It was in this tense atmosphere that Marashlian began to deliver his own paper. 

 PART III 

Marashlian,'s presentation and exchanges with Andrew Mango, Heath Lowry, Roderic Davison, Ezel Kural Shaw, Justin McCarthy, and Mehmet Saray

It was on the heals of the heated exchange with the previous speaker and the panel chairman that Prof. Marashlian stepped up to deliver his own paper, "Economic Influences on U.S. Policies Toward Turkey and the Armenians, 1919-1923." Basing his thesis on fresh documentation from U.S. archives, Marashlian argued that in the final settlement of the Armenian Question, powerful economic interests influenced the State Department to adopt policies beneficial to Turkey and harmful to the Armenians, even though "all key American policymakers were convinced that the Armenians were victims of a deliberate attempt at mass extermination during WW I." 

Even the top U.S. envoy in Turkey, "pro-Turk" Rear Admiral Mark Bristol, "who is often used by some historians to support Turkish arguments, fully accepted the fact that Turks massacred Armenians on a large scale," said Marashlian. He supported this contention by quoting Turkish sources and Bristol himself. Marashlian concluded that, given the Turkish Nationalists' "strong desire for American friendship and almost desperate need for economic aid," a realization by the Ankara leaders that the State Department "wished to balance American business interests in Turkey with American moral interests in the Armenian Question," they may have been "compelled to be more flexible" toward Armenian claims. But Turkish policymakers "understood that not even a minimally 'fair deal' for the Armenians was anywhere near the main priorities of American policymakers, who were so obviously driven, not by what they clearly regarded to be legitimate Armenian claims, but instead by the economic bottom line--profit."

The first to challenge Marashlian was Dr. Lowry. "Levon, it's an interesting hypothesis, but you failed to advance it at all, beyond the realm of wildest conjecture. You failed, because you do not show, and I would argue that you probably can't, the dollar investment that would justify your belief that this was what was motivating the policy. It didn't happen." Lowry also rejected the assertion that Bristol was pro-Turk and referred to the Admiral's familiar "shake them in a bag" theory. (Bristol: "I am holding no brief for any race in the Near East because I believe that the Turk, the Greek, the Armenian, the Syrian, etc., if shaken up in a bag, you would not know which one would come out first.")

Marashlian retorted that before he demonstrates "how I have proved my case," he wished to put to rest the notion that Bristol's bigotry was neutral. Marashlian pointed out that at the end of one of those quotes about people falling out of a bag, Bristol had said, "but probably the Turk is the best one of the lot.." 

As for economic motivations, Marashlian replied to Lowry: "You're confusing two different things--the motivations that drove Department policy while the Armenian Question was pending, up to 1923, and what happened after that." He said that in time, Turks learned the ways of the business world and American entrepreneurs found that "investment in Turkey was not going to be as profitable as they thought it was going to be." But this subsequent experience of the Americans, Marashlian asserted, "is irrelevant to what drove them up to 1923." 

Dr. Saray raised questions concerning Marashlian's sources, which the speaker answered with ease. Saray also noted the sharp contrast between Marashlian's paper and McCarthy's, and wondered whose paper was presenting the "truth, your paper, or Dr. McCarthy's?" Marashlian quipped: "Mine."

Dr. Roderic Davison, a distinguished scholar of Turkish history, said "Marashlian is right in this sense, that there was a lot of American pressure for economic development in the post-war period." But Davison suggested that the State Department was concerned primarily with countering British economic advantages in the Middle East, not necessarily with supporting the Turks against the Armenians. And, "admitting that the economic motives were there, do you not think, as I do," asked Davison, that the principle American motive "was not capitalist gain, but political stability." Marashlian did not deny that the State Department wanted "political stability" in the area, but insisted that his special emphasis on the profit motive was still justified, since the ultimate "goal of promoting political stability," of course, is to create "a good atmosphere for international trade--economic interest is at the root of politics." And Marashlian agreed with Davison's point concerning the British, but drew a direct connection between U.S. opposition to British interests and U.S. opposition to Armenian interests. He explained that "the Treaty of Sevres supported Armenian claims" and "also supported British privileges" in Anatolia. Under these circumstances, "when the State Department opposes the Treaty of Sevres, it does two things: it opposes the British and it opposes the Armenians." 

