The program began in Germany soon after Hitler took power and expanded to include Austria, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Italy.
Johnson brought a significant number of the scholars to The New School, founding the "University in Exile" which became the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science.
Late in 1933, Murrow also became (without pay) the Assistant Secretary of the Committee in Aid of Displaced German Scholars.
His main assignment was to identify those at risk in their home countries and arrange for them to lecture and teach at U.S. colleges and universities.
Murrow worked with the Emergency Committee until early 1937, overlapping the first year of his long career at CBS News.