Honoring Diplomats Punished for Doing their Job Well: The Case of George Horton.

• Author: Lamb, Ismini

The Department of State recently set a useful precedent by honoring Archer Blood, the U.S. consul general in Dhaka during Pakistan's brutal suppression of free elections in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). He reported Pakistani atrocities and complained when the United States refused to denounce them. Henry Kissinger, then the National Security Advisor, viewed Pakistan as a strategic ally. He had Blood recalled to Washington, clobbered with a career-ending poor evaluation, and stuck in a dead-end job. Blood's story is told in the award-winning book, The Blood Telegram. By celebrating Blood and naming a conference room after him, the Department corrected an injustice. It should now do the same for George Horton, another diplomat punished for telling the truth and promoting humanitarian values.

The Horton and Blood cases are remarkably similar. Both men were consuls general who witnessed horrendous attacks on civilian populations. Both argued the United States should condemn these horrors, and both intervened to save lives and make the truth known. Both were punished by the Department of State for reporting the truth and challenging extant policy. Both later went public with their accounts, and both have been posthumously vindicated. The major difference is that Horton's experience came half a century earlier and he was treated even worse.

The Case of Horton

Horton was the American consul general in Smyrna, Turkey (now Izmir) when Turkish Nationalists sacked and burned the city in September 1922. (1) The State Department's senior U.S. representative in Constantinople and Horton's superior, Admiral Mark Bristol, covered up Turkish atrocities in hopes of securing access to Turkish oil. Horton contested Bristol's false reporting in a series of increasingly vociferous cables. Allen Dulles, a friend of Bristol's and the head of the Department's Near East division, suppressed Horton's reporting and instead gave Secretary of State Charles Hughes and President Warren Harding a report consistent with Bristol's falsehoods. Poorly informed, they decided against supporting a British-recommended intervention to save the remaining 1.5M Christians still alive in Turkey.

Department leaders had every reason to believe Horton and not Bristol. Horton was a diplomatic veteran with a stellar track record. When WWI ended, Wilbur Carr, the Director of the Consular Service, noted Horton had--a great and abiding reputation? as--one of the best men in the service.? Horton won plaudits from all sides for organizing relief programs for Muslim, Jewish, and Christian Ottomans and for intervening on behalf of numerous individuals from all those faiths throughout his 30-year career in the region. He was formally recognized by multiple governments and the Pope for his efforts. American businessmen also praised his commercial acumen and friendly relations with Turkish authorities.

Horton's reputation made it difficult for Bristol to attack him directly, so he did it indirectly. Horton was married to a Greek, and the Department frowned upon foreign-born spouses at the time. Bristol, and others, suggested Horton was biased as a result. Carr knew this was not true. Businessmen and Horton's vice-consuls reported the opposite. More importantly, Carr knew the results of the Department's internal investigation of Horton for bias. Before Smyrna was burned, a disgruntled consular employee whom Horton had fired accused him of bias, which precipitated a high-level review. Albert Putney, the acting chief of the Near East division, conducted the investigation. Putney was a lawyer with a scholarly bent who become well-known for his prestigious twelve-volume,--Putney's Law Library.? His report concluded the allegations were--much mistaken?:

I annex some of the telegrams recently received from Mr. Horton which show that he has not hesitated to criticize the conduct of the Greeks at Smyrna, in cases where he thought they...