Dr. Ezel Kural Shaw noted that "missing" in Marashlian's presentation was what the Turks themselves were doing in Anatolia. "It was not American economic interest in Turkey that created" the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, "it was Turkish drive, and the decision to follow their own destiny." Marashlian agreed with Dr. Kural Shaw that events on the ground were crucial, and said that in this particular, brief presentation, he chose to focus on the American response "to what was happening in Anatolia." He elaborated that when the Turkish Nationalists "rose up against the Treaty of Sevres, and drove the Greeks out, they created a situation in which the State Department had to deal with Ankara as opposed to Constantinople." The Constantinople government "had signed the Treaty of Sevres, had accepted Armenia, but now that government was defunct, so the State Department had to deal with Ataturk." And Ataturk's Nationalists "were dangling before American eyes the prospect that Americans could come in and profit" from various business enterprises in Anatolia. 

Kamuran Gurun, a former Turkish Ambassador, asked Marashlian a pertinent question. He wondered whether somebody "who is pro-Turk is necessarily anti-Armenian." Marashlian explained that the Americans he talked about were "not pro-Turk in terms of loving the Turks, and were not anti-Armenian in terms of hating the Armenians. . . . they advocated policies that were good for the Turks and bad for the Armenians. . . .They did what was good for American capitalist interests. If Armenians would have been good for American capitalist interests, they would have been pro-Armenian." 

At this point Sonyel and Marashlian had a lively debate over President Wilson's boundary award to Armenia in 1920. Dr. McCarthy then posed a question: "Isn't it true that if one starts questioning the ethics and the morality and the actions of the U.S. State Department in 1920, 1921, and 1922," then "one should question the ethics and the statements and the morality of the State Department and its people in 1916, 1917, 1918, and 1919," in other words the motives of the people "who put through all this stuff on Armenians being killed and massacred" during World War I? 

Marashlian reminded McCarthy that when an administration changes, so do many officials and their staff. The officials during the war were "of a different administration, a liberal, more idealistic, Democratic administration, less big business." The officials who shaped foreign policy in the early 1920's were "from a different era, I'm talking about the Americans of the new era," who were "pro-business" and who advocated the "aggressive pursuit of foreign markets." But so as not to leave the impression that all Americans were like Bristol, Marashlian added that there were also many Americans who did oppose the State Department's policy of abandoning the Armenian Question in the early 1920's. 

Marashlian made the further point that when evaluating the statements of particular officials, regardless of the era, it is important "to look at corroboration." In this sense, he declared, the State Department information pertaining to the wartime treatment of the Armenians is "accurate, because it's corroborated by Turkish sources, it's corroborated by German sources, allies of Turkey." 

McCarthy: "You'll accept that there's some disagreement on that subject." 

At that moment Dr. Lowry brought the session to a close in a genial tone. "I think we put our speaker through a fair round here. I for one thank him for coming here." 

 

Nine more papers on Armenians were scheduled for the next day, including "The Documentary Basis of Armenian Claims," by Ottoman archivist Sinasi Orel, and "Recent Publications on the Armenian Question in the Ottoman Empire," by Dr. Mango. Orel, also a former Turkish Ambassador, outlined how the Ottoman documents on Armenians are organized and selected for publication, and also interpreted some of their contents. Marashlian and Orel carried on a cordial discussion of the two volumes of Ottoman documents published by the Turkish government in 1983, and the recent works of Dr. Vahakn Dadrian.

The Dreaded Dr. Mango

 In his own presentation, Dr. Mango mentioned a dozen "recent" publications representing Armenian and Turkish historiography, but two of the most recent works were missing: Susan K. Blair's The Slaughterhouse Province (1989) and, most conspicuously absence, Dadrian's "Genocide as a Problem of National and International Law: The World War I Armenian Case and Its Contemporary Legal Ramifications" (1989, Yale Journal of International Law). He ignored these but included in his discussion some works that did not even fit the title of his paper, either in terms of publication date, such as Armenians in History and Armenian-Turkish Relations (1967) by Turkish Senator Sadi Kocas, and ASALA: Irrational Terror or Political Tool (1985) by Israeli's Anat Kurz and Ariel Merari, a book which contains little on Mango's topic (works related to "the Armenian Question in the Ottoman Empire"), and none of it original research. 

