In spring 1944, President Roosevelt dispatched US Treasury Department official Iver C. Olsen to Stockholm as a representative of the WRB. In addition to his duties with the WRB, Olsen was also secretly functioning as the chief of currency operations for the Stockholm branch of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the United States' wartime espionage service. In search of someone willing and able to go to Budapest to organize a rescue program for the nation's Jews, Olsen established contact with a relief committee composed of many prominent Swedish Jews led by the Swedish Chief Rabbi Marcus Ehrenpreis to locate an appropriate person to travel to Budapest under diplomatic cover and lead the rescue operation. One member of the committee was Wallenberg's business associate Kalman Lauer.