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MCKINZIE: Mr. Ambassador, it’s hard to know where to begin in an interview with you, because you’ve had a most distinguished career, with the Soviet Union, particularly.

HENDERSON: Well, I worked eighteen years on Eastern Europe.

MCKINZIE: Yes. It’s difficult, don’t you think to start talking about the Truman era, as April l945. You have to sort of consider the events of the war.

HENDERSON: Would you like then for me to tell you about my position and whereabouts at the time of the death of President Roosevelt and what my initial

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feelings were with regard to the Vice President who was succeeding him?

MCKINZIE: Yes, indeed, I would. But we might go back a little bit, if that is agreeable and talk about your experiences in dealing with the Soviets since our relations with the Soviet Union became one of Mr. Truman’s first problems.

HENDERSON: Well, my introduction to matters pertaining to Eastern Europe took place in the early part of 1919 when as a member of the American Red Cross Commission attached to the Interallied Commission for the Repatriation of Prisoners of War with headquarters in Berlin, I acted as an inspector of prison camps in Germany. There were several hundred thousand Russian prisoners in these camps awaiting repatriation, and the problems connected with their repatriation were complex and numerous. There were arguments both in Paris and Berlin with regard to decisions relating to their

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repatriation. On the one hand, there was a fear that if they should be sent back to Russia, they would be drafted into the Soviet Army and thus strengthen the Soviet forces who were fighting the Poles. On the other hand, there was the feeling that since they had been fighting as Allies of the West they, like other Allied prisoners, should have the right to return home.

In April 1920, a sub-commission was sent to Lithuania in order to try to find out first hand what the situation was at the German-Soviet front, and what the possibilities were of repatriation through the lines held by the Germans. Under arrangements effected following the Armistice the German armies were charged to remain temporarily in Lithuania in order to hold back the Soviets. This sub-commission was composed of members of the Interallied Commission in Berlin. It was headed by a British major; and its other members consisted of a United States medical officer, a French captain,

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an Italian captain, a German officer acting in a liaison capacity, and myself. After consultation with the German commanders and the members of the newly formed Lithuanian Government in Kovno (later Kaunas), we were taken to the front lines where for the first time I came into contact with the Soviet military. Our sub-commission returned to Berlin with assurances that the returning Russian prisoners would be allowed to pass through the lines and go to their homes.

Following my return to Berlin I was assigned to Marienberg, on the borders of East and West Prussia to be in charge of the last stage in Germany of the repatriation. Large stores of army rations were placed in warehouses in Marienberg and as the train loads of prisoners came through on the way to the German-Soviet front each prisoner was given a bag of rations for use in going through the lines. Several U.S. Army non-commissioned officers were assigned to me and two of them would go on each train to the front and then return for the

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next train. This kind of repatriation lasted only a month or so. When the Poles pushed back the Russians so that a Polish-Soviet front replaced the German-Soviet front, the Poles would not permit the Russians to return through their lines. Our work in Marienberg thus came to an end.

In the latter part of August 1919, I was sent by the American Red Cross to Riga to talk with representatives there of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, regarding the practicability of and need for an American Red Cross Commission to Western Russia and the Baltic States. I returned to Berlin in September to report to Colonel Ryan, my Chief in the Red Cross, that the governments of those little nations desired very much such a mission and would give it their hearty cooperation.

I then accompanied Colonel Ryan to Paris where this Commission, of which I became a

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member, was organized with him as the head. I spent the next six months with that Commission, serving in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. I shall not go into detail here regarding my adventures and experiences during this period, but I learned a great deal while there about that part of the world and about Soviet attitudes and policies.

In April 1920, I was assigned to Berlin as Chief of the American Red Cross office there and remained in that capacity until the latter part of 1921, when I returned to the United States and began to study for the Foreign Service examinations. It had been my original intention to be a lawyer. While I was in law school, however, I failed to get into the armed forces because of a partially stiff right arm, the result of a childhood break. Determined to do my part in the First World War, I went to Europe in the latter part of 1918 with the American Red Cross. During my years in the Red Cross I had met many members of our Foreign

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Service. I liked them and became interested in the Service. I took the examinations in January 1922 and entered the Service several months later.

My first post in the Foreign Service was Dublin, Ireland, where I served as Vice Consul. After two years and several months in Ireland, I returned to the United States on home leave. While in Washington, I met by accident Evan E. Young, the Chief of the Eastern European Division of the Department, whom I had known when he was United States Commissioner to the Baltic States. Since there was a vacancy in his Division he asked me, in view of my experience in the area, if I would be willing to take it. When I agreed, he arranged for my transfer. I took over my first post in the Department in that Division in January 1925 and for the next eighteen years I worked on matters pertaining to Eastern Europe in the Department, in the Baltic States, or in the Soviet Union.

