Monuments Man Charles H. Sawyer, part II: Double Duty for the Roberts Commission and the OSS

Today’s post was written by Dr. Greg Bradsher, senior archivist at the National Archives in College Park, MD.

The movie, The Monuments Men, has focused great attention on the Monuments Men (and women) and their work during and after World War II.  Of course the movie cannot tell the story of the over 300 individuals involved in Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFA&A) work, so it focuses on three: George Stout, James Rorimer, and Rose Valland, played by George Clooney, Matt Damon, and Cate Blanchett respectively.  Beginning in December 2013, Dr. Greg Bradsher and Dr. Sylvia Naylor thought it would be illustrative to discuss some of the lesser known individuals, and thus started a series of blog posts. This is the second part to the blog post on Charles H. Sawyer, the fourteenth in this series.

During March and April of 1945, Sawyer continued his liaison work as head of the Art Looting Investigations Unit office in Washington, DC.  Through the Liaison officer X-2 Branch, Sawyer established with the State Department’s Division of Foreign Activity Correlation, for exchange of information under the Safehaven^[1] project as it related to Orion Project interest.  Also during a trip to Boston and New York March 13-16, he interviewed Prof. Paul J. Sachs, Prof. Jacob Rosenberg, Dr. Georg Swerzenski, Francis H. Taylor, and, Dr. Alfred Frankfurter. Sawyer interviewed in New York April 23-25, Dr. Alfred Frankfurter, Lloyd Hyde, Hyatt Mayor, Rensselaer Lee, and Sammy Rosenberg.  During April he established liaison with the OSS Secret Intelligence Branch, the OSS Safehaven Coordinator (John A. Mowinckel), the New York Customs office, and the Treasury Department’s Foreign Funds Control. Towards the end of April Sawyer prepared a report for the X-2 Branch providing an analysis of the Orion Project.^[2]

During March and April Sawyer had to deal with personnel issues and problems in his office. Terence A. Coyne would join the ALIU in mid-March and would initially be scheduled to depart for London in mid-May.  S. Lane Faison would also join the Orion Project in April and be scheduled to join Plaut and Rousseau on the Continent at the end of May.  Sawyer provided them with Orion Project indoctrination and with respect to Coyne, put him to work part-time helping Elizabeth Lambie with her work.  Lambie, who, when she join the project thought she would be doing more substantive work, found she was being exhausted by countless hours of clerical work.  She wrote Plaut the first week of April that the office was having trouble getting “another gal to take over some of the dirty work I have now have been doing for five months” and with which she was thoroughly fed up.  “The problem,” she wrote, “is to find somebody who will fill the bill-that is to do a hell of a lot of typing and be intelligent enough to do the carding carefully and not be too intelligent to be too bored.” In mid-April Sawyer wrote Plaut that “our Liz has been told by her doctor that she must relax and unravel or face a serious breakdown, so that a half-time arrangement is being worked out for her within the shop.”  He also informed that Plaut that arrangements had been made to keep Coyne an additional thirty days to tide them over.  Lambie wrote Plaut on April 24 “your pal Coyne is certainly a find-and his being here has practically saved my life.”  She wrote that she had just been burned out. “With Coyne here to take on some of the typing and carding that I have been doing ad nauseam,” she added, “we can keep up with things and perhaps even get a little ahead.”^[3]

Liaison work for Sawyer continued in May.  He established or continued liaison with the G-2 Who’s Who Branch and the Captured Material and Personnel Branch, and he and Faison met with the G-2 Liaison Officer for cultural matters to discuss certain problems of common Orion and G-2 interest and to ascertain how Orion liaison with G-2 might be strengthened.  Sawyer also expanded his dealings with the Foreign Economic Administration (FEA).  Near the end of the month Sawyer met with Dr. Franz Neumann, Acting Head, European Desk, R&A Branch, about the Orion Project’s specific interest in German personnel.^[4]

