American Passage_ The History of Ellis I - Vincent J. Cannato [204]
The press attention in Harry Truman’s home-state newspaper helped bring Ellen Knauff’s case to the president’s attention. In midJune 1950, Edward Harris of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch argued to Truman that Ellen was the only war bride ever to receive such treatment, and that she was entitled to a hearing at least, “in view of her own war record and her husband’s valorous combat service.” Harris correctly noted that it was within the power of the president or the attorney general to change the regulations so that every alien was entitled to receive a hearing except in time of “actual warfare.” Within days, Truman personally asked his aide, Steve Spingarn, to look into Ellen’s case “and see if anything can be done to straighten it out.”
The Justice Department stalled in releasing the Knauff file, but finally relented. In September 1950, Spingarn detailed his findings to the deputy attorney general. He was deeply unimpressed by the case against Knauff. “It seems to me most meager despite the seriousness of the allegations,” he wrote. “Indeed it all boils down to a few paragraphs in an Army Intelligence report repeated several times in Immigration Service and FBI reports.” He recommended that the Justice Department grant Knauff a hearing in camera, which would allow her to answer the charges but would preserve the confidentiality of the intelligence sources.
However, the Justice Department ignored Spingarn’s suggestion and Truman, preoccupied with the war in Korea, seemed disinclined to interfere. The Justice Department also ignored congressional calls for her release. Instead, it pushed ahead with her deportation. Edward Shaughnessy, the district director of immigration in New York, summed up the rationale for debarring Knauff. The attorney general, he said, “decided she is not the type of person wanted in this country and that is all there is to it. It was felt prejudicial to the best interests of the country to let her stay here.” Understandably, Ellen did not want to return to postwar Germany. Instead, she told her lawyer: “I am ready to stay on Ellis Island till doomsday.”
In January 1951, almost a year into Ellen’s second stint at Ellis Island, Kurt Knauff received a leave from his job in Germany, where he worked as an assistant chief of supply at an American army base, and arrived in New York. The Justice Department granted Ellen temporary parole into her husband’s custody and she was free again, but her troubles were far from over.
In March 1951, more than two and a half years since she was first detained at Ellis Island, Ellen Knauff received her first hearing in front of immigration officials. The government was under no obligation to hold such a hearing, but the publicity forced the issue. Ellen finally was able to see the evidence against her. She vigorously denied all of the charges, stating that she never gave away secrets and went to the Czech mission only to get an extension on her passport.
It took the board members only an hour to deliberate the case. Ellen Knauff was to be barred from entry into the United States because her presence was deemed “prejudicial to the national security.” Ellen’s parole was revoked and she was once again sent to Ellis Island to await the results of her appeal to Washington. If it failed, she would again face deportation.
By the end of August 1951, a board of immigration appeals made its ruling. By a two-to-one vote, the board overturned the decision to exclude Ellen Knauff and recommended that she be allowed to enter the country. “There is no charge that Mrs. Knauff is or has been a Communist,” the majority concluded. “There is not the faintest thread of traditional party line thinking or Marxist philosophy apparent