Henry Morgenthau, American Ambassador

Henry Morgenthau (April 26, 1856 - November 25, 1946) was an American lawyer, businessman and U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. As Ottoman authorities began the Armenian Genocide in 1914-15, the American consuls residing in different parts of the Empire flooded Morgenthau's desk with reports documenting the massacres and deportation marches taking place. He officially informed the U.S. government of the activities of the Ottoman government and asked Washington to intervene. The U.S. government decided to remain neutral and voiced little official reaction. As the massacres continued unabated, Morgenthau and several other Americans decided to form a public fund-raising committee raising over $100 million in aid ($1 billion today). Exasperated with his relationship with the Ottoman government, he resigned from the ambassadorship in 1916. In 1918 Morgenthau gave public speeches warning that the Greeks and Assyrians were being subjected to the same methods of deportation and wholesale massacre as the Armenians, and that two million Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians had already perished. In 1919 he headed the United States government fact-finding mission to Poland resulting in the Morgenthau Report. In 1933, he was the American representative at the Geneva Conference. He died in 1946 following a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 90. Bain News Service, circa 1915-20

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12697088

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47686193

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LOC/Science Source/Mary Evans