John W. Pehle

John W. Pehle (1909 – 1999) was an American United States Department of the Treasury lawyer and one of the authors of the Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews, a 1944 document exposing the United States Department of State's alleged cover-up of the Holocaust. He became the first director of the War Refugee Board.^[1]

Early life and education[]

Pehle was born in Minneapolis and grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Creighton University, followed by a Bachelor of Laws and Juris Doctor from Yale Law School.^[2]

Career[]

From 1934 to 1940, he was a lawyer in the Office of the General Counsel for the Department of the Treasury. Later, he became director of the Treasury Department's foreign-funds control and assistant to the secretary of the Treasury.

He was the first director of the War Refugee Board, created in 1944,^[3] while he continued work for the Treasury Department's Foreign Funds control. Early in 1946, he left the War Refugee Board, where he was succeeded by William O'Dwyer.

In 1946 he entered private practice, as senior partner in the Washington, D.C., law firm of Pehle & Lesser and successor firms; and, later, in the Washington office of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius.

Death[]

He died in Bethesda, Maryland in 1999.^[2][4] In 2006 he received posthum the Congressional Gold Medal for his rescue efforts.^[5]

References[]

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