DISPATCHES FROM THE MEMORY HOLE: Blinken’s Holocaust Gaffe-Whitewashing FDR’s Anti-Semitic Policies.

From Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent remarks, one could erroneously conclude that it was actually Assistant Secretary of State Long, not President Roosevelt, who decided American immigration policy in the 1930s and 1940s, and Long, not Roosevelt, who decided that the U.S. should refrain from intervening to aid European Jewry.

Long, a campaign contributor and personal friend of the president was FDR’s first ambassador to Italy. He was one of the first to praise Mussolini for making the trains run on time. Long was promoted by FDR to assistant secretary of state, putting him in charge of 23 of the State Department’s 42 divisions, including the crucial Visa Division.

Speaking at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on April 8, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Secretary Blinken described how Long “had immense power to help those being persecuted,” yet “made it harder and harder for Jews to be granted refuge in the United States.”

That’s correct but misleading. It wasn’t as if Long conducted some kind of rogue operation. Numerous documents, including Long’s posthumously published diaries, recount how he regularly briefed President Roosevelt on his efforts to keep the Jews out.

Flashback: New Documents Reveal FDR’s Eugenic Project to ‘Resettle’ Jews During World War II.