0025) Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Sr.

"My affairs are too important to be trifled with."

One of the ways in which the self-important Henry Morgenthau strong-armed Talat Pasha, yet another episode where the Ottoman leader acquiesced to . . the superior American. From "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story."

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Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Sr.

From an Armenian web site is the following insight into the life of Ambassador Morgenthau... written by ANI's Dr. Rouben Paul Adalian:

Henry Morgenthau (1856-1946) was United States ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during the Armenian Genocide. A naturalized American from a German Jewish family, Morgenthau was a successful lawyer active in Democratic Party politics. With the election of President Woodrow Wilson, he was appointed United States Ambassador to the Sublime Porte in 1913. In Constantinople he established personal contact with the Young Turk leaders of the Ottoman Empire, especially the Minister of the Interior, Talaat, with whom he unsuccessfully intervened to alleviate the plight of the Armenian population when beginning in April, 1915, news of the deportations and massacres began to reach the Embassy. The US consulates in the interior of the Ottoman Empire relayed a stream of alarming reports detailing the extent of the measures taken against the Armenians. Despite the difficulties of communication during the war, Oscar H. Heizer in Trebizond, Leslie A. Davis in Mamuret-el-Aziz, or Harput (Kharpert in Armenian), and especially Jesse B. Jackson in Aleppo regularly posted the Embassy with their own eyewitness accounts of the treatment of the Armenians. On June 5, 1915, Jackson shared his views about the persecutions with the Ambassador and concluded that they constituted "a carefully planned scheme to thoroughly extinguish the Armenian race." Morgenthau forwarded all the reports to Washington, D.C. The accumulating evidence also led Morgenthau to cable the Department of State on July 16, 1915, with his own dispatch that "a campaign of race extermination is in progress." Drained by his failure to avert this disaster, Morgenthau returned to the United States in 1916 and for the remainder of the war years he dedicated himself to raising funds for the surviving Armenians. In 1918 he published Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, a memoir of his years in Turkey, in which he stressed the German influence and role in the Ottoman Empire. He titled the chapter on the Armenians, "The Murder of a Nation." He described the deportations and the atrocities as a "cold-blooded, calculating state policy." He avowed at the time: "I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this." Morgenthau was the father of Henry Morgenthau Jr., Secretary of the Treasury during the administration of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.



Here is an example of the Ambassador's Thinking


The Independent
February 28, 1920


Shall Armenia Perish?
By Henry Morgenthau

Former Ambassador to Turkey, and National
Vice-Chairman of Near East Relief


Two hundred and fifty thousand Christian Armenian women enslaved in Turkish harems call to the people of America for liberation! One hundred thousand women already rescued by Near East Relief agents from harems will perish unless support from America is continued! Two hundred and fifty thousand children, orphaned by the unspeakable Turks, are calling in the only English they know, "Bread, Uncle Sam." One million two hundred thousand destitute, homeless, clotheless adults look to the giant in the West for the succor that will keep them from annihilation. What shall our answer be?

If they were good enough to fight and die for us when we needed their help so sorely, are they not good enough to be given some crumbs from our plenty?

Since the beginning of the war, the Turkish Armenians have been largely refugees. A simple, agricultural people, they have been exiled from their farms and deprived of all opportunity to support themselves. Now, more than a year after the armistice, they are still living the life of nomads, able to continue alive only by virtue of American philanthropy. If ever unmerited suffering called for succor the plight of the Armenians should be heeded now. A few months more and it may be relief will come too late for those myriads whom only we can save.

Let the American slogan now become-Serve Armenians for a little while longer with life's necessities that they may be preserved for the day of national freedom and rebirth, which no people more truly and greatly deserves.

