Episode 14 – Ambassador Morgenthau : Anti-Turkish, Anti-Islam, Racist, Schemer

Meet Henry Morgenthau Sr., born in Mannheim, Germany in 1856 and his family immigrated to New York in 1866, attended City College of New York, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree, and later graduated from Columbia Law School. He began his career as a lawyer, but he made his fortune in real estate. He married Josephine Sykes in 1882 and they had four children: Helen, Alma, Henry Jr. and Ruth. Morgenthau also served as the leader of New York’s Reform Jewish community which is a religious movement that has abandoned some traditional Jewish beliefs, laws, and practices in an effort to adapt to the ways of the modern world. He contributed significant sums to President Woodrow Wilson’s 1912 election campaign and expected a cabinet post in return. He was disappointed when he was offered the ambassadorship to the Ottoman Empire instead and did not want to go. But after some persuading by friend Rabbi Stephen Wise, he accepted Wilson’s offer. He served as the United States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from December 11, 1913 to February 1, 1916, for a total of 26 months. What he did during that time in Istanbul, how he did it, with whom and why are the reasons why he is characterized by Turks, Azerbaijanis, Turkish-Americans, Turkish-Azerbaijanis and others as Anti-Turkish, Anti-Islam, Racist, Schemer. The book he had ghost-written for him, Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story is a blueprint for mass deception, systematic defamation, Islamophobia, anti-Turkism, and racism. Here is an example of his writing on page 291: “…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…” Anyone who makes outrageously racist comments like these today would be immediately sued, tried, convicted, and placed behind bars. Bur this person is a dead U.S. ambassador, so nothing can be done for justice. What’s even more ironic is for Morgenthau, a German-born Jew, to utter concepts like eugenics and betterment of a race through inter-marriage, considering what was to come during the WWII some three decades later. Dr. Heath Lowry, a prominent professor of History who taught at Princeton University among others, conducted a painstaking research on the claims made in Morgenthau’s book and published his findings in a book called “The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story.” Morgenthau’s documented goal of contributing to America’s war effort by authoring a propaganda book ended up slandering a whole nation with half-truths, concocted stories, falsifications and lies, all in the name of helping the U.S. government drum up public support.