You’re just going to have to trust me when I say that the ransom negotiations and rumors flying in Switzerland in the summer of 1944 are incredibly complicated. Roswell McClelland heard about them from multiple people, all of whom had different versions of the rumors, and some of whom–as it turns out–were completely wrong.
Since I’m writing my dissertation based mainly on the primary source material–and really, there are only a few books that explain the ransom negotiations (Yehuda Bauer’s “Jews for Sale? is the best)–it took me to the writing phase of my research to be able to piece it all out. This is one document with McClelland’s notes all over it. He calls it “The Tractor Affair” since the Nazis were asking for, among other things, tractors and trucks.