Meanwhile, at some point at the end of April or first week of May, Huntington Cairns, the Secretary-Treasurer of the Roberts Commission offered Sawyer an appointment as his assistant, with a substantial pay raise.  The Washington X-2 Branch sent a cable on May 11 to Plaut, informing him of the job offer and Sawyer’s willingness to continue as well in his current Orion Project supervisory capacity.  Plaut was informed that X-2 believed such an arrangement would be desirable to the project and that Sawyer would not take on the Roberts Commission position without his approval.  Plaut was also informed that USAAF Capt. Otto Wittmann, Jr., formerly of Harvard (graduate and attended Paul Sachs’ museum studies course) and Kansas City (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art), would possibly be available for Orion work under Sawyer, who recommended him.  Plaut was instructed to consult with Pearson and wire conclusions with any suggested alternatives.  The next day Sawyer wrote Plaut that “I hope it will be crystal clear to you that I did not initiate this and that also I am not for sale to the highest bidder. It would mean approximately three grand a year more for me and the opportunity to set up Washington headquarters without shortchanging Worcester friends.”  He added that he did not have the slightest intention of “quitting the ship until you give me the signal.”^[5]

Plaut responded to the May 11 cable on May 14 that he agreed with the Sawyer appointment to the Roberts Commission as it would be advantageous to the Orion Project if Sawyer continued as nominal and responsible head ORION-Washington and personally conducted all Orion Project liaison with other agencies as heretofore.  Plaut believed that the division of time between the Orion Project and Commission duties be left to Sawyer’s discretion.  Plaut indicated that he knew Wittmann well and considered him desirable as Sawyer’s assistant, but not replacement. James R. Murphy, Chief of the X-2 Branch was willing for Sawyer to accept the appointment on the condition that he should retain his affiliation with the OSS, and that he continue to exercise general supervision over the ALIU Washington office and that the Commission assume responsibility for his salary during the period that he was employed by it.   The Commission agreed.  Plaut was informed on May 16 that the arrangement had been made and that Roberts Commission would acknowledge in writing Sawyer was lent by the OSS and that he would maintain Orion Project connection in a supervisory capacity.^[6]

On May 17 Sawyer sent a memo to Cairns, for transmission to Justice Roberts, explaining Murphy’s approval and the conditions under which he would work with the Commission.   He wrote that the Art Unit:

has as its primary mission the collection of information regarding enemy personnel who have been engaged in the looting or collection of works of art in occupied territory or in the movement of such works of art into neutral countries. The personnel of the Unit, consisting of professional museum administrators and university art instructors, has worked in close cooperation with the American Commission and the British and Allied commissions concerned with the protection and restitution of works of art.

There is in my opinion no conflict of interest between the work of the O.S.S. Art Unit and the purpose for which the American Commission was established. They are essentially complementary in their functions: the American Commission as a policy-making and advisory body, collecting information for the use of other agencies; the O.S.S. Art Unit as an operating agency, preparing such information for the use of its own field personnel and for transmission to other agencies concerned with parallel problems. In most instances, the agencies and individuals with whom the American Commission maintains liaison are the same as those of the O.S.A. Art Unit.

Sawyer indicated that the amount of time that would be necessary for him to devote to the operations of the OSS Art Unit would depend entirely on the obtaining of a satisfactory replacement.  He added that it was his expectation that once such a person was trained and became fully familiar with its details, his responsibilities would be limited to consultation in matters of policy and to problems of liaison with other agencies.  Sawyer concluded his letter, by writing that, as had already indicated to Justice Roberts, he had obligations to the trustees of the Worcester Art Museum and hoped that he could conclude his responsibilities to the Commission and to the OSS by June 1946.  Justice Roberts annotated the memo, “Approved May 21, 1945, Owen J. Roberts, Chairman.”^[7]

The Commission wrote the Chief of the X-2 Branch on May 23, thanking the OSS “for its great courtesy” in making Sawyer’s services available to the Commission.  Cairns enclosed a copy of a memo prepared by Sawyer and approved by Justice Roberts which explained the conditions under which Sawyer’s services had been made available by the OSS to the Commission.^[8]  On June 4 Cairns wrote Sawyer concerning his transfer to the position of Assistant Secretary-Treasurer, effective July 2.  He wrote him again on June 27, changing the effective date to July 7.  A letter confirming his appointment was sent to him on July 4.^[9]

