In order to address all the letters the WRB received from private citizens pleading for help for family members abroad, the WRB proposed a new program to the State Department. In this letter, Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle finally agreed.
It was somewhat convoluted, paperwork-wise, but it boiled down to this: People could submit the names of their loved ones in occupied territory to the INS. If the submitter was an American citizens, they could submit names of parents, spouses, and unmarried minor children. If the submitter was not yet a citizen, he could submit the name of his wife or children (husbands were presumably also included, but the assumption was that the person appealing would be male). The names, after being checked and approved by the INS, were sent to the WRB. Every few days, the WRB sent these lists to the embassies in Stockholm and Bern for transmission to the Swedish and Swiss Foreign Offices, with the request that the people so named be granted protection and entry into the neutral nations.
