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The Society for Armenian Studies (SAS) hails President Joseph Biden  for recognizing the Armenian Genocide in his April 24 address. Despite taking place far from the United States, the Armenian Genocide is part of United States history. The U. S. archival record is testimony to that fact, as many U.S. diplomats and missionaries who witnessed the process of the Genocide have intensively reported the events and raised their voice condemning the acts of atrocities. The most prominent of these figures was Henry Morgenthau, U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire (1913-1916), who wrote and lobbied his government to intervene on behalf of the Armenians. Amb. Morgenthau had access to detailed accounts of the condition of the Armenians in the provinces and the atrocities that were perpetrated against them during the War. He commented on the Armenian deportations and their destruction saying: “When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact.”

American consuls, vice-consuls, and missionaries, as well as individual Armenians, sent detailed accounts of the atrocities to Amb. Morgenthau despite the difficulties of wartime communication and despite government censorship of even diplomatic dispatches. Many of these reports were circulated to governmental and non-governmental entities in the United States, including President Wilson, Secretaries of State William Bryan and Robert Lansing, and Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions Rev. James L. Barton. Philanthropic organizations printed these reports in an appeal to the masses for support in fighting the Genocide.

On July 16, 1915, Amb. Morgenthau cabled Secretary of State David Lansing, referring to the atrocities perpetrated against the Armenians as “a campaign of race extermination.” The official reply came two months later: “However much we may deplore the suffering of the Armenians we cannot take any active step to come to their assistance at the present time.” Morgenthau’s efforts were not confined to raising awareness about the atrocities committed against the Armenians and his relentless efforts to pressure the United States government to take action. He also played a leading role in shaping humanitarian efforts toward alleviating the condition of the victims of the Armenian Genocide, as well as other groups affected by the War. The U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide is also an acknowledgment of America’s own courageous role in saving hundreds of thousands of survivors of the genocide and alleviating their suffering through the Near East Relief.

In the post-World War I period the Armenian Genocide issue fell from the United States foreign policy agenda due to economic and political calculations. For more than a century, Armenian Americans lobbied the government for formal recognition of the Armenian Genocide. They met resistance from the succeeding administrations, due to the extensive lobbying by the Turkish state, a strategic NATO member, and its cronies.

The resilience of Armenian-Americans and their quest for justice bore fruit in the 21st century. By then most of the survivors of the Genocide were dead. The passage of House Res. 296 (passed 405 to 11) by the U.S. House of Representatives on October 29, 2019 and Senate Res. 150 passed by the Senate on December 12, 2019, were major milestones in the recognition efforts by the descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors. These Resolutions achieved their goal of setting the record straight on the Armenian Genocide as documented by the United States Archives.

President Biden’s statement today comes to close a chapter in the recognition efforts of the Armenian-Americans in the United States. However, this does not mean that recognition is the end of the struggle. The Society for Armenian Studies, as an academic organization, firmly believes that the next step should be to teach one of the macabre crimes of the 20th century in schools and universities across the country. Deniers of the genocide will continue to deny but the task of genocide scholars and educators might be easier now. It is through education that we will be able to change the hearts and minds of people who have not heard about the Genocide, with the ultimate goal being to prevent the occurrence of such crimes. In the words of the Spanish philosopher George Santayana “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Bedross Der Matossian

President of the Society for Armenian Studies (SAS)