He served as a Vice Consul in Marseilles, France, during World War II, and, along with several humanitarian organizations, helped more than 2,500 refugees, mostly Jews, to escape after the country was defeated by Nazi Germany in June 1940.

Senator Hiram Bingham III and his first wife, Alfreda Mitchell, heiress of the Tiffany and Co. fortune through her maternal grandfather Charles L.

He helped many refugees to avoid internment and prepare for emigration and freely issued Nansen passports, a useful form of identity for stateless persons.

Bingham worked with Fry on notable cases, including the emigration of Marc Chagall, political theorist Hannah Arendt, novelist Lion Feuchtwanger, and many other distinguished refugees.

The materials told of Bingham's struggle to save German and Jewish refugees from death, details long hidden from the public.

[8] While posted in London, he met Rose Lawton Morrison (1908–1996), a college drama teacher from Waycross, Georgia, whom he escorted to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen.

Although not a Righteous Among the Nations designation, the letter noted the "humanitarian disposition" of Bingham IV "at a time of persecution of Jews by the Vichy regime in France.... [in] contrast to certain other officials who rather acted suspiciously toward Jewish refugees wishing to enter the United States.

"[11] On June 27, 2002, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell presented a posthumous "Constructive Dissent" award[12] to Bingham's children at an American Foreign Service Officers Association awards ceremony in Washington, D.C.. A commemorative postage stamp portraying Hiram Bingham IV as a "Distinguished American Diplomat" was issued by the United States Postal Service on May 30, 2006.

[13][14] On October 27, 2006, the Anti-Defamation League posthumously presented Bingham its "Courage to Care Award" at the ADL's national conference in Atlanta.

On March 28, 2011, the Simon Wiesenthal Center posthumously awarded Bingham their Medal of Valor in New York City with a film tribute.

The Medal of Valor was awarded posthumously to Sir Winston Churchill, Hiram Bingham IV, and Pope John Paul II...."[16]