Meanwhile Plaut in London, on May 19, the day before he and Rousseau would go to Paris and Germany and then on to Alt Aussee, Austria to set up operations, wrote Sawyer that he was entirely aware and satisfied that his acceptance of the Cairns offer was motivated much more through consideration of advantages to us than to himself.  “I should hate to feel that, no matter whom we would get to take over the more pedestrian aspects of the job,” he added “would not be in a position to carry on our essential liaison both internal and external, and to go to bat in matters of policy.”  Plaut wrote that he knew Whittmann very well and liked him, but did not consider him “a sufficiently strong representative for us in the months to come.  Unquestionably your new duties will occupy the major part of your time, and, whereas I consider that he would be ideally qualified to assist you, I do not think him an adequate alter ego.” That same day Sawyer wrote Plaut, explaining about going to work part-time with Roberts Commission and how it would help their project.  He informed his first and immediate problem was finding a replacement for Coyne (Lambie had begun half-time work on May 1) and that they were then “awaiting word from you before making the other move, for Otto or anyone else.”  During the summer, Sawyer wrote, he would keep in the closest contact with events in the Orion-Washington office.  As for Elizabeth Lambie, Sawyer wrote that if she had wanted to assume the responsibility of running the office, that would have been their first recommendation, but she quite definitely did not feel up to it, especially with the summer heat ahead. “The present arrangement is good for her and she is much better, but part of the responsibility for keeping her happy and interested is going to depend on you travelers feeding the home front as much as possible in play by play accounts.”^[10]

On May 19 Lambie wrote Plaut that “Your fine man Coyne has gone on leave and we will soon be losing him, which will great affect our situation here. It has been working out very well, with him to take over a lot of the clerical work and some carding, but we don’t have any bright prospect of a replacement and the picture from my viewpoint is rather discouraging.” She wrote that “The new developments in Charlie’s career certainly make things a lot more complicated too.  He proposed to me that I take over after his departure, but frankly, as I think I wrote you before, I just can’t see what there is to do here the way the operation has turned out, except to keep the liaisons warm, which C. would continue to do from down the street, to maintain an archive in which nobody seems to be very much interested.”

She added that the real action was in the field, and that was where things should be processed, where it was so much more readily accessible, and in such a situation,

I just can’t see the function of this office except as a sort of dead-file. The amount of information in our field which turns up in other offices hereabouts is infinitesimal except for censorship stuff whose value is questionable anyway…so there it is. That leaves me with the carding, logging and other mechanical and frustrating operations, and I have really been so bored with it that nothing but my loyalty and devotion to JSP [Plaut] has prevented my accepting the offer which I had a couple of months ago-and which still stands-of an editorial job on the history project which would be much more in my line I think. However, I told you that I wouldn’t desert you unless a satisfactory replacement turned up and that still holds, but Charlie’s change in location makes the picture if possible more complicated. In the last analysis, I think it boils down to the fact that none of us in the beginning had any idea of how the Washington office would operate once things got going in the field, and now that field operations are under way, it appears that the tide has receded leaving us high and dry on the beach. What we need now, in order to get properly set up for future operations is a statement of your philosophy on Washington’s place in the picture. It makes no sense to me, (though Charlie doesn’t agree) to think of taking on another person of his caliber and experience, because there just would be nothing for him to do except attend staff meetings and consult with Charlie who would continue to main the liaisons he had already established for us.

She concluded by informing Plaut that she did not want to go back to full-time work, as “my fragile health has been greatly improved by the part-time schedule. It has also been improved by being able to pass the buck to Coyne. I hope I don’t have a relapse when he goes.”^[11]

On June 6 Plaut wrote Lambie that “I have not deviated in the least from my original impression that strong Washington representation of the project is imperative…The liaison factor continues, in my estimation, to be exceptionally important and we have got to be defended strongly in any policy discussions internal or external which may arise.”  He added that if she were in a position to return to a full-time endeavor, then Sawyer “could dump all his internal responsibilities on your capable shoulders and you could have someone working under you.” Plaut noted that

As it is, Charlie will have to have someone to take over the routine responsibilities and he can determine far better than I whether such functions can be discharged by you working half-time.  I am neither competent or willing to determine the immediate future of your office, and I am sure you will be relieved if I say that I consider Washington entirely Charlie’s baby. No one could be better equipped than he to work out his and your own problems, with respective to the collective destinies of the project. Therefore, please proceed with the whole thing in the knowledge that you both have my complete confidence and that I shall be thoroughly satisfied with any arrangement on which you both decide.

