Department of State Quotes
Wilson had been successful in getting money and arms to the Muslim Mujahedeen in Afghanistan to fight the Russians who had invaded and occupied the country. But the Russian armed helicopters gave the Russians control of most of the company. Wilson wanted to send Stingers to the Mujahedeen, but the agencies were worried that the missiles might fall into the hands of anti-American radical Muslims. It turned out that the agencies were correct and after the defeat of Russia, many of the Mujahedeen then, buoyed by their great victory over a Superpower, came after the United States and Western nations who were “occupying Islamic land”. The terrorist tactics, that the United States ignored when the Russians were the victims, became the major military and foreign policy problem of America and the West.
At the time Dulles was the Assistant Secretary & Near East Division chief of the State Department. Congress was outraged over the Turkish massacres of the Armenians, the Russian pogroms against the Jews, and the Belgian atrocities against the Blacks in the Congo. However, the State Department was then more interested in maintaining relations for our corporations than the moral aspects of mass murder within a country.
He and the other commissioners of both political parties were agreed that the procurement by The State Department, USAID, and especially the Defense Department which spent the most was terrible. The even had military generals in charge of billions of dollars of procurement who did not even know the procurement laws and regulations they were supposed to obey much less the skill of good procurement.
At the time Dulles was the Assistant Secretary & Near East Division chief of the State Department. The Turks were killing, starving and displacing Armenians—Mostly Christians—in Turkey. Like modern ethnic cleansing and genocides such as Kosovo, Rwanda, and Sudan, the magnitude of the atrocities was denied by the perpetrators and their apologists and other countries did not want to publicly admit the genocide lest they be forced to intervene by public opinion. Previously, the Armenians had slaughtered many Turks, especially the Armenians allied with Russia, and the two groups to this day have a continued distrust of each other—see {51838}, {638251}, {620602}, {620603}, {620604}, {620605}, {620600}, and {620606}
Islamic Religious Fundamentalist Terrorists in Algeria had kidnapped over 100 Western Hostages including some Americans. One of the terrorist’s “demands” was for the release of convicted murderers and terrorists in the United States. The official policy which she stated was not totally accurate. On several occasions, U. S. Officials or third parties representing them had “unofficially” negotiated with terrorists. In many cases this was a tactic to buy time and military action followed and in other cases unofficial ransoms were actually paid. The United States has had to contend with this problem with Islamic Terrorists and Pirates since the Thomas Jefferson Presidency when he argued against John Adams who wanted to pay the tribute while Jefferson preferred military action.
Many people have erroneously credited the water’s edge analogy to senator Arthur Vandenberg who made the same point very effectively in 1950. See {36673}.
Kent’s left wing views were reasons that even his non-political works were not exhibited by many institutions and government exhibits. At the height of the Cold War, Kent had arranged an exhibit of his art to travel around the Soviet Union. However, the State Department, knowing his intention, refused to issue a passport for him to leave the country. However, they could not stop the art work from being sent or Kent from suing the Government. When the Supreme Court ruled that Kent or any other American Citizen was entitled to a passport, he traveled to Russia, caught up with his art work, and donated the exhibit, 80 paintings and many more graphics, to “The People of the Soviet Union.”
The State Department has always been reluctant to have the US Government make an official condemnation of the Turkish. Prior to the end of WWI. Turkey’s Ottoman Empire controlled most of the Middle East which was discovered to be full of oil. Armenia had no oil. The State Department since then (and until the 1970s) it has made it a top priority to advocate for Standard Oil and other American oil companies with the Turks and then the Arabs regardless of the morality of the situation. Despite the fact that virtually every American leader wanted to advocate for the Armenians, the State Department held fast to not
upset Turkey about the Armenian Genocide. Cardashian was the first American who openly stated what the real motivation was. See {638251}, {620602}, {620603}, {620604}, {620605}, and {620606}
Harriman was sent to Tokyo to meet with the general.
The cost of policy makers being ignorant about the country for which they were making policy has been at best unintended and unexpected consequences of our policy when implemented or at worst policy failure a in the Libyan Intervention, the Iraq invasion, and the inadvertent giving the green light to the Argentinian government to invade the Falkland Islands.