Henry's main squeeze, at right


The belief, held by some persons, that Turkey has repented and can do not further harm, is without foundation. The group that led Turkey into the war on the side of Germany is now in the saddle. The Turk has not been disarmed and these leaders are now aiding the Tartars. Kurds and Bolshevists are urging them on to kill and rob the surviving Armenians at every opportunity. The deportations and massacres during the war were not spontaneous uprisings of unorganized mobs, but were the working out of a well-plotted plan of wholesale extermination in which regular Turkish officers and troops took part as if in a campaign against an enemy in the field.

More than 2,000,000 persons were deported. The system was about the same everywhere. The Armenians, men, women and children, would be assembled in the marketplace. Then the able-bodied men would be marched off and killed by being shot or clubbed in cold blood at some spot which did not necessitate the trouble of burial.

Next the women would be sorted out. Agents of the Turk officers picked the youngest and fairest for their masters' harems. Next the civil officials had their pick, and then the remainder either were sold for one medjidi-a silver coin valued at about 80 cents-or were driven forth to be seized by the lower class Turks and Kurds.

As a last step, those who remained, mothers, grandmothers, children, were driven forth on their death pilgrimages across the desert of Aleppo, with no food, no water, no shelter, to be robbed and beaten at every halt, to see children slain in scores before their eyes, and babies dashed to death against rocks or spitted on the bayonets of the soldier guards.

If America is going to condone these offenses, if she is going to permit to continue conditions that threaten and permit their repetition, she is party to the crime. These peoples must be freed from the agony and danger of such horrors. They must not only be saved for the present but either thru governmental action or protection under the League of Nations they must be given assurance that they will be free in peace and that no harm can come to them.
HAREMS??




"Two hundred and fifty thousand Christian Armenian women enslaved in Turkish harems," indeed! So ordinary Turks had harems... hmmmm. Contrary to Western belief, the only harem I'm aware of — the Sultan's harem — wasn't even the kind of place where the Sultan could "pick and choose" his sexual partners. (The harem, by the way, was a Byzantine tradition.)

Ambassador Morgenthau was playing up to Americans' ignorance of the mysterious ways of the Orient. Not the only time he expressed a willingness to demonstrate a total disregard for the truth.

On the surface, the ambassador seemed to be your plain, everyday Turk-hater common to the period, with descriptions such as "The unspeakable Turks." (Morgenthau believed the Turks were an inferior race, possessing "inferior blood.") He certainly was not above repeating (or creating) sensational stories, such as, "...babies dashed to death against rocks or spitted on the bayonets of the soldier guards." Nor did he care about citing actual statistics, claiming a deportation of a cool two million Armenians, more than existed in the entire Ottoman Empire. And check out his pat conclusion: "...not spontaneous uprisings of unorganized mobs, but ... the working out of a well-plotted plan of wholesale extermination." No wonder Armenians still love to quote this man. (Californian Professor Marashlian calls Morgenthau's testimony " unimpeachable." Footnotes for Dr. Lowry's examination of the book give examples of how Fellow Californian Professor Hovannisian cites Morgenthau practically every chance he gets.)

What kind of a man was the ambassador, anyhow?

"Henry Morgenthau, who is frequently quoted by Armenian Americans, visited the Ottoman Empire with political, not humanitarian aims. His correspondence with President Wilson reveals his intent was to uncover or manufacture news which would goad the U.S. into joining the war. Given that motive, Henry Morgenthau sought to vilify the Ottoman Empire, an enemy of the Triple Entente." (From An Unjust Trial.)

Prof. Heath W. Lowry, in his article entitled "American Observers in Anatolia CA. 1920: The Bristol Papers" states as follows:
"Morgenthau was a confirmed 'Turcophobe' whose hatred for the Turks was matched only by his unabashed support for the Christian minorities under Ottoman rule...Armenian spokesmen consistently refer to H. Morgenthau's statements as proof, in their pursuit to convince the politicians that a so-called genocide occurred. In his tenure, Mr Morgenthau has never left Istanbul ..."

