Robert Dexter

Robert Cloutman Dexter (1887 – 1955) was the founder of the Unitarian Service Committee (progenitor of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee), which worked before and during World War II to rescue and assist refugees from Nazi Germany. Dexter headed the Unitarian's office in Lisbon, Portugal during World War II. The Unitarians and other humanitarian organizations helped thousands of intellectuals and artists, many of them Jews, fleeing the Nazis to emigrate to safety in the United States and other countries. Dexter also worked with the clandestine Office of Strategic Services (OSS), providing information about Nazi Germany to the U.S. from his network of refugee workers in France, Spain, and Portugal.