2147) 1959 Turkish Ambassador vs. "The Armenian Review"

The Armenian genocide movement had been subdued for some forty years, aside from the private circles of Armenians, and the occasional mainstream books they would release in the nations where they had settled. (As this one from 1945.) That is because the West became too aware of Armenian skullduggery, and memories needed to dim before Western prejudices could be re-activated in force once more. Armenian activists were, of course, gearing up to renewing their campaign of hatred circa the fiftieth anniversary of the "genocide," timing the occasion with a coordinated campaign release of their most vicious propaganda, such as a 1964 reprint version of Aram Andonian's "Naim Bey/Talat Pasha telgrams" forgeries.

But that does not mean Armenians were idle before 1965. Specialty publications targeting the Armenian-American readership were making sure to keep the flames of hatred alive.

The Turkish Ambassador at the time decided to do something about the Armenians' vicious anti-Turkish defamation campaign (this is why so many so many Turkish diplomats were forced to turn into de facto historians, such as Sukru Elekdag and Kamuran Gurun; only Turks outside Turkey were getting a taste of these hatred campaigns, and there was simply no others in the apathetic or trying-to-assimilate Turkish immigrant communities who would do anything to protect Turkish honor and the truth), and wrote the editor of one of these publications a letter, appealing to the editor's reason and sense of fairness. Naturally, the attempt was a lost cause. But the reproduction of his letter, and the editor's response, serve as a reminder of how little these matters have changed. The same dialogue could be taking place this very day.

The following exchange of letters appeared in The Armenian Review, Autumn 1960, pp. 3-6. Holdwater's footnotes follow.

Copy Of The Letter From Turkish Ambassador To The United States To Mr. Reuben Darbinian, Editor, The Armenian Review

December 7, 1959

TURKISH EMBASSY
WASHINGTON, D. C.,

Dear Mr. Darbinian:

I am writing to you this letter with regard to the disparaging references to Turkey that appear in all the issues of the Armenian Review.

It is extremely difficult for me to understand how a journal can be published in the English language in America by, presumably, responsible American Citizens containing such indecencies against the Turkish people and displaying such poor taste.[1]

I am not going to try to refute all the vile accusations made against the Turkish Nation. Not because these unwarranted allegations cannot be refuted as being slanted, incomplete, exaggerated, or completely false, but because no useful purpose can be achieved by being drawn into a polemic over events that took place half a century ago or earlier. Besides, I am confident that you know well enough the real causes lot those incidents. [2]

I am, however, going to draw your attention to the fact that most of the articles in The Armenian Review reflect a mentality which is both ridiculously and dangerously chauvinistic, and disgracefully prejudiced, which deliberately misrepresents the facts by showing one side of the picture, and which has for its sole object the sowing of seeds of hate. [3] I consider this to be unjustified because the ideas contained in the said articles are outdated and reflect only an attitude towards questions of nationalism that belongs to the last century, rather than to the second half of tne present one. It is harmful because it may tend to prejudice the already exemplary Turkish-American friendship [4], which I consider as vital for the Free World in its struggle against Communist expansion. I wonder whether by implication it may not also prejudice your very interests as Americans of Armenian origin, by creating doubts in the minds of others as regards the nature of your dubious intentions. [5]

Therefore, may I suggest that in tile future, you select with the utmost care the articles submitted to your magazine for publication, and reject all those containing a hate-Turkey theme. Thus, you will be helping not only Turkish- American friendship, but, also, Turkish-Armenian friendship and understanding. The latter should have a particular significance for you for reasons that require no further comment. [6]

The Turks and the Armenians have lived together for so long, and their destinies are so closely interlinked, that there is no point in making deliberate .attempts to create ill feeling between the two peoples by conducting a campaign of slander and vilification against one of them. In my opinion anyone who attempts to do this is committing a grave crime. [7] I am sure that you, as well as all responsible Americans of Armenian origin, will share these views. [8]

Yours sincerely,
ALI S. H. URGUPLU
Ambassador

Mr. Reuben Darbinian
Editor-in-chief
The Armenian Review
Hairenik Association, Inc.
212 Stuart Street
Boston, Massachusetts
MA/lh

COPY OF LETTER TO TURKISH AMBASSADOR TO UNITED STATES FROM MR. REUBEN DARBINIAN, EDITOR, THE ARMENIAN REVIEW

December 15, 1959

His Excellency
Ali S. H. Urguplu, Ambassador,
Turkish Embassy
Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. Ambassador:

In reference to your letter dated December 7, this year:

I am sorry to note that you have found vile accusations against the Turkish nation in the pages of THE ARMENIAN REVIEW.