Morgenthau himself admits that he never visited eastern Anatolia and he let his Armenian aide shape up his diplomatic propaganda against the Ottoman Empire:

"I have really found it impossible to sit down and dictate a letter
quietly. So I have instructed Andonian to take my diary and copy it with some elaborations of his own. Of course this relieves me of all responsibility for any error."

Lowry, 1990; Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library, New York, Letters;

Hagop S. Andonian

Box 7 May 11, 1915; Box 1 2 September 1, 1915; Box 8 July 13, 1915)

Hagop S. Andonian


RELIEVES ME OF ALL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY ERROR? That's convenient. It reveals a lot about the man's character, too. The Ambassador also wrote:

"You probably know that with the approval of the President (Wilson), I have undertaken to write a book. Mr. Andonian is assisting me in the preparation of that work and owing to his intimate knowledge of the east (Anatolia) and his unusual experience, his services to me are really indispensable."

Lowry, 1990; Library of Congress, The Papers of Henry Morgenthau, Reel No 8.

That does not help in building credibilty to the historical value of his book, "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story." Moreover, as influential as his Armenian assistants (his primary aide, translator and confidant in Istanbul and Anatolia was an Armenian, Arshag Schmavonian, his secretary, sometime translator and soon-to-become sometime movie companion [upon traveling to the States] was also an Armenian, Hagop Andonian... possibly related to the forger, Aram Andonian, since "Andonian" may not have been that common a name) could well have had pull with false reports, and even to the extent of shaping up his memoirs; the ambassador also employed a ghost writer (Burton J. Hendrick) to actually write his book... deviating by the truckload from his letters and diaries.

Professor Heath Lowry exposes these deviations in his report, The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau's Story.

George A. Schreiner in his "The Craft Sinister: A Diplomatico-Political History of the Great War and its Causes, (G. Albert Gayer, New York, 1920)" writes about Ambassador Morgenthau¹s misleadings of the American government. ("It is to be hoped that the future historian will not give too much heed to the drivel one finds in the books of diplomatist-authors.") The distinguished foreign correspondent (having served in Turkey from February through the end of 1915) wrote Morgenthau a biting December 11,1918 letter, criticizing him for the fallacies in his unethically written book (Ambassador Morgenthau's Story).

It seems to me Morgenthau let his ego run away with him, enjoying the notion that his fellow Americans looked upon the ambassador as the savior of a Christian people. The intensity with which he communicated his thoughts (as with the article above) provides a strong clue... he must have liked the fact that he came across as a hero. There are a good number of passages in his ghost-written book where his heroic deeds and attitude is presented (or as Schreiner mocked, his "omniscience and omnipotence"), even though some of his letters and diaries paint an altogether different picture.

For example, there is a point where he forces himself on the Turkish leaders whenever he wants:

"I shall not be denied an interview," I replied. "I shall come up to the cabinet room at four o'clock. If you refuse to receive me then, I shall insist on going into the council room and discussing the matter with the whole Cabinet. I shall be interested to learn whether the Turkish Cabinet will refuse to receive the American Ambassador."

Immediately after which, Enver Pasha is heard to gasp over the phone. As always, Morgenthau gets what he wishes.

The Turkish leaders snap to his every high and mighty command throughout the book. For example, he brags about seeing Talat "nearly every day." Yet, in the first six months of 1914, his diaries and letters indicate a Talat tete-a-tete of no more than twenty times.

Some of the incidents he has his ghostwriter tell us, if true, must have done wonders for his bloated ego. For example, at one point he once again manipulates the Turks to acquiesce to his wishes by managing to get only a handful of Ottoman Britons and French shipped off. When he comes back to tell the nervously awaiting flock the good news, they are so stunned in disbelief that the women fall on their hands to kiss his hands, and the men embrace him (in the case of the latter, much to his "violent protestations"... Morgenthau wanted to make clear he was a manly man). That kind of hero-worship must have gotten pretty addictive.

However, the greatest example, to my mind, of Ambassador Morgenthau's mission to present himself as a heroic savior is...



