply piles accusation upon accusation, and, in short, blames the presidents and secretaries of state of the time for discounting the anti-Swiss claims: “The U.S. government . . . over the objections of the Treasury Department, decided not to pursue sanctions.” 11 The implication was that this decision had been incorrect, and that the U.S. government now had grounds, if not an obligation, to act otherwise.
    Senator D’Amato aptly summed up the effect of this litany by faulting the “moral fortitude” of the people who ran America at the time because they “ran out on our obligation” by not treating Switzerland as a hostile power. As a result, D’Amato said he was ashamed of being an American. Strong stuff. But not serious.
    Had the report and the campaign attempted to remake the image of Switzerland in America rather than provide a pretext for extortion they would have had a big job. Americans have traditionally had a most favorable image of the Swiss. On the lowest level, the Swiss were seen as Alpine yodelers who make fine chocolate, watches, and camping knives.
    The bible of the middlebrow, National Geographic , has offered moving descriptions of how the International Committee of the
Red Cross, organized in Switzerland by the Swiss, has tempered the horrors of war and ministered to the victims of disaster. 12 Europe and the world, says the Geographic , are lucky that the roof of the old continent is occupied by such a multiethnic, multireligious nation, dedicated to peace within itself and with its neighbors.