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MCKINZIE: When you first went into the Foreign Service, had you expected that eventually you would be in Eastern Europe?

HENDERSON: Well, my interests were very much in Eastern and Central Europe. It was my desire, however, to have a variety of experiences, and therefore, I did not request an Eastern European assignment when I entered the Service. I refused to name an area of preference since I thought it would be better for the Department to decide what my first post should be.

MCKINZIE: Mr. Ambassador, I’ve talked to a number of people who contend that you are the teacher of a great number of diplomats in dealing with the Soviet Union, that your experience was early, and that your perception was deep. I’m speaking in particular of Charles Bohlen, Elbridge Durbrow . . .

HENDERSON: Oh, you’ve talked to them.

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MCKINZIE: Well, I haven’t talked to Mr. Bohlen yet, but I have talked to Elbridge Durbrow and a number of other people who have been in the Soviet service. Are there outstanding events in those years between the experience in Riga and the Second World War, seminal events which helped you to form your ideas about how one had to cope with the Marxist government of the Soviet Union?

HENDERSON: It would be difficult for me to give what I would consider a satisfactory answer to that question without going into considerable detail. When I first arrived in Berlin in the early part of 1919 and during the subsequent periods when I was in Germany I saw the efforts of the Communists under Soviet guidance to take over the country. Great mobs of Communists or Communist sympathizers under the leadership of so-called "Spartacists" would go into the streets and sometimes for hours pillage, kill, and burn. The Spartacists were highly trained Communist cadres who were in close

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communion with Moscow. In Germany and the three Baltic States the Communists were looking for weak spots in which to make trouble, to weaken the governments in power, and to strengthen the world Communist movement.

In the latter part of 1919 I opened an American Red Cross office in Kaunas, Lithuania. The Communists resented our presence and did their best to interfere with our work. They even fired on members of my staff at times. On one evening as I was entering my residence a bullet hit the lintel of the door only a few inches from my head. One of my successors were attacked and wounded, but fortunately even after being shot was able to defend himself from his attackers.

During my many conversations with the Russian prisoners of war in Germany, with refugees pouring into the Baltic States from Russia, and with journalists and other foreign visitors returning from Russia I received

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impressions that were lasting. In looking over a report that I wrote to the Red Cross when I returned from my first visit to Lithuania in April 1919, I found that I had stated that the Lithuanians were desperately in need of aid and had urged that the American Red Cross try to help them. I had added that such aid might help them to combat Communist aggression in the area. You can see, therefore, that even at that time I had already formed some ideas with regard to Communists and their activities in Eastern Europe.

MCKINZIE: Would you care to comment, sir, on Franklin Roosevelt and his views about the Soviet Union? He evidently had a very optimistic attitude about the future, and I’ve read some of the dispatches from the Second World War in which you were taking a more cautious view.

HENDERSON: Well, President Roosevelt’s views seemed to vary from time to time. Sometimes when the

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Russians seemed almost contemptuous of him and of his feelings, he would become annoyed and be sharply critical of them. In general, however, he seemed to be confident that with his charming personality and his ability to persuade, he would be able to influence them to such an extent as to gain their cooperation.

Although he rarely issued personal statements critical of Soviet policies or specific actions, he was privately unhappy and at times even angered at Soviet attitudes during the period beginning with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty of August 1939 and the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941. During this period oral instructions from the White House filtered down to us in the operational level of the Department to exercise firmness in dealing with the Soviet authorities in all matters relating to the protection and promotion of our national interests and the interests of American citizens. He personally,

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for instance, approved our adoption of a so-called "tit-for-tat policy" recommended by Ambassador Steinhardt in Moscow in dealing with minor problems in our day to day relations with the Soviet Union. That policy was in essence that if Soviet officials would take a stiff unyielding position with respect to certain of our problems we would take a similar position with some of their problems and in doing so would let them know that if they were prepared to be courteous and helpful in connection with our problems we were prepared to treat their problems in a similar spirit.

President Roosevelt was indignant at the manner in which the Soviet Union annexed the Baltic States and personally approved the condemnatory statement issued by Under Secretary Welles on the subject. The President, himself, issued statements critical of the Soviet aggression against Finland. On one occasion he told a group of students, who apparently were sympathetic to the Soviet Union, that the Soviet Union was the

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aggressor and on another occasion he condemned the treaty which the Soviet Union extracted from Finland following Finnish capitulation.

