That as a first step in that direction, and without waiting for the conclusion of peace, either the Allies, or America, or both, should at once send to Caucasus-Armenia requisite food, munitions and supplies for fifty thousand men and such other help as they may require to enable the Armenians to occupy the now-occupied parts of Armenia within the boundaries defined in the memorandum of the delegation of integral Armenia.
The first three signatures were those of Charles Evans Hughes, Elihu Root, and Henry Cabot Lodge! The next was John Sharp Williams. How strange it would be if Oscar Underwood had been asked and had signed in his place. We would then have had all four American delegates to the Disarmament Conference.
Mr. Hoover called on me with a copy of this message in his hands. He said that Lansing, House, and White wanted us to draft a reply to it.
In the composition of that reply, Hoover’s opinions as to details again diverged from mine. He continued in his antagonism to an American Regular Army officer on the active list, as an administrator of Caucasus relief-work and evinced firm opposition to America taking a mandate. He argued good-temperedly, but strongly, to win me to his point of view; I was not convinced, and we at last reached another compromise, settling on such statements as we could both subscribe to. The reply was dated July 2nd, and was in part:
Active relief work on a large scale is now in progress in the most distressed areas of Armenia, but will require much enlarged support, in view of the expiration of Congressional appropriations.... Competent observers report that immediate training and equipment of adequate Armenian forces would be impracticable and that the repatriation of refugees is feasible only under protection of British or American troops. British authorities inform us that they cannot spare troops for this purpose.... All military advisers agree that the Armenian population itself, even if furnished arms and supplies, will be unable to overcome Turkish opposition and surrounding pressure.... To secure ... establishment and protection and undertake the economic development of the state, such mandatory must, until it becomes self-supporting, provide not less than $300,000,000. It would have to be looked upon as a sheer effort to ease humanity.
At about this point, Hoover’s opposition to America assuming a mandate manifests itself in the message. We agreed that he should add a few lines, expressly and explicitly on his own responsibility. So the message, after the joint signature of “Hoover-Morgenthau,” continued:
Mr. Hoover wishes to add on his sole responsibility that he considers that the only practicable method by which a government in this region could be made economically self-supporting would be to embrace in the same mandatory the area of Mesopotamia where there are very large possibilities of economic development, where there would be an outlet for the commercial abilities of the Armenians, and with such an enlarged area it could be hoped in a few years to build up a State self-supporting, although the intervention of some dominant foreign race must be continued until the entire population could be educated to a different basis of moral relations, and that consequently whatever State is assigned the mandatory for Mesopotamia should at the same time take up the burden of Armenia.
When that portion of the message was suggested, I said to Mr. Hoover:
“The inclusion of Mesopotamia in the proposition would absolutely destroy all chances of America taking the mandate.”