He concluded by informing her that if she decided to leave the project leave, “I am sure that Sally Sillcocks [Sarah J. Sillcocks] could make a splendid replacement for you.”^[12]

That same day Plaut wrote Sawyer that he had returned from Germany to London the previous day to find Faison had arrived. “I want to make it clear once again,” he wrote, “that both Ted [Rousseau] and I were delighted from the outset at the prospect of intimate collaboration with the Commission through your good offices.”  He noted that Faison assured him that he [Sawyer] would spend a certain amount of time each week on their affairs and that “you will continue right down to the end of the project to conduct our ‘high level’ liaison and policy.”  Plaut suggested that Sawyer might want to conduct such liaison until he had broken in a successor, and it was for that reason that he proposed Wittmann or anyone of comparable stature be “an ideal assistant for you.  In any case, I wish to reaffirm that you are entirely at liberty to choose anyone you wish for the job without consulting me further, and to arrange all details as you wish.”  Continuing, he wrote:

As to Liz, I think she would have been ideal to take over on a new full-time basis, but her letter written the same day as yours [May 19] reveals a high degree of restlessness and dissatisfaction with a job not commensurate with her abilities. I have felt this building up for some time, yet I have been almost powerless to do anything from this distance. I am touched and gratified by her expressions of loyalty, but I don’t want her to continue in the job on my account as there should be no question of personal loyalties involved.

Therefore, Plaut wrote, if she wished to make a change he was more than willing to approve it with the condition that she should break in her successor.  He noted that Sillcocks was badly needed in London “for the next few weeks in the wild scramble which we anticipate, but she is willing to come back to Washington if you want her and I can let her go about August 1.”^[13]

During early June Sawyer was still busy with his Orion Project work.  He conferred in New York on June 4 through June 6 on Orion Project matters with Francis H. Taylor, with various art dealers, and with A. Seymour Houghton of X-2 Branch, New York Office. Back in Washington Sawyer prepared a memo providing a description of the Orion Project. This was intended to be for the information of trainees and prospective X-2 field officers. He also took part in a conference held by the Orion Project in cooperation with the Roberts Commission with Economic Security Division of the State Department, concerning its interest in looted art from a Safehaven standpoint.^[14]

On June 20 Sawyer wrote John Phillips, who was heading up the London office of the Orion Project, that “My life is now one of action and transition; begin the new work with the Commission on July 1^st and meanwhile busy with all the details.  July will be hectic on both ends with personnel uncertainties clouding the horizon.”^[15]

Sawyer still was busy at the end of June.  On June 20 he provided information to the State Department’s Division of Foreign Activity and on June 25 presented to ECONIC Project officials a brief summary of ORION operations and plans.^[16] Also on June 25, Sawyer met with FEA representatives to discuss revisions to Miss Helen Crooks’ May 5 FEA report on looted art.  In writing about this meeting Sawyer noted “I represented both the Roberts Commission and the OSS.”^[17]

Sawyer assumed duties as Assistant Secretary of the Commission effective July 7, and maintained his affiliation with OSS.^[18] During July he handled both his duties with the Orion Project and those with the Roberts Commission.  In the middle of July Sawyer wrote Plaut that: “Life here has been extremely hectic during the past month, also interesting-learning one job while trying to keep another alive. The Commission business is to put it mildly complicated, and the administrative side has to be built from the ground up.”  He added that “At the other end of the avenue we are at long last really efficiently staff[ed] from the production standpoint, and Liz, really running the show with a morning nod and benediction from your humble servant is beaming rather than fuming.”^[19]

In the latter part of July Sawyer initiated a conference concerning a revision of the FEA Preliminary Report “Looted Art in Occupied Territories, Neutral Countries, and Latin America,” with representatives of the Roberts Commission, the Department of State, the FEA, and Maj. Lee H. Sharrar, the X-2 Branch Executive Officer.  Sawyer chaired the conference, which was held at the National Gallery of Art on July 24.  During July Sawyer also met with the ECONIC Committee, to discuss the gathering and distribution of cultural material of Safehaven interest.^[20]