In his attitude toward Finland he differed somewhat from Mrs. Roosevelt who had a group of friends who were extremely friendly to the Soviet Union. I can recall that in early March 1940 the personal secretary of Mrs. Roosevelt called me by telephone. She said that Mrs. Roosevelt had friends who tell her that the Finns really started the war and were the aggressors and she would appreciate it if I would look carefully into the matter and let her know what the true story was. I replied that it was not necessary for me to look into the matter again. I and other members of the Department had carefully studied the origins of the war from the very beginning and there was no doubt that the Soviet Union was the aggressor. Mrs. Roosevelt was apparently not satisfied with my reply because several days later a letter addressed

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to Secretary Hull and signed by Miss Thompson, Secretary to Mrs. Roosevelt, came down to my desk for action. That letter enclosed a pro-Soviet pamphlet which presented a distorted picture of the Soviet-Finnish dispute and indicated that Finland, not the Soviet Union, was the aggressor. Miss Thompson in her letter said that Mrs. Roosevelt would appreciate advice as to how much material in the pamphlet was truth and how much was fiction. I drafted the reply which was signed by Mr. Berle, an Assistant Secretary of State, who was at the time Acting Secretary in the absence of the Secretary and Mr. Welles.

I have already referred to the President’s attitude with regard to the Soviet absorption of the Baltic States. You might be interested in the manner in which the President and Under Secretary Welles worked together. It was, I think, in the early morning of July 23 that Mr. Welles asked me to prepare a statement for issuance to the press expressing sympathy for the people of the

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Baltic States and condemnation of the Soviet action. Upon looking at my draft later in the day he said that he did not think that it was strong enough. In my presence he called the President and read the draft to him. They agreed that it needed strengthening. Mr. Welles then recast a number of sentences and added several others which apparently had been suggested by the President. Since he was at the time Acting Secretary, Mr. Welles, thereupon, sent the statement down to the press room for issuance without further consultation. I was at the time in charge of the Eastern European Section of the Division of European Affairs.

Even during the period of Soviet-German cooperation the President, wisely I thought, tried in general to keep himself aloof from the conflicts that were inevitable in the conduct of relations between a country like the Soviet Union and the United States. If statements critical of the Soviet Union were issued, they

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usually came from the Secretary or Acting Secretary of State. Unpleasant exchanges with the Soviet Union were usually effected at an operational level between the appropriate members of the Department and the Soviet Embassy or between our Embassy in Moscow and the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. As a result, a fiction was created and widely believed among Soviet officials and left-leaning New Dealers in Washington that the Department, and particularly those members of the Department charged with handling Soviet affairs, were not loyally carrying out the President’s policy of strengthening friendly relations with the Soviet Union.

The President’s attitude did change, however, after the Soviet Union was forced into the war as the result of German aggression. The British, in particular, who were bent on winning the war at any price and who were anxious to do what they could to appease Stalin, were able to exert

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considerable influence on him. In my opinion at the time, the obvious efforts of the British to appease Stalin made the Russians even more difficult to deal with. Lord Halifax, for instance, again and again apparently under instructions from Eden, the British Minister for Foreign Affairs, tried to persuade us to recognize the Baltic States as a part of the Soviet Union. They did not wish to embark on a policy of this kind unless we would go along with them. This we were not prepared to do. In other instances, however, where we felt that important principles were not involved, we yielded to British pressures.

MCKINZIE: But seemingly President Roosevelt took some initiative in agreeing with Stalin’s request for a second front in 1943, and that was not what the British wanted.

HENDERSON: Yes, that was true. But I think that the President took that position on the spur of the

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moment without the usual consultation with his Allies. If my memory is correct, Stalin was pressing him for more planes and other war supplies than we were in a position to furnish at the moment, and the President in order to appease Stalin, without considering all the factors involved, indicated his belief that a second front should be established in 1943. The President, of course, like Churchill, considered it important that Stalin should be convinced that we wanted to be of all possible aid to the Soviet Union, which during 1942 and 1943 was bearing the brunt of the German offensive.

Although I was in the Soviet Union at the time, it was my feeling that the President thought that he would be pleasing the Russians when he announced that we would follow a policy of unconditional surrender. The Russians, however, refrained from joining in such a statement. We were committed, but the Russians kept themselves free of such commitment.

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The President later, as the war approached its end, did, in my opinion, go too far in his efforts to convince Stalin that we were not antagonistic to the Soviet Union, that we appreciated the "sacrifices" that the Soviet people had made and were making, and that we wanted to cooperate with them in creating the kind of a world after the war in which all of us could live happily and peacefully. Under the influence of some of his advisors he took great risks and made commitments which, in my opinion, were not to the advantage of the free world or to the maintenance of peace.

