Hiram Bingham IV: A US Vice Consul Recognized some 60 Years Later for His Humanitarian Deeds in Saving Lives IN  MEMORIAM  AD  VITAM  ÆTERNAM

Hiram Bingham IV, of Salem, Connecticut, USA, was the son of Hiram Bingham III, the explorer who discovered Machu Picchu in Peru in 1911. The Honorable Bingham IV died in 1988 at the age of 84. When he was the US vice consul in Marseilles, France from 1939 to 1941, he defied the State Department policy by issuing fake, life-saving visas for those fleeing the Nazi Regime. (A sample of such fake, life-saving visa issued by Hiram Bingham IV is provided herein.) On June 27, 2002, the U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell praised Mr. Bingham's actions, and presented a posthumous award to his children at a special State Department awards ceremony. This was the very first time that the United States formally recognized Mr. Bingham's contribution to humanity --some sixty plus years after his removal from Marseilles by the State Department for defying its blind policy towards the Holocaust. .

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