Unfortunately, those accusations are based on irrefutable historical facts, and are established by the testimony of distinguished and responsible foreign observers. [9] You think the facts we have adduced are slanted, incomplete, exaggerated or completely false, or that we are giving a biased version of the past. But we are ready to give you an opportunity to present your side.

As a general principle I agree with you that the Armenians and the Turks have lived side by side so long and their destinies have been so closely linked together that they have nothing to gain by antagonizing each other. [10]

But I do not agree with you that the enmity is being expressed by the Armenians in the form of slander, vilification and vile accusations. In reality we have presented the historical facts. [11] There might have been some strong language, which is understandable, but never an intentional distortion of fact or fiction. [12]

But if the Armenian people are filled with hatred toward the Turks, the reason is not the Armenians, nor can it be.

The Armenians were a subject race in Turkey. If they had been treated well by the Turks, they would have had no reason to hate them, especially since they had nothing to gain from such hatred.[13] The Armenians in Turkey were subjected to perpetual oppression and periodic massacres [14], until in 1915 the Turkish Government, through mass deportations and massacre, consummated the Armenian Genocide in its attempt to make an end of the Armenian Question.

The Turks justify their crime by citing the Armenian revolution. But, first, there has never been a nation in history which resorted to revolution unless the conditions of its life were insufferable. [15] And secondly, no revolution can justify the genocide of a nation by any other nation.

You want that the sad past be forgotten. We, too, want to forget. But it is easier for the Turks to forget the past as long as you have confiscated the historic Armenian terntories [16], have massacred half of the Armenians under your rule, and have driven the other half to the four corners of the earth, depriving them.of their ancestral homes and their possessions. [17]

The monstrous Varlik Vergisi impositions on the Armenians in 1943 [18], and the barbaric eruptions of September 6-7,1955, in the streets of Istanbul, Smyrna, and elsewnere in Turkey [19], are still vivid in our mind. How do you expect the Armenians to forget the Turkish atrocities so easily? Is it not true that every one of them lost a dozen relatives and loved ones as a result of those atrocities [20] and is deprived of all possibility of ever recovering his ancestral home and property which is now held by the Turks? [21]

Unfortunately, the authors of the Armenian genocide, neither the Turkish Govermnent, nor any organization nor individual, despite the fact that forty-four years have passed since that tragic episode [22], have expressed at any time any regret or remorse over the crime they committed [23], nor have they shown any disposition to make any moral, economic, or political restitution to the surviving Armenians, as, for instance, the German Government did to the Jews who survived Hitler's concentration camps and his diabolical death chambers [24]; On the contrary, the surviving Armenians saw in the Turkish press and propagandists a cynical mentality and an inclination to place the whole responsibility of the genocide on the heads of their victims! [25]

I fully understand how exceedingly unpleasant it is for you to read the story of .the Turkish atrocities in the pages of THE ARMENIAN REVIEW, a story which is so disconcerting to you and which you want to forget. Unfortunately, you, that is the Turkish Government, does nothing to make the Armenians forget the crimes which the Turks have committed against them. [26]

The Anneno-Turkish friendship is one of the most vital wishes of the Armenians. [27] But the establishment of such a friendship does not depend upon us, but; upon you; for without any moral, economic and political reparation on ypur part it is psychologically impossible for the Armenians to effect any rapprochement with the Turks.[28] Therefore, Mr. Ambassador, if the Anneno-Turkish friendship is important, for you, too, you must take the initiative and you must work in that direction.[29]

Truly yours,
REUBEN DARBINIAN
Editor,
The Armenian Review
rd/J


Footnotes



1. What's "extremely difficult" to believe is that the Turkish Ambassador would have been so naive, but perhaps the times were more innocent back then, and he was being sincere in his statement. On the other hand, was he kidding? It is the rule, and not the exception, for Armenian-Americans to commit "such indecencies against the Turkish people and displaying such poor taste." In fact, doing so is a patriotic necessity! Can the reader imagine making a similar statement of "disbelief" today, when Armenians, genocide scholars and other Turk-haters have succeeded in painting such a black eye upon Turkey and the Turks, that when the rare media article appears giving Turks a fair shake, it becomes cause for a heart attack?

2. This may have been one time the ambassador's diplomatic skills paid off. Perhaps he was aware the real reason why "no useful purpose" would be served by engaging in debate with an Armenian propagandist, particularly on the Armenians' turf, was because attempting to talk sense with one who is either off in a religiously convinced la-la land or who is prone to singing the "Armenian AND? Anthem" would be Olympian, and not simply an exercise, in futility.

