DISCLAIMER: The content of this post, and the beliefs expressed by the individuals within, do not reflect the beliefs of me the author. This is written for Cold War Powers - an online role-playing community where we take the roles of world leaders in the Cold War, and as such accurate roleplay requires the discussion of beliefs that are quite frankly abhorrent. For the benefit of those who do not wish to read about these events, a brief summary will be included at the end of the post.

Trigger Warnings: racism, anti-Semitism, terrorism

February 22nd, 1954

White House, Washington, DC

"Jay, how the hell are we letting this happen?!"

President Walt Disney paced around the West Wing conference room in which he had assembled a group to discuss the shocking events that had transpired in Chicago less than 48 hours before. Already the death toll had reached the low 60s, with dozens more still in critical condition and almost two hundred more injured. Now he held a list of anti-Semitic acts of terror completed or attempted over the last year and a half, compiled by FBI Director Hoover, and it seemed so long as to be unthinkable:

• November 11, 1952 - A bomb containing 19 sticks of dynamite was exploded in the Temple Beth-El in Birmingham, Alabama, killing six and injuring 19 more

• February 9th, 1953 - A suitcase containing 30 sticks of dynamite was discovered by police in a suitcase at Temple Emanuel in Gastonia, North Carolina

• March 16th, 1953 - An explosion caused severe damage to the school wing of Temple Beth El in Miami, Florida. Fortunately the attack occurred at night, and none were injured

• Also March 16th, 1953 - The Jewish Community Center in Nashville, Tennessee was bombed by segregationists of the Confederate Union. Two people were killed and another dozen injured

• April 28th, 1953 - A bomb was set off at the Jewish Center, a synagogue in Jacksonville, Florida, during morning services. Four people were killed and another 24 were injured

• Also on April 28th, 1953 - A suitcase containing more than 50 sticks of dynamite failed to explode at Temple Beth El in Birmingham, Alabama, after overnight rain soaked the explosives

• October 12th, 1953 - A suitcase filled with two dozen sticks of dynamite was set off at The Temple in Atlanta, Georgia. 11 people were killed and nearly three dozen injured

• October 14th, 1953 - A bomb was set off outside of Temple Anshei Emeth in Peroia, Illinois. None were injured as it was empty at the time, but significant structural damage has left the temple closed since

And now with the largest attack of them all occurring on live TV and causing the death of a man beloved across the world, the issue of conflict between Americans and Jews is becoming too large to ignore.

"Walt, its the south, they are always up to some nonsense down there. And now you have all these Jews moving into the suburbs and the good Southern folk-"

Disney slammed his fist down on the table. "Some nonsense?!?!?! Jay, people are DYING. Two million Americans just watched Albert fucking Einstein get blown to bits on live TV, and your response is to shrug your shoulders?"

Hoover shook his head and looked at Disney. "Do you know how much work it takes to police all of America, sir? We are constantly trying to monitor people, see situations before they happen, catch major criminals - if we were to try and arrest every Joe Schmoe who doesn't like the Jews, we would never get anything done!"

"Yes, because you have clearly done such a good job preventing crime so far," Disney mocked while gesturing to the paper in front of him. "Genuinely, Jay, I don't know what your boys over at the FBI actually do all day! Like what is all this?" he continued, reaching for a large stack of papers in front of Hoover.

"Walt, don't -" Hoover tried to say as Disney took a handful of papers off the top of the stack. The President looked at the top sheet and furrowed his brow. Then he flipped to the next, and the next, before throwing the whole stack down on the conference table.

"Jay, what - and I mean this as insultingly as possible - the FUCK is this?"

Hoover paused for a moment, considering the right way to respond. "That is... our file on Albert Einstein."

Disney stared at him in disbelief. "Why do you have a dossier two dozen pages long on EINSTEIN?"

"Actually, sir," Attorney General Nixon interrupted, "those are just the papers from this year. The full file is around 1400 pages long."

The President went silent at that, took a deep breath and simply looked at Hoover.

