The Office of Alien Property Custodian (OAPC)
The Office of Alien Property Custodian was an office within the government of the United States during World War I and again during World War II, serving as a custodian to property that belonged to US enemies. The office was created in 1917 by Executive Order 2729-A under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 (TWEA) in order to “assume control and dispose of enemy-owned property in the United States and its possessions.”
Sec. 6 of TWEA authorized the president to appoint an official known as the “alien property custodian” (APC) who is responsible for “receiving, holding, administering, and accounting for” “all money and property in the United States due or belonging to an enemy, or ally of enemy.” TWEA was originally enacted during World War I “to permit, under careful safeguards and restrictions, certain kinds of business to be carried on “among warring nations, and to “provide for the care and administration of the property and property rights of enemies and their allies in this country pending the war.”
On 11 March 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9095 establishing the Office of the Alien Property Custodian as an independent agency under his direct authority. He appointed Leo Crowley, a former banker and chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as APC. During the war the APC amassed a vast portfolio of enemy property including real estate, business enterprises, ships and intellectual property in the form of trademarks, copyrights, patents and pending patent applications. Following Nikola Tesla’s death at the New Yorker Hotel in 1943, the Custodian seized much of Tesla’s work from his hotel room even though Tesla was an American citizen.
In 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Dallas Townsend Sr. Assistant United States Attorney General, heading the Justice Department’s Alien Property Office, an office he held until 1960. Townsend supervised the seizure of enemy property and assets that had been seized during World War II. Testifying before a U.S. Subcommittee in 1957, Townsend argued that a return of 10% of seized enemy property was a sufficient amount.
On May 13, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Vice President and predecessor to John F. Kennedy, issued Executive Order 11281 which abolished the office, effective June 30 of that year.
Lineage of successive agencies
- Office of Alien Property Custodian, Department of Justice (1917-1934)
- Alien Property Bureau, Department of Justice (1934-1941)
- Alien Property Division, Department of Justice (1941-1942)
- Office of Alien Property Custodian, Department of Justice (1942-1946)
- Office of Alien Property, Department of Justice (1946-1966)
- Office of Foreign Assets Control, Treasury Department (1966-current)
Information gathered from https://archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/131.html and Wikipedia.org