Ambassador Morgenthau's Story

Rating:
Summary: An Unforgettable, Astonishing Book!!
Review: A true classic book about the 1915 Armenian Genocide and other crises in the Turkish region. Ambassador Morgenthau represented America with courage, dignity, and compassion. What a unique man and a heroic story. This book is guaranteed to touch your heart, inspire your faith, and encourage you that even in the most desperate, horrific situations there is still hope and the opportunities to show love and mercy are more pronounced when all hell breaks loose. An unforgettable and timely book!

Rating:
Summary: An Unforgettable, Astonishing Book!!
Review: A true classic book about the 1915 Armenian Genocide and other crises in the Turkish region. Ambassador Morgenthau represented America with courage, dignity, and compassion. What a unique man and a heroic story. This book is guaranteed to touch your heart, inspire your faith, and encourage you that even in the most desperate, horrific situations there is still hope and the opportunities to show love and mercy are more pronounced when all hell breaks loose. An unforgettable and timely book!

Rating:
Summary: A very true reading about first Genocide of 20th century
Review: I would strongly recommend this book written by Ambassador of the United States of America to historians. Also I think that the following web site might be useful:
www.armenocide.de

Rating:
Summary: Number One source on Armenian Genocide
Review: If you are really interested in what happened between Turks and Armenians in 1915,i can suggest you to read Heath Lowry's The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau's Story.Professor Heath Lowry is a well-known historian in Princeton University and in his book,he proves Ambassador Morgenthau's Story wrong scientifically,shows how the book is based on rumors.A must to read for those who are interested in this matter...

Rating:
Summary: Myth Busted
Review: It just astonished me as how certain discursive formations can actually lead people to believe as the 'real' reality. It does not matter whether for an event to 'really happen' or not. What matters is that you hear it on a radio or read it on a newspaper or website or even talk about it at the water-cooler. Those who have had the chance to watch 'Wag the Dog' might get the idea of how such 'reality' is constructed.

On a more advanced level 'discursivity', a la Foucault, is a building block of a discourse in which certain linkages, here and their, add to what ordinary people believe on the street.

Now obviously Hitler was one of the worst things that happened during the 20th century. This is commonsense. But to add certain 'material' so as to advance another claim by building upon Hitler, is something that should be carefully approached, at least for people who at least visit and read stuff through Amazon.
If a chain in a series of discursive formations can be shown to be weak or invalid than it would be proven that that chain of a discourse is on shaky grounds, and that most of what is known about it is likely to be false.
Unfortunately we see certain 'material' is attached to certain claims so as to resemble the Holocaust. Let us revisit a single claim on part of those would like to exploit the events during the early 20th century. A reviewer, for instance, obviously bought one claim and thus knows it to be the 'truth'

Adolf Hitler: "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

Now has anybody bothered to investigate it. No, of course. "It sounds like as if it is true, so why not believe it". Well fortunately there are still people who like investigating such stuff.
Read for example :
Heath W. Lowry
Washington, D.C.
Political Communication and Persuasion, Volume 3, Number 2 (1985)
Abstract This article traces the history of a purported Adolf Hitler quote which cites the perecent of the world's lack of reaction to the fate of Armenians during the First World War as a justification for his planned extermination of European Jewry in the course of the Second World War. By a detailed examination of the genesis of this quotation the author demonstrates that there is no historical basis for attributing such a statement to Hitler...
[...]
If one is serious about really getting into history, rather than believing simply what is out their in the popular press,
I would additionally suggest to take a tour of the documents of Ambassador Morgenthau. First let us not take any word for having a Godly truth 'Its ambassador so its gotta be true' mentality is ok if you're ok with it (respect of thought). But there are historical evidence that suggests that Morgenthau did not even know Ottoman scripture, and that this is proved throughout his letters when he attempts to translate 'words' and 'dates' of events. Do not hesitate to read...
[...]


For those who have CAREFULLY read what I have written so far, notice I am not either on one side of the argument between Armenian historians or historians of the Ottoman empire, but that I have just thrown out some thought provoking information so that one will at least ask some questions before believing what they read. Doubtless there will be those occasional pointless replies to this review, but again all I am saying is, think before you react. Now one could argue that I am saying is a postmodernist crituque and historical relativism. That would be false. I believe in historical analysis, as a scientific enterprise (and only the scientific version of it). But then again let us not forget that some American historians who were studying the case at hand were bombed by Armenians. Now if history is written by historians and that some historians (Stanford Shaw)are bullied so as not to investigate certain historical matters than, at least if you have a capacity to think critically than be suspicious about it. [...]