It was the feeling, I believe, of most of us who had been observing the Soviet Union over the years and been dealing eye to eye with the Russians--it was at least my feeling--that no amount of blandishment, no amount of persuasiveness, no bribes, and no concessions could divert the Soviet Union from its basic objectives. Its

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leaders were dedicated, I might even say fanatical, Communists. They had risked their own lives and destroyed millions of human beings over the years in their determination to establish eventually a Communist world. With two of the great barriers, Germany and Japan, which had in the past contained them, torn down, they were out, when peace came, to take just as much additional territory as the world situation would permit. They might be willing from time to time to change tactics in order to cope with particular temporary situations, but they would not alter their basic objectives. That was my belief, and I felt that it was my duty to offer my advice and to write memoranda when occasion required me to do so, setting forth my views.

I am confident that anyone who reads the series of volumes put out by the Department of State entitled Foreign Relations of the United States would get the impression that I was a "hard-liner"

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so far as the Soviet Union was concerned, and that impression would be correct. I was. Litvinov, the Peoples’ Commissar for Foreign Affairs when I was in our Embassy in Moscow during the 1930s and the Soviet Ambassador to the United States from 1941 to 1943, recognized that fact. He knew that I understood him and also understood the policies and the aspirations of the leaders of the Soviet Union. Furthermore, in the Department were a number of persons who did not hesitate to give him copies of my secret memoranda relating to United States-Soviet relations. On several occasions these memos had upset some of his plans.

When my four years in the Department of State were nearing an end in the summer of 1942, it was necessary for the Department to decide on a new assignment for me since under the law at that time a Foreign Service officer could not remain in the Department for a period longer than four years. It was therefore arranged for me to be appointed as a Foreign Service Inspector and to spend six

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months inspecting our Embassy in Moscow and Kuibyshev and our diplomatic missions and consular offices in the Near East. At the end of that time I was scheduled to return to the Department and resume my work in the Eastern European area. When in July 1942, I applied for a visa to go to the Soviet Union, Litvinov was obviously annoyed. He asked me why I was planning to go to Moscow. When I told him in the capacity of an Inspector of Embassies and Consular Offices, he was quite rude. He said he did not see why I should go to the Soviet Union as an Inspector. Nevertheless, the visa was issued and I arrived in Moscow in the middle of August.

My plans for inspecting our missions and consulates in the Near East after inspecting our divided Embassy in Moscow and Kuibyshev did not, however, materialize. After I had completed the inspection work in the Soviet Union and was preparing to depart for Tehran, I gave a farewell

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dinner to the Ambassador and members of the Embassy who had been so kind and helpful to me while I was in the Soviet Union. After I had made my farewell speech, the Ambassador said he had a surprise for me. A telegram had just come in from the Department asking him to come to the United States for consultation and requesting that I remain in the Soviet Union as Chargé d’Affaires pending his return to the Soviet Union.

Admiral [William H.] Standley returned to the Soviet Union in January 1943 and I prepared to go back to Washington. Before I left he told me that I ought to know that just prior to his departure from the United States, Litvinov had asked him if it was true that I was coming back again to work on Eastern European Affairs. When Standley had replied in the affirmative, Litvinov had said that the United States and the Soviet Union would never have good relations so long as Henderson was on that desk.

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I thanked the Ambassador for telling me what Litvinov had said and immediately on my arrival in Washington, I told Secretary Hull what Litvinov’s attitude was. I said that it would probably be better for the United States in this trying period for me to be given another assignment, and for my position in Eastern European area to be filled by someone who would be acceptable to Litvinov. The Secretary disagreed. He said, "No, I am not going to have Litvinov say who is going to handle things in the Department. You are going back to your old job."

Some two months later the Secretary sent for me. He said that he was sorry to tell me that I was to have another assignment. "The people over there," he said with a gesture in the direction of the White House, "want a change." I learned later that Litvinov had complained both to Mr. Welles and Mrs. Roosevelt about my return to the Department and they, who were very close to one another, had persuaded the President to take action.

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When I asked the Secretary what he would like for me to do, he said, "You are to go out as Chief of a Diplomatic Mission." I pointed out that Chiefs of Mission were usually selected from the officers in Class I; that I was only in Class II; and that I did not think that it would be right for me to deprive some higher ranking officer of a Chief of Mission appointment merely because I must go to the field. I added that I would be happy to accept any more junior post that the Department might regard as appropriate for me. The Secretary replied, "No, you are to go out as a Chief of Mission. Your assignment must be a distinct promotion. I do not want Litvinov or other Soviet officials to think that they can damage the career of a Foreign Service officer because he might happen to displease them, or for other Foreign Service officers in the future to be afraid of taking action which they consider good for the United States because they did not wish to excite Soviet displeasure. Now you look around and find

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out what posts might be available and let me know which one you want."

During the next few days I learned that the Chief of our Mission in Iraq was resigning and that the post would be vacant. I thereupon went to the Secretary and told him that I would like to go out as Minister to Iraq. "What! To Baghdad?" he said, "Why do you want to go there?"

