Vilhjalmur Stefansson - Political Affiliations

Political Affiliations

In the 1930s, pro-Soviet movements were created whose main aim was to provide support for the Soviet project to establish a Jewish socialist republic in the Birobidzhan region in the far east of the USSR. One of the organisations prominent in this campaign was the American Committee for the Settlement of Jews in Birobidjan, or Ambijan, formed in 1934. A tireless proponent of settlement in Birobidzhan, Stefansson appeared at countless Ambijan meetings, dinners, and rallies, and proved an invaluable resource. Ambijan produced a 50-page Year Book at the end of 1936, full of testimonials and letters of support. Among these was one from Stefansson, who was now also listed as a member of Ambijan's Board of Directors and Governors: "The Birobidjan project seems to me to offer a most statesmanlike contribution to the problem of the rehabilitation of eastern and central European Jewry," he wrote.

Ambijan's national conference in New York, November 25–26, 1944, pledged to raise $1 million to support refugees in Stalingrad and Birobidzhan. Prominent guests and speakers included New York Congressman Emanuel Celler, Senator Elbert D. Thomas of Utah, and Soviet ambassador Andrei Gromyko. A public dinner, attended by the delegates and their guests, was hosted by Vilhjalmur and spouse Evelyn Stefansson. Vilhjalmur was selected as one of two vice-presidents of the organisation.

But with the growing anti-Russian feeling in the country after World War II, "exposés" of Stefansson began to appear in the press. In August 1951, he was denounced as a Communist before a Senate Internal Security subcommittee by Louis F. Budenz, a Communist-turned-Catholic. Perhaps Stefansson himself had by then had some second thoughts about Ambijan, for his posthumously published autobiography made no mention of his work on its behalf. Nor, for that matter, did his otherwise very complete obituary in The New York Times of August 27, 1962.