STATEMENT OF COLONEL ANGELO de GUTTADAURO

United States Army, Retired

Before the Subcommittee on the Constitution regarding H.R. 2442, "Wartime Violation of Italian American Civil Liberties Act"

Last winter, my son Andrew, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, sent me a copy of Tom Brokaw's 1998 best seller, The Greatest Generation, as a Christmas present. It is a riveting account of personal integrity and courage as documented by the lives of Americans who were destined to confront World War II. But I was totally dismayed and offended that Brokaw continues to assert the widely held canard that Italian Americans were not persecuted during that period. His following passage makes this fictitious position quite clear:

"Italian and German aliens living in California coastal areas were ordered to move in early 1942 but by June of that year the order had been rescinded, and there was no major relocation for those groups. Italian and German immigrants were picked up and questioned closely; they may have had some uncomfortable moments during the war, but they retained all their rights."

Some moments, some rights.

My father, Nino Guttadauro, was bom in Italy in 1899 and as a teenager was commissioned an infantry second lieutenant in the Italian armed forces. He served for over a year in combat against the Austrian Army in World War I until he was seriously wounded on the front lines. At that time, Italy was allied with America, England, and France to defeat the invading German and Austrian forces in Europe. For his gallantry in action, he was awarded Italy's War Cross for Military Valor, the equivalent of America's Silver Star.

Following the war, my father emigrated to the United States, married my mother (a native-born American citizen), continued his profession as an accountant, and became a naturalized American citizen residing in San Francisco, California. Because of his status as a veteran of World War I, he joined The Federation of the Italian World War I Veterans in the U.S.A., Inc., an organization very similar to America's VFW. His later position as president of the Federation's San Francisco branch, however, would have very damaging consequences for him and his entire family.

Under the provisions of the Freedom of Information-Privacy Acts (FOIPA), I have received dozens of documents from the FBI covering the period from 19 March 1941 to 13 July 1944. A number of these documents were signed by John Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, and by Wendell Berge, Assistant Attorney General of the United States. A brief summary of these documents will illustrate the unconscionable manner in which my father's most basic civil liberties were abused and the core principles of the Constitution were abrogated. Even today, almost sixty years after the fact, the names of my father's accusers to the FBI and, indeed, their very allegations have been blacked out, or sanitized, in these documents.

My father's interrogations by the FBI began in March 1941 and continued until September 1942. At no time was he allowed to know the names of his accusers or the nature of their accusations. During his 28 March 1941 interrogation, the FBI agent recorded that the "Subject denied there was any Fascist activity in the Italian Colony in San Francisco" and further noted my father's statement that "Communism was an international ideology and Russia sought and would, if the chance came, inflict its system on the whole world." History has proven my father correct on both counts.

Notwithstanding my father's consistent denials over a period of one and a half years of any inappropriate or illegal activities, a Board of Officers was convened by the Commanding General, Western Defense Command and Fourth Army, to determine if he should be issued an exclusion order prohibiting him from living in over half of the United States. The board was held in Room 483 of San Francisco's Whitcomb Hotel at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, 8 September 1942. As Lt. Col. Frank E. Meek, the board president, informed my father in writing, "Materials in the hands of the Board will not be made available for your inspection" and you will not "be permitted to examine witnesses." These are exactly the arbitrary procedures exercised by the infamous "Star Chamber" courts of the Middle Ages, and these same processes were utilized during the FBI interrogations.

The board's decision, for which there was no appeal, resulted in my father being served Exclusion Order F-1 at 10:18 a.m. on 29 September 1942. He was ordered to report two days later at 10:00 a.m. to a Maj. Ray Ashworth for "processing." This processing included having a photograph and fingerprints taken and a specimen signature supplied. Documentaries of military tribunals treating civilian citizens in such an arbitrary manner can be seen almost weekly on the History Channel, but most such examples were filmed over half a century ago in Nazi Germany or Communist Russia.

The immediate result of Exclusion Order F-1 was my father's automatic expulsion from California, the loss of his professional position, and, most importantly, his forced separation from his wife, his seven-year-old daughter, and five-year-old son. In fact, he was not only expelled from California, but he was also prohibited from living in or traveling to the following states:

Totally Prohibited Partially Prohibited

Arizona New Jersey Alabama

California New York Idaho

Connecticut North Carolina Louisiana

Delaware Oregon Mississippi

Florida Pennsylvania Montana

Georgia Rhode Island Nevada

Maine South Carolina New Mexico

Maryland Vermont Texas

Massachusetts Virginia Utah

New Hampshire Washington, and

The District of Columbia

Prior to departing California, my father was ordered by Lt. Gen. J. L. DeWitt, Commanding General of Western Defense Command and Fourth Army, "to communicate in writing the time of your departure, initial and ultimate destinations, route to be followed and means of travel; upon arrival at ultimate destination, you will report in person the fact of your arrival and your address at such destination to the Special Agent in Charge of the nearest office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice." This military notification and personal reporting mandate remained in force anytime my father traveled more than five miles or changed his residence, even in the same city. Although an American citizen, my father was, in effect, a prisoner in his own country.

It was impossible for my father to find qualified accounting positions because he would have to inform prospective employers that he was excluded on security grounds from half of the United States. It is understandable that employers would not trust such an individual with financial ledgers and cash payments. After an extensive search, the first job he was able to find following the exclusion was as a grocery clerk in Salt Lake City, Utah. This economic disruption and hardship, as well as the psychological scars, remained with my father for the rest of his life.

But the entire family also suffered. Due to the swiftness of the expulsion order, household goods were either stored or simply abandoned. We were forced to rent, in numerous cities, furnished apartments or homes at high costs due to our transient status. We had become, by military fiat, a family of involuntary gypsies. It fell upon my mother to create an artificial home atmosphere as best she could while my father roamed the Rocky Mountain states (in the non-prohibited areas) searching for a living. Because of this arbitrary and coercive action, a man's value to himself, to his family, and to his community and society was dramatically and permanently diminished.

Three years after my father's initial FBI interrogation in March 1941, his Exclusion Order F- 1 was finally cancelled and rescinded effective 13 March 1944.

Despite the hardships and injustices inflicted on a loyal citizen by his government, my father was always proud of my decision to enter the United States Army from which I was honorable retired as a colonel after almost thirty-two years of commissioned service.

Had he lived, my father would have been a centenarian this year. By exposing the indignities he was forced to endure, you can relay to his spirit, and to all citizens, that our country is truly based on liberty and justice for all. Not only is this the right thing to do, it is the American thing to do.