At the end of the month he wrote Phillips that “I am more than busy these days; I am frantic, trying to keep one show alive and kicking while getting the house in order for business in the other.  Roughly three to four peoples work rest on these narrow shoulders at the moment, and while it is stimulating for a period, it couldn’t go on forever. There is some light ahead on both fronts however and I think that we may end up reasonably set for action.”^[21]

Plaut in the fall of 1945, successfully recommended Sawyer for the Army Commendation Ribbon.  He wrote:

As the Washington director of a highly secret counter-espionage project, he organized the Headquarters office, and was directly responsible for the analysis of all intelligence reports and investigations received by this office and for the independent preparation of reports for dissemination. He was also responsible for the successful liaison of his office with other government agencies, such as the Department of State, Department of the Treasury, G-2 and Civil Affairs Divisions, War Department; Office of Naval Intelligence; and Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas.

The tact, initiative, and extensive knowledge in a highly specialized field which he brought to his assignment reflect great credit upon him and upon this organization.^[22]

During the first week in August Capt. Otto Wittmann, Jr. entered duty with the Orion Project. He soon took over responsibility for overseeing the Washington Office, taking some of the administrative burdens off of Sawyer, thereby allowing him more time to concentrate on his Roberts Commission responsibilities.^[23]

Still, Sawyer was busy with Orion Project work and was most grateful to have Wittmann’s assistance.  He wrote Phillips on August 22, “I have been extremely busy during the last month and none too effective on our show, but there are some decisions that will just have to be made before we can go forward effectually. Otto W. is proving most helpful and I think we are lucky to have him, both to handle the task here and as a temporary fill-in for your assignment [London office] if that is required.”  Three weeks later Sawyer wrote Phillips that work was hectic and that “Altogether, the pastoral life looks pretty good to me right now but I think circumstances and a somewhat tattered New England conscience will probably keep me at it for another six months.”^[24] The day he wrote this, Lambie, who had been promoted to an Intelligence Analyst on August 2, resigned, to be replaced by Sillcocks from the London Office.

Whittmann wrote Plaut on October 12 that Sawyer was going to take a vacation from October 19 to October 30, and planned to leave Washington permanently on January 1.  A week later he wrote Plaut that Sawyer had gone off “for a well-deserved vacation.”^[25]

At the end of October, with Sawyer still on vacation, and the Orion-Wahsington office awaiting the final ALIU reports from Europe, Whittmann reported to Plaut that he had very little to report. “In fact,” he wrote, “things are so quiet they are dull.” A month later he again reported that things had been very quiet in the office.  He added that “Charlie is increasingly busy with his other work, which has apparently turned out to be a good big job, and we see little of him here. I see him usually in his other office, and we are continuing to keep our liaison channels open. The reports [Detailed and Consolidated Interrogation Reports] which have come back have certainly helped to keep up the interest all over town, and we hope that you will continue to send them on.”^[26]

On December 12 Whittmann wrote Plaut that Sawyer intended to leave at the end of the year, but would come down for frequent conferences during January.^[27] As 1946 began Sawyer wrapped up his work in Washington and took a month’s rest in New York before returning to the Worcester Art Museum.^[28] He would maintain his contact with the Commission during the early months of 1946, until before the arrival in February of Lamont Moore to assume his Assistant Secretary-Treasurer position.  He also stayed in contact with his Orion Project colleagues.

In 1947 Sawyer left the Worcester Art Museum to go to Yale to become the Dean of the School of Fine Arts and Director of the Division of the Arts.  He was also professor of history of art.  In 1957 he accepted a position as the Director of the University of Michigan Museum of Art and as professor of art and art history.  In 1963, Sawyer founded the Museum Practice Program, a Rackham School of Graduate Studies program with close ties to the Museum of Art.  This was a landmark program in museum practice to train museum administrators, one of the first of its kind in the United States.  He retired as director in 1972 and as a professor in 1975.  He served as a member of the Smithsonian Art Commission from 1973 to 1982.  The Charles Sawyer Center for Museum Studies at the University of Michigan’s Museum of Art was founded in his honor in 2003. He died February 25, 2005.