...His decision to appear in 1919's RAVISHED ARMENIA as HIMSELF! What an egomaniac..!
Passages where Morgenthau itches to show the Turks as beautiful human beings



And then with great cleverness he would play upon the only emotion which really actuates the Turk. The descendants of Osman hardly resemble any people I have ever known. They do not hate, they do not love; they have no lasting animosities or affections. They only fear. And naturally they attribute to others the motives which regulate their own conduct. "How stupid you are," Wangenheim would tell Talaat and Enver....

So the Turks are cowards. Check.

The state of war had now made me, as American Ambassador, the protector of all British, French, Serbian, and Belgian subjects. I realized from the beginning that my task would be a difficult one. On one hand were the Germans, urging their well-known ideas of repression and brutality, while on the other were the Turks, with their traditional hatred of Christians and their natural instinct to maltreat those who are helplessly placed in their power.

The Turks are brutes. Check.

The Turks, like most primitive peoples, wear their emotions on the surface, and with them the transition from exultation to despair is a rapid one...

The Turks are primitive. Check.

Essentially the Turk is a bully and a coward; he is brave as a lion when things are going his way, but cringing, abject, and nerveless when reverses are overwhelming him.

The Turks are bullies. Check. And cowards... hey. We already covered cowards. However, let's make a note of how nerveless Turks are against overwhelming odds. As in Plevna, for example. And as with not settling to have the right of self determination taken away from them, when the Allies came up with the Sevres Treaty. Few chapters in history represented overwhelming odds as those that governed the birth of the Turkish Republic.


We must realize that the basic fact underlying the Turkish mentality is its utter contempt for all other races. A fairly insane pride is the element that largely explains this strange human species...

Pretty ironic this haughty fellow is one to look down on pride. Building several empires over the course of a millennium has a tendency to produce pride, it's a funny thing. And as far as utter contempt for other races, those other races were allowed to rise to high positions in Ottoman life centuries before blacks got the right to drink from general water fountains in the United States.

At this point, I fear Ambassador Morgenthau just might have lost his faith in human nature. Where, oh where, will he come up with an example to offset this Turkish blight upon humanity? Hold on! Here it comes...

What is definitely known about the Armenians, however, is that for ages they have constituted the most civilized and most industrious race in the eastern section of the Ottoman Empire. From their mountains they have spread over the Sultan's dominions, and form a considerable element in the population of all the large cities. Everywhere they are known for their industry, their intelligence, and their decent and orderly lives. They are so superior to the Turks intellectually and morally that much of the business and industry had passed into their hands.

Armenian.... Good. Turk.... Bad. Got it...

The most beautiful and healthy Armenian girls could be taken, converted forcibly to Mohammedanism, and made the wives or concubines of devout followers of the Prophet. Their children would then automatically become Moslems and so strengthen the empire, as the Janissaries had strengthened it formerly. These Armenian girls represent a high type of womanhood and the Young Turks, in their crude, intuitive way, recognized that the mingling of their blood with the Turkish population would exert a eugenic influence upon the whole.

Armenians.... Salvation for the Turkish Race. Got it.

Say, didn't those Janissaries weaken the empire? I thought that was why they were gotten rid of, finally.....

...It was a complete revelation of Turkish mentality; the fact that, above all considerations of race and religion, there are such things as humanity and civilization, never for a moment enters their mind. They can understand a Christian fighting for a Christian and a Jew fighting for a Jew, but such abstractions as justice and decency form no part of their conception of things.

Well, I think we have churned enough stomachs and now have an excellent idea of where the good Ambassador was coming from. We also now can see why the Armenians and Greeks totally revere this man, and why Armenian professors are desperate to still cling to his weighty words as the gospel truth.