Aside from his inconsistent selection of titles, Mango did not analyze content or make substantive comparisons. Rather, he offered generalized statements which showed no indication that he had critically evaluated these publications or that he had made an in-depth inquiry. He stated, for example, that in The Talat Pasha Telegrams (1983), Sinasi Orel and Sureyya Yuca "have proved conclusively that the so-called Andonian documents which purported to show that there had been a deliberate policy to exterminate the Armenians, were a fake." Mango said "the conclusion stands, despite the objections of Armenian-American scholar Vahakn Dadrian, whose use of the minutes of the Court Martial held in Istanbul, under Allied occupation, has little relevance to the authenticity of those documents, the originals for which seem to have conveniently disappeared."

Thinking back on this presentation, Marashlian later commented: "Dr. Mango was of course free to disagree with Dadrian's article, "The Naim-Andonian Documents on the World Was I Destruction of Ottoman Armenians: The Anatomy of Genocide" (1986, International Journal of Middle East Studies). But to simply dismiss the eminent Armenian scholar's complex thesis, which he supports with heavy documentation in Ottoman, Turkish, German, Armenian and other languages, without even summarizing that thesis, is unacceptable at a scholarly conference. Such superficiality is an insult to the intelligence of serious scholars, and there were a number of serious Turkish and non-Turkish scholars in that room. In my opinion, Mango's presentation could only satisfy those in the room who wished to hear a particular political viewpoint." 

Mango's presentation was peppered with such expressions as "Armenian nationalist scholars" and "Armenian terrorism," and "campaign of terror" and the "track record of Armenian nationalism." He repeatedly depicted Ottoman Armenians as "Armenian nationalists," without making a clear distinction between them and the vast majority--peasants, moderate Armenians reformers, the conservative Church and the Amira class. 

During the questioning, Marashlian argued that Mango's "allusion was that nationalism was something bad," and pointed out that all peoples feel nationalism. "Mustafa Kemal was a nationalist, and Turks should be proud of that," and "Americans are American nationalists, so there's nothing wrong with being nationalist." It is more important, asserted Marashlian, to examine "what ideals these Armenian nationalists were striving for in the Ottoman Empire. Those ideals were "democracy, freedom of press, a parliamentary system, in other words, they were striving to improve the lives of Turks, as well as Armenians, and the lives of Arabs . . ." Armenian nationalists, continued Marashlian, were "for progress, in the same direction that liberal, progressive Turks were moving into." As an illustration of the kind of information from recent publications that Mango chose not to discuss, Marashlian read out loud Dadrian's quotation, from a Turkish source, of a statement made in the Ottoman Parliament (December, 1915) by Senator Riza: 

"It is unlawful to designate the Armenian properties as 'abandoned goods' for the Armenians, the proprietors, did not abandon their properties voluntarily; they were forcibly, compulsively, removed from their domiciles and exiled. Now the government through its officials is selling their goods . . ." Mango interjected: "May I respond?" Marashlian: "I'm not done yet." ". . . Nobody can sell my property if I am unwilling to sell it. Article 21 of the Constitution forbids it. If we are a constitutional regime functioning in accordance with constitutional law we can't do this. This atrocious. Grab my arm, eject me from my village, then sell my goods and properties, such a thing can never be permissible. Neither the conscience of the Ottomans nor the law can allow it." 

Finishing Dadrian's quotation of Senator Riza, Marashlian declared that "one of the reasons for the deportations of the Armenians was the plunder of their property for the benefit of individual Ittihadists." He noted that even if the "Armenian nationalists" did cause all the problems, as Mango argued, they "were killed off early," and stressed the fact that an "Ottoman document published by the Turkish Prime Ministry in 1983" shows that "800,000 Armenians were being deported," almost "all of them women, children, and old men." They were "not revolutionaries; what does this mean, in your opinion about the true purpose of the deportations, please?"

