Henry Morgenthau

Ambassador Morgenthau's Story and Secrets of the Bosphorus Henry Morgenthau

Henry Morgenthau (1856--1946) was an American lawyer, businessman and United States ambassador, most famous as the American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. As ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Morgenthau has come to be identified as the most prominent American to speak about the Armenian Genocide. Ambassador Morgenthau's Story (1918) is the title of the published memoirs of Henry Morgenthau, Sr., U. S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916, until the day of his resignation from the post. The book was dedicated to the then U. S. President Woodrow Wilson, and it took over two years to complete. The ghostwriter for Henry Morgenthau was Burton J. Hendrick; however, a comparison with official documents filed by Morgenthau in his role as ambassador shows that the book must have been structured and written extensively by Morgenthau himself. The book is a primary source regarding the Armenian Genocide, and the Greek Genocide during the last years of the Ottoman Empire. When published, the book came under criticism by two prominent American historians regarding its coverage of Germany in the weeks before the onset of the war.