More on Morgenthau (from guestbook commentator, Nick, a Briton)




(Bold highlighting by Holdwater)

Re: Please read this message
From: NICK
Date: 11/22/1999



Comments
Interesting. But you don't think that somewhere in these reports was the element of war time propaganda? Morgenthau is extremely unreliable and his book is not only an example of war time propaganda but also of the pathology of 19th century racism. I refer you to chapter XXII of Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, "The Turk Reverts to Ancestral Type". It is full of nonsensical stories of abducted women forced into harems or auctioned at markets, forced adoption of children and so on. He says the same things about the Germans and Austrians incidentally — deportations of Belgians, wholesale violation of Belgian women, the abduction by Austrians of Serb children and the settlement in parts of Europe vacated by deportees by good German stock! All stories proved false after the war. He even states that the Turks, good with cudgels and knives, are too dull and unimaginative to come up with the concept of deportation — it was a German idea!

His book oozes with racial slurs and prejudice----"The most beautiful and healthy Armenian girls could be taken, converted forcibly to Mohammedanism, and made wives or concubines of devout followers of the Prophet. Their children would then automatically become Moslems and so strengthen the empire as the janissaries had strengthened it formally. These Armenian girls represent a high type of womanhood and the Young Turks, in their crude intuitive way, recognized that the mingling of their blood with the Turkish population would exert a eugenic influence on the whole." This is ludicrous, ridiculous and this nasty book is still in print, it is cited in Congress and used in "education packs" for high school and college students.

Sentiments like these expressed about any other ethnic group would be considered abhorrent — yet aimed at the Turks it seems to be acceptable. It is mystery to me how any sensible person could, in this day and age, read this rubbish without squirming in his seat with embarrassment.

It is ironic that Morgenthau, as a Jew, should make these kinds of racial comments and eugenic observations given what was to follow. This book is a piece of propaganda and it is interesting that Morgenthau is the source of many articles and stories — he is a principle supplier of information to Bryce whose role during the war was as a producer of propaganda. Even Bryce's material, emanating as it does from a professional, is interesting if you read between the lines; in a letter from an American missionary woman in Van it says that she had "thrust" upon her the care of 1000 Turkish refugees from villages that Russo-Armenian volunteers were "cleaning out"!

Now there is an interesting phrase with more than a little contemporary resonance. The term "ethnic clearing" was used by Serbs to describe the cleaning of Vukovar of Croat Catholics. The interesting thing is that this comment is dropped in in a matter of fact way — it must have been commonplace and it illustrates her prejudices and priorities — "While Armenian refugees had been mutually helpful and self sacrificing, these Moslems showed themselves absolutely selfish, callous and indifferent to each other's suffering. Where Armenians had been cheery and hopeful, and had clung to life with wonderful vitality, the Moslems, with no faith in God and no hope of a future life, bereft now of hope in this life, died like flies of prevailing dysentry from lack of stamina and the will to live."

This is a sample from what is common throughout these reports. Muslims are brutal, barbaric, selfish and died like "flies" because they lacked faith in God. Christians are cheerful in adversity, meek, selfless and sustained by their Christian faith. It should be obvious to a simpleton that these reports are one sided, biased, carefully selected and presented to cater to the baser prejudices and prurient fantasies that western people had about the east, in the interest of promoting the war effort.

These "stories" are accepted today without any reservation because they serve an ideology. For example, the Christians of Trebizond — 10,000 of them — are put into sailing boats and (methods varying according to which source you read) taken out to sea, and thrown overboard! All 10,000 of them and all in an afternoon! Has anyone actually thought about the logistics of this? Isn't this just a little complicated? Am I the only one who thinks that Bryce is egging the pudding just a bit?

From the CENSUS page

On Oct 6th 1915 Bryce tells the House of Lords that 800,000 Armenians had been murdered in six months! What remarkable access he had to information from the interior of an enemy country! And yet we have all these survivors. We are told that 1.5-2 million Armenians died (time frame flexible) — and yet the top estimate of the Armenian population of Ottoman Anatolia at the turn of the century is just under 1.5 million. If you look at population statistics for this period you will see that between 1914 and 1922, in Anatolia, about 300,000 Greeks died, about 600,000 Armenians and about 2.75 million Muslims died. If the argument were to be made that in the course of this war Armenians suffered a catastrophe that was genocidal in its impact then nobody would be arguing. But that is not what is being said. Bryce states that Armenians are being destroyed as a policy of state — that there are orders to this effect. Well, where are these orders?