"It’s just the post I would like," I said. I did not add that I was selecting it because at that time there were no other Foreign Service candidates for it. So, I went to Baghdad. I wish to make it clear that I bore no ill feelings against Mrs. Roosevelt or Mr. Welles because of their intercession. Mrs. Roosevelt always had a rather soft spot in her heart for the Soviet Union and was glad to be able at times to take steps to improve United States-Soviet relations. Welles had become very close to Litvinov, who apparently had fallen out of favor with Stalin, and was anxious to do what he

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could to help him.

MCKINZIE: Did Mrs. Roosevelt ever speak to you personally?

HENDERSON: Yes, we have talked to one another on a number of occasions, but never about my transfer to Iraq. I’ve never even intimated to her that I knew about her interest in the matter.

MCKINZIE: Could you talk about your wartime experience in Iraq? It became, as, of course, the whole Middle Eastern area became, vitally important in the war in a strategic sense.

HENDERSON: Well, Iraq’s role was not very important so far as we were concerned.

MCKINZIE: But Iran next door was.

HENDERSON: Well, during the period that I was in Iraq, the country was virtually under British control. They had a large Embassy there headed by an able and experienced Ambassador and composed of British experts on the area. A British lieutenant general

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was in command of the British forces stationed in various parts of the country. Among his assistants were perhaps eight or ten brigadier generals. The British forces in Iraq at the time included a large number of Indian regiments, the members of which were well disciplined and made a fine appearance. British India was playing an important role in that part of the world. As Minister to Iraq, I had responsibility for such relations as we had with the Arab sheikdoms in the Persian Gulf. In visiting them I found that British officers, as members of the Indian Civil Service, were acting in the role of advisors and counselors to the various Sheikdom Governments. Also vessels flying the flags of British India patrolled the Gulf looking after lighthouses and other shipping facilities.

While I was in Iraq, its chief port, Basra, gradually became one of the important shipping centers for commerce through Iran between the

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Soviet Union and the Western Allies. Many of the military supplies urgently needed by the Soviet Union were unloaded in Basra and shipped through Iran to the Soviet Union.

During my stay in Iraq the British Government arranged for the establishment of diplomatic relations between Iraq and the Soviet Union, and the new Soviet Minister and I established amicable relations, partly because I was the only other member of the diplomatic corps who had been stationed in the Soviet Union or was really interested in the Soviet Union. A treaty between Iraq and Great Britain had provided that Great Britain should be the only power with an Ambassador in Iraq. Accordingly, all other Chiefs of Mission were Ministers or Chargé d’Affaires.

MCKINZIE: Then you returned to the State Department in March of l945, is that not correct?

HENDERSON: Well, I arrived in Baghdad in November

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1943 and was there almost a year and a half. It was, I think, in early March 1945 that a friend, a lieutenant general stationed in Cairo in charge of the United States Air Forces in the area, came to Baghdad on a visit. He was keen on shooting, so I took him out in the country on a shoot. After a frustrating afternoon wading through irrigation ditches and climbing mud fences, I arrived late in the evening in the legation very tired. Don Burgess, our code officer, was waiting for me. He said, "Mr. Minister, I have here an important telegram for you."

"Does it need action tonight?" I asked. He said that he thought that I should look at it at once.

The telegram was from the acting Secretary of State, Mr. Joseph C. Grew. It asked if I would be willing to come back to the Department as Director for Near Eastern and African Affairs. Although the position was two notches higher in the Department’s hierarchy than that which I

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had left in 1943, I was not exhilarated at the prospect. I had become interested in the problems of the area. I had been intrigued by my visits in the Kurdish Mountains, by my calls on the Arab entities in the Persian Gulf, and in the complex political and religious rivalries of what had become to me a challenging little country. I also realized that as Director of the Office in the Department known as "NEA" I would again be faced by a series of controversial and far from pleasant tasks when the war, which was already approaching its end, would terminate. Nevertheless, I didn’t think for a minute of replying to this telegram in the negative. As a Foreign Service officer it was my duty to accept in good grace any position that the Department might suggest to me. Accordingly, on the following morning I sent a reply stating my willingness to accept the position and my pleasure that the Department had sufficient confidence in me to offer it.

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Several days later I received my instructions to visit various countries in the area for which I was to have responsibilities before reporting to the Department in the middle of April.

MCKINZIE: Do you know what prompted the Department’s telegram? Did you have a friend at court?

HENDERSON: No, so far as I was aware I had no friend working on my behalf. Mr. Hull had already retired and been replaced by Mr. Stettinius. I had met Mr. Stettinius, who had succeeded Mr. Welles as Under Secretary just prior to my departure from Washington in 1943, but our relationship had been casual. I was told later that on his way back from Yalta the President had spoken somewhat kindly of me and my views and had suggested that I be brought back to the Department. He may have been responsible for my return to Washington.

