What have Americans to do with the Armenian Genocide?
America was the first country to recognize the Armenian Genocide and continued to recognize it until misguided officials sought favor with the Republic of Turkey by joining in an ugly, and quite unnecessary, distortion of history. The Armenian Genocide was witnessed by hundreds of American missionaries in the Ottoman Empire who worked among the Armenians and have testified to their destruction by the Ottoman government. The Genocide was also witnessed by American consular officials, stationed in the areas inhabited by the Armenians, who reported it to the American ambassador in Istanbul. The American Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau, Sr., confronted the Young Turk leaders, and then he telegraphed the American Secretary of State calling the Turkish action an attempt at “racial extermination.” The American Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, wired U.S. Ambassador Morgenthau to continue the strongest possible protest to the Ottoman government on behalf of the Arm
