It was only several weeks later, on 28 August 1942, that WJC President Stephen S. Wise received Riegner's alarming message. The telegram was met with disbelief despite preexisting evidence for mass executions. The US State Department considered it "a wild rumor, fueled by Jewish anxieties", while the British Foreign Office refused to forward the telegram for the time being and called for the allegations to be investigated first. It was only on 25 November 1942 that the WJC was allowed to release the news to the world.