In pursuance of my orders I visited some

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eight or ten countries or dependencies either before saying my farewells in Baghdad or while enroute to the United States. My last visit was at Tangier where I spent two days with an old friend, Consul General Rives Childs and his wife, before boarding a Trans-Atlantic airplane for the United States. At about midnight on April 12 Rives knocked on my bedroom door and asked me to come down for a few moments. Downstairs I found him and his wife in a state of excitement. "We’ve got bad news," they said, "the radio has just announced the sudden death of President Roosevelt."

I felt deeply shocked because, although I had frequently not shared the President’s views, I not only admired him but had a feeling of affection for him. Furthermore, his death seemed to me to be a great national loss, with peace just around the corner and important postwar decisions to be made. I wondered if Truman would

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be able to stand up with his limited international background to the overbearing and ruthless Stalin and the sly and resourceful Molotov. During the night I thought of the death of Lincoln on the eve of victory and the difficulties which plagued Johnson in the post-Civil War era in dealing with a vindictive Senate, many members of which considered themselves superior in education, experience, and culture to the President.

I arrived in Washington on April 15 and assumed my position as Director for Near Eastern and African Affairs immediately.

MCKINZIE: Did you anticipate that a new President would mean a change in policy?

HENDERSON: No, I didn’t. I thought that for a time at least he would be surrounded by the advisers whom Roosevelt had assembled and would to an extent depend upon them until he had become settled in office, had adjusted himself to the

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routine of a President’s life, and had had an opportunity personally to examine the international problems facing the country and to become acquainted with the international figures with whom he would be required to deal. It’s difficult for a new President, who has unexpectedly assumed the office, to escape the advisers of his predecessor, particularly when he was following a popular President. I didn’t think that Truman, who hadn’t thus far won any spurs in the international field, would fire Roosevelt’s advisers and go out all alone in the world.

MCKINZIE: I wonder if you might speak to the point of your thoughts about the postwar world? There was a lot of energy expended in the Department during the war in making plans for the postwar world.

HENDERSON: Yes. It had been my feeling during the war that we should try not to let the war end with the Soviet Union in a dominating position in

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Central Europe. It was my firm opinion that if the war should come to a close with powerful Soviet forces dominating Eastern, Southeastern and Central Europe, the Soviet Union would try not only to retain under its control the territories which its forces were occupying but as much additional territory as it might extract from its indecisive Western Allies. I felt the same way about the Far East. I repeatedly urged that we should not encourage the Soviet Union to go to war with Japan. I pointed out that there was a danger that when Japan was on the verge of defeat, the Soviet Union would come in at the end so that it could claim certain Japanese territories and insist on certain peace terms that would help it to realize its ambitions in the Far East.

During the war I disagreed with certain members of the Department, particularly some of them in the economic areas, who seemed soft on the Soviet Union and considered that those of us

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who believed that the Soviet postwar aims were irreconcilable with ours, were misjudging a peace loving ally.

I was really upset during the last part of the war when we refrained from going into Czechoslovakia in order to let the Russians occupy it; when we refused to accept the surrender of some of the forces in Germany and the Balkans so that they would be compelled to surrender to the Russians; when we permitted the Russian forces to occupy Germany on all sides of Berlin so that Berlin was completely at the mercy of the Russians or of forces dominated by the Russians. When, however, I arrived in the Department in 1945, I found plenty of problems facing us in the Near East, South Asia, and Africa. We had Greece, Turkey, and Iran, for instance, the continued independence of which was in great danger.

MCKINZIE: Well, on the point of the Near East, you mentioned that the people in the economic division were . . .

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HENDERSON: Softer.

MCKINZIE: ...softer, that’s a good word, we’ll use that. Yes, were softer toward the Soviets, and, in addition to the economic people, were there not a few people in the Division of European Affairs who, for example, were willing to make concessions to the Soviets about the straits and wanted to talk about the revision of the Montreux Convention in dealing with the Soviet use of the Dardanelles?

HENDERSON: Yes, that’s true. But in my opinion most of those people were not particularly soft on the Soviet Union. They were for the most part people who had no deep convictions or strong views and who, therefore, were willing to go along with what seemed to be the overwhelming opinion of the media, or of persons around the White House. Frankly, there were a number of people who took it upon themselves to be advisors to

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the President and who in a sense played a role of defending Soviet actions and the Soviet point of view. Joseph Davies, the former Ambassador to the Soviet Union, for instance, through publicity, speeches, movies, and writings, was able to generate a considerable amount of public opinion in favor of giving in to the Russians whenever we could do so without generating too much criticism. Then there were a number of persons in the Government and even in the State Department and among the armed forces who felt that in the interest of their careers it was important for them not to win the disfavor of Harry Hopkins, the President’s closest advisor on foreign affairs. I am referring here to President Roosevelt, not President Truman, since Hopkins played an important role in the White House for only a few months under the Truman administration. One of the surest ways of winning the disapproval of Hopkins was to express suspicion of Soviet motives or to intimate that we could not

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depend upon Soviet cooperation in the postwar era.