Mango replied: "Nationalist movements can be wise or foolish, knowledgeable or ignorant, realistic or impractical. The point I was trying (to) make was that the nationalist revolutionary leaders of the Armenian community were foolish, ignorant, and impractical." The assertion that the Armenian nationalists "fought exclusively for human rights," Mango continued, "is questionable." He stated that during the Armenian "terrorist campaign, lots of the victims were Armenians themselves," those who would not cooperate with the revolutionaries were "bumped off." At the least, said Mango, Armenians wanted autonomy, "and the track record of autonomous provinces in the Ottoman Empire, was for everybody to see. . . . autonomy was a prelude to secession . . ." There was "no doubt in anybody's mind where that particular road led." So although Armenian nationalists "might believe that they fought for everybody's rights, the people who would be affected by their campaign realized, the Muslim majority, that these selfless defenders of everybody's rights would eventually deprive the Muslim majority of their rights. That was a well-founded fear." 

In response to Marashlian's other points, concerning Senator Riza's statement in the Ottoman Parliament and the Ottoman document establishing that most of the deportees were women, children and old men, Mango stated: "I really can't see the relevance to what I said. By 1915 the process was almost complete. That's it. The revolutionaries had done their worst. The communities had been estranged. Sedition had happened." The expulsion of the Armenians, Mango, claimed "is not a process peculiar to the Armenians." As examples of similar experiences, he cited Third World cases and "the Germans in the Sudetenland, or the Germans in Poland, who were also expelled, and also gave large numbers of dead." Referring again to the Armenians, "so of course at the end there is a tragedy," Mango concluded.

Marashlian retorted: "You did not answer my question, in terms of the real purpose of the deportations." 

Soon after, when Dr. Sonyel and a reporter from Sabah joined in the debate, Marashlian emphatically reiterated a point he had made the previous day: "In the 1908 Revolution, the major Armenian political party was an ally of the Young Turks. They celebrated together for the same ideals." But the Young Turk movement, "between 1909 and 1913, gradually, was co-opted by the reactionary, right wing branch of the Young Turks;" the liberal wing of the movement, Marashlian explained, was also "opposed to Talat, Enver, so on." Armenians, Marashlian reminded Mango and the audience, "were in the Parliament." A "few Armenians, as you say, . . . were irresponsible, but how can a whole nation be penalized for the irresponsibility of a few?" 

The remaining papers on Armenians covered a wide range of topics: "The Armenian Question from the Standpoint of International Law," by Hamza Eroglu; "The Armenian Deportations in Light of New Documents," by Cevdet Kucuk; "The Armenians in Ottoman Freemasonry," by Paul Dumont; "Thoughts on the Commercial Activity of an Iranian Armenian who Died in Izmir (18th Century)," by Serap Yilmaz; "Armenians According the Ataturk," by Azmi Suslu; "Catholic Armenians During the Reign of Mahmud II," by Kemal Beydilli; and "The Russians' Administrative Structure in Anatolian Territory and their Policies Against Armenians," by Husamettin Yildirim. Marashlian continued directing questions and reading quotations from Turkish sources.

I get the sneaking sus- picion the Mango in question was not this one — the kind men fall hopelessly in love with

Marashlian was given ample time to express his opinions, except when Dr. Mango was chairing a panel. While presenting his paper, for example, when Mango tried to stop Marashlian exactly when his time had expired, Kamuran Gurun interceded in Marashlian's behalf and asked Mango to allow him to go on. (Marashlian took only three minutes extra.) "I found Mr. Gurun's intercession to be a gracious gesture; perhaps it reflected a feeling on the part of my Turkish hosts that since I was overwhelmingly outnumbered, common decency would justify granting me a few extra minutes." Marashlian also noted that Dr. Stanford Shaw, when he was chairing a different panel, "generously encouraged me to ask questions and state my views." Marashlian's "impression was that, in contrast to my Turkish colleagues and Dr. Shaw, Dr. Mango tried to limit the amount of information from the Armenian perspective that I could present." 

Reflecting on his week in Turkey, Marashlian said: "It was rewarding on the professional level and quite enjoyable on the personal level. All the Turks I met were friendly, and although I vigorously disagreed with their position on the Armenian Question, I got along quite well with them, especially with Mehmet Saray, Kamuran Gurun, Sinasi Orel, Ezel Kural, Salahi Sonyel, Husamettin Yildirim, Esin, Gulfem Aslan and Recep Guvelioglu of Turkish TV, and Sinan Kuneralp of ISIS Press, who for years has been advocating a scholarly exchange between Turks and Armenians." Asked whether any long term positive results may emerge from Turkey's unprecedented invitation to Armenian historians, Marashlian said, "inshalla."



Copyright 1999 Levon Marashlian