3. Duh! So sadly, sadly true. And the ambassador sure put his finger on the very crux of the issue. Armenian propaganda "has for its sole object the sowing of seeds of hate." Let us remember that the horrible genocide scholars, by relying almost exclusively on one-sided propaganda, and by pretending to be so noble, and such champions of "human rights," are the willing accomplices of this perpetuation of hate, in the pursuit of their slimy genocide agendas.

4. But that is the aim of Armenian-Americans, isn't it? What do they care about the interests of America? Witness a recent example at the time of this writing, the near-passage of Armenian Resolution 106.

5. Lazy-thinking Americans, with their conditioned (albeit mainly subconscious) prejudices against Turks, and particularly those liberal "do-gooders" who have a mindless knee-jerk reaction to defend the no-brainer notion that "genocide is bad," have so far been wholly in acceptance of Armenian claims. (Prof. John Dewey's 1928 warning that Americans be on guard against Armenian propaganda was simply too long ago, and memories have dimmed.) However: for the first time, given the repercussions of the recent resolution described above, for the first time there are indications of a backlash against selfish Armenian interests.

6. At this point, the Armenian editor may have been thinking: "What? Reject the hate-Turkey articles? In... in the furtherance of building friendship? Brotherhood? Love? Why, that's (sniffle) beautiful. Why didn't... why didn't we think of it before? Of course, it only makes sense!" (About now, in a cold sweat, the Armenian editor must have awakened from his nightmare.)

7. The ambassador was certainly well before his time. In later years, this was the sort of thing that would become known as a "hate crime." The very kind that Armenians and their genocide scholar allies would point to, in order to categorize those who would speak the historical truth as being neo-Nazi "deniers." Naturally, when the real hate language is directed against Turks in this prejudiced world, it does not count as hatred, but as "human rights." Here is Prof. Erich Feigl's take on how criminally unethical these anti-Turkish defamatory practices are, in the form of "Rufmord."

8. When it comes to "genocide," are there "responsible Americans of Armenian origin"? If so, where are they? (Of course some exist; but none are going public.)

9. There is not a single one of these "distinguished and responsible foreign observers" who witnessed killings of Armenians firsthand. A handful saw corpses and certainly suffering — suffering also experienced by Muslim Ottomans, whose lives did not count — but suffering is not genocide, and corpses, without the evidence of the circumstances and the killers' identities, do not by themselves prove a systematic extermination policy perpetrated by the Ottoman government, The majority of these foreign observers (as Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, frequently classified as an "eyewitness") did not observe anything significant, but merely accepted the word of the missionaries, who in turn had accepted the word of Armenians, and the word of the Armenians themselves. The Armenians, by and large, served as the interpreters for the foreigners in an alien land, instantly commanding the sympathy of the Christian foreigners. This is the kind of "evidence" that would fall under the "hearsay" category, which is no evidence at all. The British rejected all of this foreign testimony, in preparation for the Malta Tribunal.

10. It is not unusual for extremist Armenians to follow such well-meaning sentiments with a "BUT." As when Armenian-Americans would make sure to add they do not condone terrorism, while the rest of their thoughts would often prove otherwise.

11. Brother!

12. Did you get that, folks? "Never an intentional distortion of fact or fiction." That's right, "never"! Even well-meaning and straight-arrow publications can't honestly make such an all-encompassing claim, and this comes from a publication by agenda-ridden Armenians, those whose better attributes don't often include being sticklers for the truth. Let's see how well this claim holds up within the editor's letter itself.

13. Every Ottoman was a "subject race" in the highly diverse and heterogeneous Ottoman Empire, those known as "Turks" frequently serving as better objects for derision. Whatever elements of "second class citizenry" existed for the Armenians, such as not being allowed in the military before 1908, was made up for with the Armenians being allowed to prosper in all clasees of society, as never before in their history, for six centuries. The Armenians, in effect, were the masters of Ottoman society; as Consul Leslie Davis himself pointed out in "The Slaughterhouse Province," 95% of the bank accounts belonged to Armenians. (In the Harput region, but such was the case, more or less, throughout the empire.) Before the fanatical revolutionaries and the missionaries corrupted Armenian minds with atrocity stories and feelings of racial superiority, there was indeed no reason for Armenians to hate Turks, and indeed "The Turks and Armenians got on excellently together," as Sir Charles Eliot accurately pointed out in his 1900 book. Finally, was the Armenian editor being sincere with the claim that there was no reason for the two peoples to hate each other? Absolutely not! There is no greater power than hate, in order to bind a people together, as Hitler well knew before making a scapegoat out of the Jews. The effect of this "power of hate" is what still keeps the worldwide Armenian diaspora together, to this very day.