The fact remains that there is not a single Ottoman government document in existence that discusses, plans or commands the execution of these "orders". The definition of genocide has to be made very elastic to make the accusation credible in this case and there is reliance on propaganda of dubious provenance and eighty years old and liberal use of repugnant racial stereotypes in lieu of facts. The only fact that is certain is that this war was genocidal in its impact for all the people of Anatolia. No other theatre of war experience casualties of this magnitude not just amongst soldiers but civilians as well. It is complicated by the fact that the distinction between regular and irregular troops and civilians did not exist.

The Lawyer was a Liar



"One day Talaat made what was perhaps the most astonishing request I had ever heard. The 'New York Life Insurance Company' and the 'Equitable Life of New York' had for years done considerable business among the Armenians. The extent to which these people insured their lives was merely another indication of their thrifty habits.

'I wish,' Talaat now said, 'That you would get the American Life Insurance Companies to send us a complete list of Armenian policy holders. They are practically all dead now and have left no heirs to collect the money. It of course all escheats to the state. The Government is beneficiary now. Will you do so?

This was almost too much, and I lost my temper. 'You will get no such list from me,' I said, and I got up and left him.

The above is a passage often pointed to in Armenian friendly sources to show the inhumanity of Talat Pasha; it is from Henry Morgenthau's book, and only one of the many fabrications exposed by the meticulous research conducted by Dr. Heath Lowry in "The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau's Story."

Today, lawyers enjoy the reputation of being perhaps the sleaziest of professions in the United States, and the field's practitioners are often perceived as people with no moral scruples whatsoever. This was not always the case; there was a time when those who were experts in the Law were seen as among the most honorable of citizens. There were enough examples of lawyers performing in immoral ways that turned public opinion drastically against them, and we can now see Henry Morgenthau must have done his utmost to assist this tide that went against those of his chosen profession.

(By the way, it also didn't hurt for the unethical Mr. Morgenthau to drop the name of an insurance firm [Equitable] he happened to be on the Board of Directors of... a free plug never hurts, especially in what was sure to be a sensationally popular book.)


Oh, Henry!




Children loved Henry Morgenthau


Was Morgenthau as rabid a Turk-hater as he comes across? When I read such words coming from missionaries or from religiously-inclined U.S. Consuls such as George Horton, I can believe their Turk-hatred truly emanates from their hearts. However, Morgenthau appears to be of a different breed. As a lawyer and real estate developer, and as a city person who probably wasn't too wrapped up in religion, I don't see how he could be this venomous.

Morgenthau's purpose was to vilify Turks and Germans to induce the Americans to enter the war. Thus, there was a strong possibility he wasn't totally out there as his wild words indicate (although he certainly must have had enough prejudice within him to have gone as overboard as he did)... since he got along well with the Turks, according to his letters/diaries, and any of this oozing contempt seemed rare in those more reliable documents (some letters of which secretary Andonian wrote, so they are not completely reliable, either.)

This leads me to believe he mostly said such things in order to achieve an end. If such is the case, what must we think of him?

It's one thing when a racist makes offensive statements... not that it wouldn't be terrible, but while one's lip curls in disgust somehow one could understand such people; they can't help themselves, having been mentally deranged. This is why it's hard to hate Armenians in their web sites.

