“Well,” said Hoover, “I wouldn’t object if that was the effect of it.”
The “effect” has now long since passed into history.
Mandate or no mandate, the matter of a commission to Armenia suffered no retarding except in the detail of personnel. I was still in the dark about what President Wilson had done regarding it, but an odd chance soon enlightened me.
It was after one o’clock when I rushed from Hoover’s office to 23 Rue Minot to attend a luncheon given by the Hon. Arthur J. Balfour. At the table were Lord d’Abernon who, as Sir Edgar Vincent, had been manager of the Imperial Ottoman Bank at Constantinople, and now is British Ambassador in Berlin; Sir Maurice Hankey and his wife; and Mr. Balfour’s niece. We at once plunged into a discussion of Turkish affairs. Mr. Balfour said he favoured the United States taking a mandate over the Constantinople district and Armenia, but not over Anatolia. A general discussion of the economic difficulties followed, and I outlined the plan of a triple mandate that I had submitted to the President, and went so far as to hope that it might lead to a Balkan federation. Then, to our great surprise, Sir Maurice turned to Mr. Balfour:
“Why, Mr. Balfour,” he said, “don’t you know that the Hoover-Morgenthau plan for a resident commission in the Caucasus was acted upon by the Big Four on Saturday at Versailles just after the signing of the Peace Treaty? They passed it in principle and referred it to you to work out the details. It is on your desk now on top of that pile of papers with a red slip on it.”
We now beheld Balfour in one of his well-known attitudes, when he slightly raises his eyebrows, drops his right shoulder, and looks at you with a smile that almost talks. He then said to me: “You see how Lloyd George does things. This information that Hankey has given us is absolutely as new to me as it is to you.”
Sir Maurice offered to stay over and help Balfour arrange the details. The latter said that it would not be necessary, but asked me to request Mr. Lansing to do his part toward putting the affair into shape.
Harbord was still unwilling to go without the assistance of a military staff, for which he had originally stipulated. President Wilson had left word that in such an event, Hoover and I were to name a substitute. Hoover suggested Colonel William N. Haskell, who had represented the American Relief Commission in Roumania; and as Haskell was to also represent the Near East Relief, of which I was then vice-chairman, I assented to his selection in both capacities, and Haskell set out for Armenia shortly thereafter.
That appointment, I felt, would help to take care of the relief phase of the situation, but there was left the need of a report of a strictly army man on the military side of the Armenian matter before the question of America assuming the proposed mandate could be thoroughly answered. Harbord was, therefore, doubly welcome when, within a few days, he came to me with a suggestion:
“Don’t you think,” he asked, “it would be advisable that either Pershing or myself, or both, be sent to investigate and report on the conditions in the Trans-Caucasus, because the question of an American mandatory in Turkey promises almost immediately to become urgent, and we should know military conditions there before the Government acts in the matter.”