Harry Slattery was an American statesman and lawyer who served as the United States Under Secretary of the Interior from 1938 to 1939. The Slattery report, originally titled The Problem of Alaskan Development, was given his name; the proposal was produced by the United States Department of the Interior under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and recommended moving European refugees, especially Jews from Nazi Germany and Austria, to four locations in Alaska. The plan received little public support and was not supported by Roosevelt, who insisted that the number of refugees be limited to ten thousand per year and that Jews not make up more than ten percent of that amount.

Harry Slattery was born on June 13, 1887, in Greenville, South Carolina. He attended Mount Saint Mary’s College in Maryland, Georgetown University and George Washington University. He began his career as secretary to the Chief Forester, Gifford Pinchot, who worked for the Theodore Roosevelt administration. He was Executive Secretary of the National Conservation Association and Special Assistant to United States Secretary of the Interior, Franklin K. Lane. Harry Slattery was also involved in the Senate investigations into the Teapot Dome Scandal of 1921, the high water mark of cabinet corruption that damaged the reputation of President Warren G. Harding.