"Walt," Hoover tried to say, "you have to understand - the man was a RED! He was a goddamn Socialist-"

"Jay," Disney spoke, his voice devoid of any of it's usual inflection, "I need you to stop talking right now." He walked around the table, picked up a bottle of scotch, and poured himself a glass. "This," he continued, looking back at the FBI Director, "is a 30 year old bottle of scotch. Smooth as a baby's bottom, absolutely delightful flavor. I think it was $500 for the bottle. So I am going to need you to sit down and shut the fuck up, because if I have to crack your skull with this bottle to get you to stop talking it would be an incredible waste of a good drink."

Hoover blinked twice, completely unaccustomed to being talked to in such a manner, but eventually retreated to the back of the room and sat down. The President then looked around at the rest of the room, and settled on Nixon.

"Dick," he said, "how are your justice boys handling this Chicago business?"

"Well sir," Nixon began, "all reports so far indicate that Schiller acted alone, of his own accord. The explosives were purchased in a shop outside Detroit, and he carried them in his bag on the train into Chicago the day of the attack. From what we can tell, he was just a kid who had no other place to turn his life to - he failed out of his final year at Central Michigan and had to move back home; his mom died over a decade ago and his dad really does not like having him around. From interviews with people that knew him in Bloomfield Hills, he latched onto Coughlin and his church as his only real system of support. The Father seems to have really ramped up the anti-Jew comments over the last few years since the Palestinian War ended, and I guess the kid took it to heart, and saw this as an opportunity to make him proud or something. We've already taken the pastor in for questioning, but I don't think he actually planned any of this; he's just a piece of shit."

Disney put his head in his hands. "And this is just a thing that happens? All the time? You mean to tell me that people are so barbaric they are willing to kill dozens of innocent people?"

"Sir, you have to understand - they don't see any Jews as innocent; the way Coughlin and his ilk talk about it, Zion was just the beginning. The suburbs in the south and Midwest especially have seen a lot of Jewish people moving in since the beginning of the War, and people are viewing it as some sort of intentional planned replacement."

"But this was Einstein!" Disney shouted incredulously. "This man was beloved the world over! Hell, he was in the middle of a speech denouncing the State of Zion! What more could he have done?"

"You can't think of people like Schiller as thinking reasonably," Nixon responded, "they have been ingrained with ideas like this that they find events in the world to justify and make feel real. Einstein could have been up on that stage being baptized by the Pope and it wouldn't have changed his mind. The Jewish people, they are simply of a different culture to the average American. It's like oil and water - you can mix them up enough that they seem to have blended, but give it time and eventually they separate back out again."

"Oh c'mon now Dick, you don't really believe that, do you? I've worked with Jews for years in Hollywood, they are a good people, an honest people. They're goddamn Americans!"

"Sir," Nixon sighed, "it's wonderful that you see it that way. But unfortunately there are many Americans who are not so open-minded as you are. They are average American mothers, who have moved to the suburbs to have a nice community for their children and now suddenly see waves of people with different customs and European accents moving in all around them. They are hardworking American fathers, who simply wish to go to church on Sundays but have to pass a hundred cars lined up at newly-built synagogues to get there. They are playful American children who see other kids running around with strange hats on their heads and cannot understand why. It's just not normal sir."

Disney took a deep breath and paused for a moment, thinking things over. The damn presidency has just been one disaster after another, and the world looked to him to have answers to everything. It was exhausting.

He looked down at the thumb of scotch in front of him and downed it in a single move, before turning back to the room. "Ok then, what do we do about it?"

Nixon looked confused. "Do about... what? Coughlin?"

"No," Disney replied, "the Jews."

The room was silent for a long moment. "Sir," Nixon hesitantly responded, "what exactly do you mean by that?"

"Look," Disney began, "I don't fully buy your whole 'oil and water' nonsense, but I cannot argue with the fact that such a view is not prevalent, if not overwhelming across much of America. But Dick, this is America! The damn country was founded by men and women fleeing religious persecution in England by crowns and priests, just as these Jews have fled to our land of opportunity fleeing the grotesque atrocities of the Holocaust. But now we are the ones with the persecuting priests, the people fighting against a perceived 'replacement' as you called it. Sure, we could lock Coughlin up, send in the riot police to every city in America, and protect American Jews by force, but how long can that last? These same prejudices, these same issues, they will come back, just as they did in England. How many Chicagos are we going to let happen while we try and stop such an endless cycle of hate? Five? Ten? A hundred? How many people will die because we are unwilling to accept that sometimes, people simply cannot just get along?"

