RUL Scholarly and Professional Activity Committee

Title: The US Armed Forces and the Hungarian Refugees in 1956

Presenter: Jim Niessen

Abstract: In a refugee crisis, soldiers are a source of danger, but can also play the role of humanitarians.  This presentation will reprise a conference paper from a year ago that I’m revising for publication.  Refugee crises are still with us today.

Soldiers played a very visible role in Hungarians’ resettlement to the US 65 years ago.  As of May 1957, more than two thirds of the 32,075 immigrants had arrived (from allied Germany rather than neutral Austria) on US Navy ships or Air Force planes.  “Operation Safe Haven” (the transport operation) was succeeded by “Operation Mercy,” the processing at Camp Kilmer in New Jersey that was now officially renamed the Kilmer Reception Center.  The camp was conveniently located for air and sea transport, and nearly empty before the Army began whipping it into shape.  Daily activity in the barracks was managed jointly by a commanding officer, Brigadier General Sidney C. Wooten, and a civilian Vice Chair of the President’s Committee, for Hungarian Refugees, Ford Corporation executive Leo C. Beebe.  The committee coordinated the numerous voluntary and government agencies that checked the refugees in and assisted in their resettlement, while the far more numerous uniformed personnel of the US Army provided facilities management, meals, interpreting, health services, recordkeeping, press liaison, and assistance to the civilian agencies.