There were also in the State Department, particularly among the so-called "New Dealers," who had come in with a predominately academic background, a number who took the position that the most important factor in assuring a future peaceful world was a cordial relationship with the Soviet Union and that it would be unfortunate to permit such factors as the continued sovereignty of various small nations to interfere with Soviet-American friendly cooperation. So those of us who were concerned about the role that the Soviet Union, no longer hampered by a strong Japan in the East and a powerful Germany in the West, might play after the war were frequently in a minority.

Would you like for me to tell you of my first meeting with President Truman?

MCKINZIE: If you would, sir.

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HENDERSON: Shortly before my departure from Iraq in March 1945, President Roosevelt invited Abdul Ilah, the Regent of Iraq, who was the uncle of the boy-king, to visit the United States. The invitation was accepted and it was arranged for the Regent and his party to arrive in Washington on or about April 19. In view of the President’s death on April 12, the visit was postponed. President Truman reissued the invitation shortly after he had assumed the Presidency, and the Regent was expected to arrive in the latter part of May.

Although I had assumed my duties as Director for Near Eastern and African Affairs in the middle of April, I still was the Minister to Iraq for a number of weeks awaiting my return into the Foreign Service. At that time, according to law, a Foreign Service officer was required to give up his commission in the Foreign Service when he accepted a Ministership or Ambassadorship, and I had, therefore, resigned temporarily from the

[43]

Service when I had taken my oath as Minister.

When the Regent arrived, therefore, in May, I was not only the Director of the office handling Iraqi affairs but was also the Minister to Iraq. Furthermore, the Regent and Nun Pasha, his Prime Minister who was accompanying him, and I, had become personal friends. Therefore, I was assigned to assist Mr. Grew, the Under Secretary, in meeting and looking after the royal party.

Several days prior to the arrival of the group, the President sent for me and asked me to discuss Iraq with him and to outline some of the various problems between Iraq and the United States and such other matters that might be useful for him to know about during the course of the visit. I spent nearly an hour with the President and was impressed with the quickness with which he grasped the situation and subjects to be discussed. He made a few notes, asked me a few questions about my background and then dismissed me with the courtesy that I learned to

[44]

expect from him.

Mr. Grew and I met the Regent and his party at the railway station and escorted them to the White House. The President and Mrs. Truman were out on the portico to greet them and to invite them to have tea. The Regent, Nun Pasha, and a Military Aide of the Regent, Mr. Grew, and I spent perhaps half an hour with Mr. and Mrs. Truman in one of their reception rooms on the first floor. Mrs. Truman then excused herself and the President escorted us to his library or study on the second floor where after a brief discussion of the world situation we went into considerable detail with regard to matters affecting United States relations with Iraq and ways with which these relations could be improved to the advantage of both countries. Again I was impressed by the President. He conducted the discussion with an easy grace and I marveled at his memory of the details that I had given him during our previous conversation.

[45]

After we had concluded our preliminary conversations, the President turned to Mr. Grew and said, "Mr. Secretary, you are an accomplished pianist, won’t you play a bit for us?" Mr. Grew played for a few minutes. After he had left the piano, the President signaled to a servant to bring in some glasses, opened a cabinet, and then said to each person, "What would you like to have?"

Now, I’m sure that the President had no idea that among the Arabs, I mean the real Arabs, not those who have been westernized, there is a custom that either the head of the family or his oldest son present serves a distinguished guest. The host will not permit a servant to do so. I could see that our guests deeply appreciated what they considered to be the President’s courtesy in personally giving them their drinks. The President by his simple and unaffected hospitality had made an unforgettable impression upon his Arab visitors, most of whom, by the way, selected non-alcoholic drinks since they were devout Moslems.

[46]

After the drinks, the President himself sat at the piano and played a couple of pieces before personally ushering us to our cars. I could see that the Arab guests were pleased with their visit. It was a fitting introduction to the United States for them. Thus did the President receive the first head of State to visit him during his Presidency.

MCKINZIE: This is very interesting. I’ve never heard this story before. And this was the first head of State that he received?

HENDERSON: The first head of State, yes. He was perfectly at ease and they liked his disarming informality. He was not breezy or self-conscious, just informal, easy, and pleasant.

