American Passage_ The History of Ellis I - Vincent J. Cannato [200]
Although exact numbers vary, the FBI arrested over thirty thousand German, Japanese, and Italian enemy aliens during the war. Roughly one-third were interned in government camps for some period of time, including a few thousand German and Japanese nationals deported from Latin America to the United States for detention.
By 1948, German enemy aliens had become an anachronism. The enemies of the previous war—Germans—were evolving into new allies, while the allies of the last war—Communists—had become the new enemies. Those last few German detainees at Ellis Island in June 1948 found themselves sharing quarters with men like Gerhard Eisler, Irving Potash, and John Williamson, Communists who were detained and ordered deported for their politics. The Cold War had begun, but the intersection of national security and immigration would continue to run through Ellis Island.
WITH AMERICA ONCE AGAIN at war in the fall of 1950, this time on the peninsula of Korea, Congress passed the Internal Security Act. Spearheaded by Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada, the law would force Communists and other subversives in the United States to register with the federal government.
The bill also granted government greater powers to exclude aliens from the United States. Going beyond already existing laws banning anarchists and Communists, the new law would bar all those who not only advocated totalitarianism but were affiliated with any organization that advocated any form of totalitarianism.
President Truman came out strongly against the bill. On September 22, he gave a lengthy explanation of his reasons for vetoing it. He said there was no need for changes regarding the admission of aliens since the present law was already strong enough to keep out suspected subversives and Communists. He also warned that the bill would require the government to bar foreigners from “friendly, non-Communist countries” such as Spain. Refusing to heed Truman’s warnings, both the House and Senate overrode his veto by overwhelming majorities.
Embarrassed at having his veto soundly overridden, Truman decided to get even with his congressional opponents. In a fit of pique, the president declared that if Congress wanted such a law, his administration would strictly enforce it. Attorney General J. Howard McGrath ordered that the Internal Security Act be applied not just to members of the Nazi, Communist, or Fascist Parties, but to anyone who had ever been forced to join such organizations, “regardless of whether or not he may now be harmless, anti-totalitarian, pro-American, or the circumstances under which he was a member.” Five years after the end of the war, Germans, Austrians, Italians, and other Europeans who may have been forced to join Nazi or fascist organizations were now barred from entry.
Ellis Island once again found itself in the firing line. Twenty-yearold Viennese pianist Friedrich Gulda, who would later become a renowned avant-garde musician, was one of the first detained under the new law because he had belonged to the Nazi Youth as a preteen during the war. He was in New York for his Carnegie Hall debut.
Gulda arrived at Idlewild Airport in Queens shortly before midnight on October 6. After being detained at the airport and questioned, he was taken to Ellis Island in the early morning hours. It was unclear whether Gulda would ever make it to Carnegie Hall. At Ellis Island, he practiced on an old piano until Steinway & Sons received permission to send a concert grand piano to the island. After three days in detention, Gulda was released and was able to perform at his concert. He was