Ambassador Morgenthau's Racism and Facts

Let us expose an undisputed racist diplomat's real face. In his book, "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story"[1], he described the Turks as "bullies and cowards, dull-witted and lazy," etc. Armenians, on the other hand, were superior - he described them as "Aryans," who "regarded themselves not as Asiatics, but as Europeans." His analysis of supposed Turkish reasons for killing Armenians was a study in the pathology of racism: Morgenthau declared that the Turks planned to kill the Armenian men, then take their women and have children by them. Their reason, according to Morgenthau, was the betterment of the Turkish race: "These Armenian girls represented 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." No scholar has ever found any Turkish belief in the Racial Superiority of the Armenians, but racist Morgenthau chose to project his own beliefs on the Turks. It is fairly easy to see why he found no evil in Armenians, but much evil in Turks.

Racist Morgenthau, and others like him, spread their beliefs among the American populace in books, lectures, and newspaper articles. Their testimony was welcomed by the clergy, who were gathering support against the Turks.

[1] "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story," Garden City, New York, 1918, pages 275, 288, 291, and 337.

Now, let us see what an American soldier, U.S. Ambassador Bristol, had to say on the false Armenian reports.

Rear Admiral Marc L. Bristol served in Turkey during the period of 1919-1928, first as the Commander of U.S. Naval detachment in Turkey, and finally as the first U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Turkey. Letter, dated March 28, 1921 from Admiral Bristol to James Barton D.D., Secretary of the Foreign Department of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and Dr. Barton's reply, dated May 6, 1921 are instructive in demonstrating how a man like Morgenthau, and indeed the entire Christian West, would develop anti-Turkish attitudes under an incessant barrage of anti-Turkish propaganda. Let's examine them.

Admiral Bristol writes:

"I see that reports are being freely circulated in the United States that the Turks massacred thousands of Armenians in the Caucasus. Such reports are repeated so many times it makes my blood boil. The Near East Relief have the reports from Yarrow and our own American people which show absolutely that such Armenian reports are absolutely false."

"In addition to the reports from our own American Relief workers that were in Kars and Alexandrople, and reports from my own intelligence Officer and know that the Armenian reports are not true."

"I was surprised to see Dr. McCallum send through a report along this line from Constantinople. When I called attention to that report, it was stated that it came from Armenians but the telegram did not state this, nor did it state that Armenian reports were not confirmed by our own reports."

Dr. Barton replies:

"With reference to the false reports that come through reporting massacres of the Armenians by the Turks, there is no one who can deprecate this more than I do."

"There is a brilliant young Armenian, a graduate of Yale University, by the name of Cardashian.... He is constantly reporting atrocities which never occurred and giving endless misinformation with regard to the situation in Armenia and in Turkey."

Addendum: Norman Daniel, a prominent scholar of American philanthropy in the Middle East, stated the following:

While such publicity helped to raise money, it did not contribute to an understanding of the problems of the area. … It exploited the religious differences between the Turks and the Armenians without disclosing that during much of the nineteenth century the Christian subjects of Turkey had enjoyed a degree of religious freedom that was not accorded to dissenters from the established faith in some of the more enlightened kingdoms of Europe. It overlooked the existence of an active Armenian revolutionary party and left unmentioned the doubts entertained by the Ottoman government as to the loyalty of the Armenians. It failed to point out that many of the Armenians had lived in a theater of war or that Moslem Turks were also suffering. … (*)

(*) Norman Daniel, American Philanthropy in the Near East. 1820–1960 (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1970), 161. See also "Americans Investigating Anatolia" by Dr. Brian Johnson.