14. The reality is that there were no problems to speak of for Ottoman-Armenians before the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. What was that about "Never an intentional distortion of fact or fiction"?

15. If conditions were so insufferable, why didn't the Armenians begin their "revolution" in the previous six centuries? And since the editor is blaming insufferable conditions and not Armenian aggression, even Armenia's first prime minister admitted that nothing would have happened to the Armenians were it not for their "revolution." "This was the terrible fact!" is the way he worded it. ("Revolution" is placed in quotation marks, since the idea was not shared by the bulk of the perfectly content Armenian community, at least not at first, before the fanatical Dashnaks and Hunchaks, mostly originating from outside the Ottoman Empire, did not terrorize and/or brainwash them.)

16. Wrong. It was not at all easy for the Turks to forget the monstrous crimes perpetrated against the hundreds of thousands of the Armenians' innocent victims, but forget they tried and did, in the interest of maturity and brotherhood. As far as confiscating the "historic Armenian terntories," let's not forget these lands were "confiscated" long before the Turks showed up in the neighborhood; they happened to be in the Byzantines' possession last, before the Turks rescued the Armenians from cruel oppression.

17. While we may expect for the editor to claim every Armenian who lost his or her life was a massacre victim, no differently than so many Armenians and their dishonest supporters do today, the fact of the matter is that the bulk of the Armenians who lost their lives died from non-murderous reasons. (Such as famine and disease, causes that claimed the lives of the bulk of the 2.7 million other Ottomans who died.) While this propagandist is no doubt making his claims based on the typically inflated pre-war population of over 2 million, the fact is, the pre-war Armenian population hovered around 1.5 million, based on the Western consensus of the period. (As well as scientific demographics conducted since.) Since current propagandists have conceded that 1 million survived, that means roughly one-third of the Armenians died, and not "half." As far as "the other half" being "driven" away, every Armenian who left had the right of return by a certain deadline, as stipulated in the Gumru and Lausanne Treaties; the Armenian Patriarch claimed nearly half the pre-war Armenian population, 644,900 Armrenians, were present in what was left of the Ottoman Empire, in 1921, years after the "genocide" had run its course. Therefore, if Armenians left, they left by choice, a wholly different matter than being "driven" away. What was that about "Never an intentional distortion of fact or fiction"?

18. It's true, this tax was unfair and did not represent a proud moment of modern Turkish history. Yet as even the translation for "Varlik vergisi" indicates, it was a tax for the well-to-do, and not just for Armenians. Since more Armenians were well-to-do, a disproportionate number got hit by this awful tax that was designed for all. (It appears to be a peculiarly Armenian trait to attribute exclusive Armenian victimhood to some rotten thing that everybody was suffering from.)

19. "Smyrna"? I suppose we should feel grateful that the editor did not call Istanbul "Constantinople," as well. Here is some light regarding 1955's "barbaric eruptions"; it looks like they boiled down to the chaos of a mob's response to a "barbaric eruption" taking place elsewhere. Note how these Turk-haters desperately point to events having nothing to do with 1915 matters, simply to give the notion that Turks are such bad people, as though every other nation serves as a utopia, and everything goes smoothly. The Armenians' stooge, Rep Schiff, did this recently as well, for example, while giving the third degree to Secretary of State Rice. Schiff pointed to the murder of Hrant Dink as "not a testimony to Turkish progress," as though all Turks should be blamed for the action of one criminal.

20. "Is it not true that every one of them lost a dozen relatives..."? Let's do the calculation, assuming "every one of them" was referring to the Armenian survivors, of whom propagandists tell us there were one million, and each lost one dozen loved ones, that means the pre-war population would have amounted to twelve million Ottoman-Armenians before the war — four times the worldwide Armenian population of the time.

21. If Armenians chose not to return as they were entitled to, in order to claim their "ancestral home and property," who should bear the responsibility? (But of course, many did return in 1918, and many did claim their homes under the jurisdiction of the British, who played great favoritism toward the Armenians over the expense of the despised Turks.) Those who are expecting reparations have no one to blame but their own Dashnak leaders for signing away these rights "forever" in 1920's Gumru/Alexandropol Treaty.

22. Is it my imagination, or did the editor claim that the "genocide" ended in 1915? (1959 minus forty-four years... yes, 1915 was singled out as the singular year for that "tragic episode," all right.) Someone should tell Congressmen Adam Schiff and Frank Pallone and too many others, who are claiming that the "genocide" lasted all the way up until 1923.

