The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-01-24

William LanBer. Four years ago, be- fore this country got into the war. said Langer, Dunn blocked the entry into the United States for some 651 refugees from Nazi Germany, and furthermore he later sent a cable to the U. s. Minister in Switzerland, ordering him not to send back to this country reports on Nazi atro- cities. Those are pretty serious &C., cusationS which, if true, would make Secretary Dunn not only pro-Nazi but anti-Semitic.
 The story of the 651 refugees is one of the sad stories of the war. It wasn't G5l, the way, but 2,0O0 who got visas to come to the United States after they had been checked and okayed by the Department of Justice as desirable citizens. Nearly all of them were in special danger because they held political positions. Few of them got out of Nazi terri tory but in negotiating for their re- moval to this country by the War Refugee Board, a number of cables had to be cleared through the De- partment of State. James c. Dunn, as head of the division of Western European affairs at that time, initialed many of the cables to expe- dite them, though this was not di- rectly his business.
 CODE ENDANGERED
 There came time, however when messages from these refugees, trans mitted through Switzerland present. ed threat to break the American secret codes. Any code can be broken If the uncoded contents of mess age are known and compared with the coded version of that same message. For this reason, a cable was sent to the U s. Minister in Switzerland. ordering him not to use the code for refugee messages. The story got out that this was an order to stop sending atrocity re- ports to the United States. but actu- ally 1t was nothing more than an order to safeguard the code. Jimmy Dunn got blamed for it, but actually the order seems to have been cabled to Switzerland over the signature of Sumner Welles, thu Under Sec retary of State.
 Perhaps better case man be made tEat Dunn has been pro- Com munist than that he is pro-Fascist. At the beginning of U. s. participa- tion in the war, British and Amer ican governments agreed to a full exchange of information on all sub JectS. Dunn is generally given credit for having broadened that policy into one of full exchange of inform at!on with Soviet Russia, too. Before the Moscow government had been treated with suspicion and caution. Treating Moscow with confidence and respect as an equal was a new idea. It paid of when Hull went to Russia for his conference with Stalin and Molotov and came home with the Moscow agreement. Dunn wetn along on that trip, as Hull's adviser.
 NO SILVER SPOON
 When Dunn hasn't been criticized for his policies, he has been picked on because he married money an Armour heiress or because he was once in charge of protocol at White House and State Department func- anu Ndo IDiISldCj SNl an expert at balancing tea cups. But all such stuff is a far cry from his origin and he is anything but Q Harvard -Groton silk stocking, which all successful diplomats are sup posed to be. Jimmy Dunn was born in Newark and his father was plumber
 He studied a little law and some architecture but holds no degrees for graduating in either trade, though he did work as an architect from 1912 to 1917. Tn the war he was a naval lieutenant, serving as aide to the naval attachc at Ha- vana. That turned him to diplomacy and he began at the bottom. as clerk in the Department in 1919 He has been career diplomat ever since, with the exception of year out in 193O and '3l during the serious illness Of his wife. It was his g years of experience that probably accounts most for his assistant sec retaryship in charge of eastern hemisphere affairs. one of the hot test postwar spcss in government.