The room fell into another poignant pause, interrupted only by the voice of White House Counsel Bernard Shanley. "Mr. President, you aren't proposing that we deport the entire Jewish population of the United States, are you?"

Disney had poured himself another thumb of scotch, and nearly choked taking a sip as he heard that. "DEPORT? God, who do you think I am, Stalin?"

With that, Disney sighed, got up, and started pacing. Those in the room had known him long enough to understand this meant he was putting together what he wanted to say in his mind, and so not to speak until he did. Eventually he stopped and looked back at the room.

"Bernie," he began, "people are dying. I am the President of the United States, and it is my duty to ensure that anyone living here who follows the law, whether they be Christian or Jewish, does not fear for their safety. Clearly, however, we are as of now unable to guarantee such a situation for anyone claiming Jewish affiliation within our country, a situation that is mortifying but nevertheless must guide our actions. We have become the very people our founders fled from three hundred years ago, and now the Jewish people are suffering for it!"

Disney was now standing up straighter, gesticulating with his hands, and generally back into 'public speech' mode. "But we do not need to continue repeating the mistakes of our fathers! While our people may have had to flee of their own accord, with no support and no plan, we do not need to doom the Jewish people to the same fate. These are tired, poor, huddled masses, yearning to be free, and what they need is America - a new America, one where they can not only survive, but thrive. They may be Jewish, but they are still Americans, and if our American Dream has shut its door in their face because of a few violent men, then it is our duty, it is my duty, to provide for them a new dream, one on new shores who will welcome them with open arms. And to me, it seems that such a place already exists, in the new State of Zion."

At the mention of the new Jewish state, the room seemed to go even more silent than it had been before. "Yes yes, I know, I know. Zion is a land practically founded on controversy and international disapproval. But you must admit, there is likely no state on Earth where Jewish culture is not only protected, but propagated. And our solution does not need to be deportation -" shooting an annoyed glance at Shanley, "we simply need to create a system that allows any Jewish person to move to Zion as easily as possible, from both a legal and financial standpoint. To do so is not only the moral thing to do, it is not only the right thing to do, it is the American thing to do."

"Ben," he said, pointing to White House Cabinet Secretary Benjamin Franklin Fairless, "get out your pen, I have an idea..."

EXECUTIVE ORDER

PROVIDING ASSISTANCE FOR THE EMIGRATION OF AMERICAN JEWS TO THE STATE OF ZION

WHEREAS recent tragedies, such as the attack in Chicago, have demonstrated the danger and violence faced by many American Jews on a regular basis;

UNDERSTANDING that total nation-wide law enforcement in protection of Jewish Americans is untenable for any extended period of time, and would not address the underlying anti-Semitism that has reared its ugly head across the country;

RECOGNIZING that the State of Zion is a nation that is dedicated to the protection and advancement of Jewish culture and individuals;

BELIEVING in the righteousness of the American dream to seek a greater home on far-away shores to create a better life for your children;

NOTING WITH CONCERN that the authoritarian states in the Soviet orbit have refused to allow freedom of movement, and have thus trapped hundreds of thousands in nations where they feel unsafe and unwanted,

NOW, THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and Statutes of the United States, including Chapter 15 of Title 10, particularly sections 332, 333 and 334 thereof, and section 301 of Title 3 of the United States Code, It is hereby ordered as follows:

SECTION 1. I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of State to alter or repeal any policies necessary to facilitate the emigration of American Jews to the State of Zion.

SECTION 2. The Secretary of the Treasury and the Chief Imagineer are authorized to, upon joint discussion and agreement, implement policies allowing for the subsidization of the sale of homes of American Jews, the subsidization of home and land purchases in the State of Zion, and the full compensation of all costs of transportation between the United States and the State of Zion by American Jews.

SECTION 3. I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of Arts, Culture, and Information to publish and communicate all relevant policies and directions from the aforementioned orders in all locations deemed useful and necesary for the widest-possible communication of this information.

SECTION 4. In furtherance of the aforementioned orders, I hereby call upon Congress to, with all possible haste, pass into law any necessary laws to codify and facilitate the aforementioned goals.

WALTER ELIAS Disney

THE WHITE House

February 25, 1954