23. If anyone conducted a systematic extermination campaign, or a "genocide," it was the Armenians, when they polished off some half-million defenseless Ottoman villagers, while the Armenians were in charge of parts of Anatolia, on and off for several years. Even today Armenians do not acknowledge their crimes, nearly a century later, and note the awful hypocrisy. Even individual Armenians were not punished for their crimes (if anything, these terrorists were rewarded), whereas at least the Ottomans made some attempt to punish those committing crimes against the Armenians, some 1,600 cases where dozens were executed, and all of this during the war. In order to apologize for a "crime," the crime needs to be proven; and there is simply no evidence for systematic extermination on the part of the Ottoman government. But it's not as though there has not been regret or remorse over this horrifying loss of life on the part of the Armenians; what propagandists are crying over is that there has been no official apology from the Turkish government, yet that would signify that a crime was indeed committed. Emotional conviction is never a substitute for the cold, hard facts that would prove the crime. Exactly where are these cold, hard genocide-proving facts? As far as the editor has offered, they are represented by "the testimony of distinguished and responsible foreign observers," but no court would accept hearsay (particularly from conflicted and not so "responsible" observers) as factual evidence. Even the British did not, during 1919-21, in preparation for Malta.

24. It's really all about the money, isn't it? As Dr. Dennis Papazian helpfully made clear a few years ago.

25. It wasn't just the "Turkish press and propagandists," but, as mentioned in Footnote 15, also Hovhannes Katchaznouni, Armenia's first prime minister: the "terrible fact" was that the Armenians themselves bore the "responsibility of the genocide." He was the Dashnak leader, and in an excellent position to know.

26. Even if the Turkish government does everything the Armenians would like, there is really nothing the Turkish government can do to make the Armenians forget, since the "genocide" is burned into the Armenians' psyche, and has become the cause for their existence. (At least the Dashnak-controlled Armenians, mainly the diaspora. The Armenians from Armenia are not as obsessed, much as they, too, are controlled by the Dashnaks, to the annoyance of diaspora Armenians.)

The Armenian Review featured an article on the next page (p. 7), entitled "The Mission of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation," by Dr. Yervand Khatanasian, the transcript of a speech he had given "on the occasion of the Anniversay Day of the [Dashnak] organization's founding before an Armenian patriotic audience in 1958, in Cairo, Egypt," A key excerpt:

"We will call our organization the Armenian Revolutionary Federation because the Federation believes that the Armenian people, as a nationality, is an eternal value. Nationality is not a mere historical phenomenon, a mere transitory flash, but an undying reality with a complex spirited content and a unique mission. It is the ever moving factor of human creativity, the free and authentic climate of progress, and the link of international brotherhood."

As opposed to, say, Turks who have moved to other nations such as the United States, making it their business to assimilate and to forget their Turkishness, the driving force of Armenians, no matter where they happen to be living, is to be Armenians first. It is this "link of international brotherhood" that must be preserved, and it is preserved through an intense nationalism, the kind Fatma Muge Gocek and others despise in Turks (to ones as Gocek, those who refuse to buy into the genocide myth are all simple-minded "nationalists," you see). And the best way to keep this "eternal value" of "nationality" alive is to find a common enemy, and to preserve the hatred of that enemy, by enlisting all elements of Armenian society in on the strategy, including parents, teachers and churches, to condition Armenian children from an obscenely early age. That enemy, of course, is the Turks, and the best way in which to keep the fires of hatred alive is the "genocide."

Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan, following
in Hovhannes Katchaznouni's footsteps

An Oct. 19, 2007 L.A. Times interview with Armenia's prime minister ("There are No Christians to the East of Us") inadvertently points to this phenomenon; Serzh Sargsyan is quoted as saying: "You know Armenians are indeed one country with its diasporans, one country without. Without our diaspora we are just [a] three million-strong nation that is situated somewhere in Caucasus region. And about which most people in the world may even not be aware of. But with our diaspora, we're a totally different country." (In other words, we are one, no matter where we live! By the way, why is he exaggerating Armenia's population of two million?)

27. Oh, really?

28. In other words, "We can only be your friends if you give us something first." A conditional friendship is no friendship at all.

29. Unfortunately, Mr. Darbinian probably did not live long enough to see the day when a Turk would go against the truth in such a major way, although not necessarily for reasons of "Anneno-Turkish friendship," (Not that this editor put priority on such friendship, so it would not have really mattered.) Mr. Darbinian would have been delighted to see, going beyond his wildest expectations, Taner Akcam.

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© Holdwater
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