However, if someone slanders to the ugly and vicious extent that Ambassador Morgenthau allowed himself to do... regardless of how noble he believed his cause was (similarly, his propagandist co-conspirators on the other side of the ocean, Lord Bryce and Arnold Toynbee, engaged in outright lies for their Queen, and the holy man Lepsius, doing his bit for Christ)... that makes a person a particularly low form of humanity, in my book. it's harder to forgive someone who is calculatingly deceitful, and so easily inclined to murder the reputation of an entire people, because such a person has a choice. Unlike a mentally deranged racist, such a person can help himself. I believe this lawyer, Henry Morgenthau, was in full command of his faculties.

It's no wonder that George Schreiner was so absolutely disgusted with Morgenthau's lack of ethics in the December 11,1918 letter he wrote... where he declared, "You saw little of the cruelty you fasten upon the Turks."

"Apart from that he (Enver Pasha) was in no respect what you picture him. Of course, if we are to take it for granted that we of the West are saints, then the Turk is any good. You will agree with me, no doubt, that the Turks count among the few gentlemen still in existence."

He then correctly declares something all Armenians and their supporters should bear in mind:

"Ultimately truth will prevail."

Like the movie MIDNIGHT EXPRESS where there was no indication of "good" in the Turkish people, and the film was incredibly successful in turning minds against the Turks, Morgenthau's extremely popular book added in a significant way the anti-Turkish hysteria already well in place. The book effectively contributed (perhaps almost as much as that other hoax-book, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh) to negative perceptions against Turkey that Greeks and Armenians are well aware of how to exploit. This is why they can keep conning Westerners today, as they know they have their well-established, solid foundation of hate and ignorance to work from. This is why a Peter Balakian (among others) can con famous authors like Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut, John Updike and Arthur Miller, who already have their deep-rooted prejudices and automatically accept the anti-Turkish drivel they are told; and they don't think twice about joining the bandwagon to smear a professor like Heath Lowry because they can't believe any professor in his right mind can deviate from the version of events they prefer to believe, without being a tool of the Turks. Meanwhile, truly partial historians like Richard Hovannisian teach at universities funded by wealthy Armenian organizations, and these author-hypocrites have no problem with that.

Dr. Lowry winds up his excellently-researched The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau's Story by telling us:

One can not help but wonder how many of the young Armenians who turned to the terrorist assassinations of Turkish officials (and bystanders) in tl1e 1970's and early 1980's, were influenced by reading Ambassador Morgenthau's Story?

Ambassador Morgenthau committed a great wrong, the repercussions of which can still be felt today. I'd like to bring up two other points from his book.

Constantinople Cop: Bedri Bey


Bedri Bey, the police prefect, is in awe of the American and always snaps to attention when Morgenthau is around. (He is one of those primitive people, after all... and Morgenthau is just so superior.) As a Turk, of course, Bedri Bey salivates to cause damage to defenseless people, but the moral, upstanding Morgenthau is there to foil his plans. The two engage in a kind of power play, where Bedri Bey usually winds up as the loser.

At one point, the Ambassador manipulates the mentally sluggish Turk by threatening:

"You are very foolish to try to play such tricks on us," I said. "Don't you know that I am going to write a book? If you go on behaving this way, I shall put you in as the villain."

Bedri Bey, afraid, magically comes to his senses. Turks are cowards, after all.

Unrelated to Bedri Bey, Morgenthau says, elsewhere in his ghostwritten book:

I still attempted to persuade Talaat that the treatment of the Armenians was destroying Turkey in the eyes of the world, and that his country would never be able to recover from this infamy.

Now here is the great irony. It hasn't come true yet, but one day, it inevitably will. It inevitably will, because as George Schreiner said, "Ultimately truth will prevail."

Ambassador Morgenthau's record of his life will one day blow up in his posthumous face, and his reputation will forever be besmirched... just as he has been destroying the reputation of the Turks these many years with his dishonesty and lies... and he is the one who will never be able to recover from his infamy.

Far from Bedri Bey's being the villain of his book, Ambassador Morgenthau will one day emerge as the villain of his book.

This is only a matter of time.

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© Holdwater
tallarmeniantale.com/morgenthau.htm

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