Well I hope I contributed on an intellectual level and I hope 'thought thugs' would not misunderstand what I have suggested.


Rating:
Summary: An excellent book on the first Genocide of the 20th century
Review: The book is advisable only when one reads it with Heath W. Lowry' s "The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau' s Story", published by ISIS Press, Istanbul in 1990. As Dr. Lowry describes:

"The answer is simple and relates to the fact that Morgenthau was writing a piece of wartime propaganda with the expressly stated purpose of mobilising support for President Wilson's war effort. He consciously down played the close relationships he enjoyed with the Young Turk leadership throughout his sojourn in Constantinople and sacrificed truth for the greater good of helping to generate anti-Turkish sentiment which would transform itself into pro-war sentiment."

Unfortunately the American public opinion during that time was based on such sources as the services of Dragaman (translators) between the officials of the Ottoman Empire and the American Ambassador. And these dragaman were not Ottoman Turks but Ottoman Armenians and Ottoman Greeks both were in conflict with the Ottoman Empire. Ambassador Morgenthau used two of them, two Armenians, namely Hagop S. Andonian (personal secretary) and Arshag K. Schmavonian (legal assistant). The printed copy however went through severe war time propaganda editing by the US Secretary of State, Robert Lensing and Pulitzer award winning author, Burton J. Hendrick.

One of the most dramatic incidents and the diversion of the facts were about the life insurance benefits of the deceased Armenian insurers of an American Insurance company. The book claims that Talaat, the Ottoman Interior Minister, made a request to him that the Ambassador should help to facilitate payment the insurance benefits to the Ottoman Treasury, as there were no heirs to the insurers! However, Dr. Lowry proved that after reading the actual dated letters, the request of the Ottoman Minister was to stop the American Insurance Company from transferring their capital funds from Ottoman Empire to France, and thereby preserving sufficient capitalization for any benefits claims. Such diversion of the facts is extremely dangerous.

It is therefore an important document about the wartime journalism and subsequent unfortunate diversions of the facts to base Armenian claims of 1915. We could only be grateful to Dr. Lowry that he shed light into the story with his review of the original letters stored in FDR Library and in the National Achieves.

Rating:
Summary: The Book to Read!
Review: This is a book to read if you want to know about World War I, and it is the book to read and reread if you want to know about the Armenian Genocide. Morgenthau was really at the center of the action in Turkey in 1915 and 1916. He had innumerable meetings with the top officials (Talat Pasha, Enver Pasha, and all the other authors of the atrocities against Armenians). He got reports from all over the place--the consuls and missionaries stationed in different places in the interior. He knew the score and tried to do something about it.

The thing that really got my goat was the insurance incident. The Turks came to Morgenthau and told him, Well, the Armenians are dead. Their heirs are dead. So their life insurance awards revert to the state. Get them for us. [Shudder] What gall!

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book on the first Genocide of the 20th century
Review: This is an excellent book to read if you want to learn about the true atrocities of the first genocide of the 20th century. This book is not for the feint-hearted but I recommend it highly as it is very accurate and comes from a very reputable source who was directly involved with the Turkish government and the Armenians during the early 20th century.

Keep in mind the following when you read the other reviews posted here:

"The French National Assembly has formally recognised as genocide the slaughter of more than a million Armenians living in the Ottoman empire between 1915 and 1917."

Additional facts/quotes:

Adolf Hitler

While persuading his associates that a Jewish holocaust would be tolerated by the west stated...
"Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

Yossi Beilin

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister. April 27, 1994 on the floor of the Knesset in response to a TV interview of the Turkish Ambassador
"It was not war. It was most certainly massacre and genocide, something the world must remember... We will always reject any attempt to erase its record, even for some political advantage."

Gerald Ford

Addressing the US House of Representatives.
"Mr. Speaker, with mixed emotions we mark the 50th anniversary of the Turkish genocide of the Armenian people. In taking notice of the shocking events in 1915, we observe this anniversary with sorrow in recalling the massacres of Armenians and with pride in saluting those brave patriots who survived to fight on the side of freedom during World War I."
-- Congressional Record, pg. 8890

Additional books I recommend:
Peter Balakian's "The Burning Tigris" and "Black Dog of Fate"

All over the world for many centuries, religious and ethnic intolerance have caused much pain and death to humanity. We should never forgive or forget any holocaust or genocide, no matter how large or how small, and the world's leaders and governments should do everything and anything in their power to recognize and prevent such atrocities in the future.