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More sophisticated than Brand's or Schwarz's interrogations was the evaluation of both missions made by Reuben B. Resnik, an AJDC representative in Istanbul who was associated with the WRB's effort in Turkey. Resnik met with Brand upon his arrival in Istanbul and also had his connections with members of the Va'ada in Budapest. In his report, prepared at the request of Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt, Resnik – a wise man – expressed his impression that Brand: … was not as sincere and straight-forward as other observers thought him to be. He had ready and direct answers for all questions and was apparently very cooperative and reiterated on several occasions the seriousness with which he was carrying out his mission. It is important … to observe that Brand is not completely without anxiety and fear about his assignment and its possible consequences. This description reflects one who initiated or accepted Laufer's mission, and thereby made the Allies and the Zionists seemingly responsible from then on for the fate of the Hungarian Jews, pending his own personal success in that mission. Resnik mentioned “interviews and conferences” he held with persons “who have had close contact with Mr. Brand during his visit in Istanbul and while he was a resident in Budapest.” Resnik's “possible interpretations” of both missions (he never met Grosz) are rather penetrating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discussion of intelligence services on the Allied and the German sides (after all, the Gestapo and SD were among other things intelligence-gathering agencies) in this book assumed its central role due to the covert nature of hoped-for cooperation between the Zionists and other Jewish organizations working for rescue once experienced Jewish leaders such as David Ben-Gurion had realized that overt action by the Allies had many limits due to the menace of a “Jew's war,” which the Allies intended to avoid by all means at their disposal unless domestic opinion imposed such an action upon them. At the same time, Nazi and Allied intelligence gathered information on the Holocaust, on rescue efforts, and on the Zionists and other Jewish organizations that were supposed to cooperate with them. This information led also to various actions that contributed their share to the workings of the doomsday machine. In comparison to the regular bureaucracies, such as the British Foreign and Colonial Offices, which had adopted a rather anti-Zionist policy since the late 1930s that was followed by the politicians heading them on cabinet level but not Churchill himself, and in comparison to the General Officer Commanding in Chief (GOC in C) Middle East, who always feared an Arab revolt in his back yard, MI6, or the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) (i.e., the British Foreign Intelligence Service), was a little more open to the rescue of Jews and to Zionist overtures as far as activities planned against the Axis powers were concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]