Harry S. Truman photo

Remarks to Members of the American Action Committee Against Mass Deportations in Romania.

May 28, 1952

I AM in complete sympathy with the people of Romania, and with all the other free countries, who have been placed behind the Iron Curtain.

The Kremlin bombards the world with cries of peace--peace. And the Kremlin brings on war--war, at every point that she possibly can.

The Kremlin cries that we have used germ warfare. There isn't a word of truth in that. We have never broken the Geneva convention in our operations in Korea. And they know that. They know it well. But they keep on passing out the lies that have no foundation in fact whatever.

And yet the thing that you have just told me about is far worse than anything that can take place in actual open war. This deportation and the kidnaping of children has been going on, both in Greece, in Germany, in Romania, in Czechoslovakia, in Hungary, and in that part of Austria where the Russians themselves have control.

It is one of the most outrageous things that has ever happened in the history of the world. Don't you think that eventually they are not going to have to pay for it.

Your country and several other free countries that are now behind the Iron Curtain have suffered oppression before. Poland and Romania, and part of the old Austro-Hungarian empire were overrun by Genghis Khan and the Turks, and yet you survived as free countries.

You are going to survive as a free country. You are going to have our wholehearted cooperation in trying to survive. And if I can continue our program which I have inaugurated, you are going to be a free country again, before you pass on to the next world.

Note: The President spoke at 11:35 a.m. in the Rose Garden at the White House.

Harry S Truman, Remarks to Members of the American Action Committee Against Mass Deportations in Romania. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/230796

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