Meet Roswell McClelland and his wife, Marjorie.  He’s the American Friends Service Committee representative in Geneva. The couple went to Europe in July 1940, first working with refugees in Rome, then in Marseilles, and had been in Geneva since the late summer of 1942.

As early as the end of January 1944, McClelland was the clear choice to become the WRB representative in Switzerland. He was offered the position in late February (after the WRB cleared the offer with the Friends, who were reluctant to release him), took a week or so to accept, then waited for his official appointment.  The WRB drafted a press release appointing him, which they didn’t send until late April, when McClelland took the position. Why the four month delay?  Leland Harrison, the US minister in Switzerland, sent a cable of administrative questions (how would McClelland be paid, how much, etc) to the WRB but the cable was never forwarded from the State Department to Pehle. So a month passed before the problem was discovered.

This is a summary document of pieces of correspondence from the McClellands that show the vast array of refugee work they were both doing in Switzerland.  He was a great choice for the WRB.