MCKINZIE: Could we talk a little about the Near East after the war? There’s a book, perhaps you have seen it sometimes past, by a man named Arthur Millspaugh who talked about President Roosevelt’s

[47]

hope for a couple of countries in the Near East, particularly Iran. Millspaugh contends that Roosevelt communicated with him in such a way as to make him believe that he hoped that Iran would be a kind of model country in the postwar years; that it would be a test case to see if the principles of the Atlantic Charter, self-determination and that sort of thing, could be put into effect, because it was after all a country in which the British, the United States and the Soviets had had interests and had had forces in.

HENDERSON: Yes, I have met Millspaugh on a number of occasions, but I do not believe that I have read his book. If I am not wrong, he went to Iran first in the middle twenties as a sort of "Administrator General" to reorganize and head the Iranian financial system. He did quite well until 1927 when he got into a dispute with Reza Shah over military expenditures and was compelled to resign and leave the country. In 1942 he was

[48]

invited back to Iran as Administrator General of Finances and in that capacity he and his American assistants under contract with the Iranian Government were given considerable economic and financial authority. At that time Soviet troops were occupying the northern sections of Iran and British troops various southern sections. In addition, some thirty thousand American troops were in the country for the purpose of facilitating the shipment of military supplies to the Soviet Union. The Soviet military and civilian officials disliked the presence of the Millspaugh group, and the British were not happy to have them there. Many of the Iranian officials engaged in economic and financial work did not like the idea of taking orders from these Americans. In the air of intrigue Millspaugh and his assistants found it more and more difficult to function. When I arrived in Baghdad late in 1943, I learned of the difficulties that they were encountering and early in 1944 the situation became so difficult

[49]

for the American group of which Millspaugh was the head that they could no longer perform the tasks they had contracted to perform. They finally left Iran in the early part of 1945 shortly before I left Baghdad. This group was not regarded as a United States governmental mission but rather as a group of experts in the employ of the Iranian Government.

As a result of his visit to Iran in the latter part of 1943, the President did, however, seem to be particularly interested in the development and future of that country. He was responsible while in Tehran for the so-called "Tehran Declaration" signed by Churchill, Stalin, and himself, in which all three parties undertook to respect the territorial integrity, sovereignty, and political independence of Iran and to withdraw their forces from the country within six months after the termination of hostilities between the Allied Powers and Germany and Germany’s

[50]

associates. Some of his exchanges later with the Shah demonstrated his sympathy for Iran. I can remember in one message to the Shah he suggested that the latter make every effort to reforest the barren hills and valleys of the latter’s country.

MCKINZIE: But was that Milispaugh’s idea rather than anybody in the Department’s idea, that Iran was supposed to be a kind of a model?

HENDERSON: During the time that I was serving in the Middle Eastern area under President Roosevelt and even later I do not recall anyone in our Government expressing the hope that Iran or any other Middle Eastern country might become a model state. The President and all of us working in the area, however, hoped that after the war the countries of the Middle East, including Iran, could develop into fully independent entities and conduct their own affairs and their foreign affairs in a manner that would be consonant with the terms of the Atlantic Charter.

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During the last few months of the war, the Middle East countries encountered severe economic difficulties. They could not export, import, or engage in shipping without the consent of an Allied Mission stationed in Cairo, the so-called Middle East Supply Center. The purpose of this Center was to make sure that the economy and life of the people of the Middle East would be geared to the Allied peace effort. Since the British were playing the dominant role in the Middle East, they really dominated the Middle East Supply Center and at times the people in the area felt that they were being called upon to make unfair sacrifices for the benefit of the Western Allied powers.

MCKINZIE: Then it was your impression that the Middle East was supposed to be a kind of . . .

HENDERSON: Model?

MCKINZIE: . . . model territory.

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HENDERSON: I don’t think so. Nevertheless, from the American side there was a deep interest in the welfare of the people in the area and the hope that after the war they could have a better life. Not only the President but most of us working in the Near East or Middle East area did have a special interest in Iran. In the first place, we had a vague feeling of guilt so far as Iran was concerned. I can recall how shocked I was when in August 1941 Soviet and British troops suddenly moved in and took control of Iran, the Russians from the North and the British from the South. When several months earlier Hitler had similarly seized control of Denmark and later Norway, the Government and press of the United States loudly condemned his actions as aggression. When the British and the Russians marched into Iran, however, there was no protest on the part

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of our Government, the press, or the American people in general. In his memoirs Cordell Hull treated it as a small element in the efforts to stop Hitler’s ambition of world conquest. I was working on Eastern European affairs at the time, and based on my many years of experience in observing and dealing with the Soviet Union, I was convinced that the Soviets were going into Iran with the intention of staying there and eventually working their way to the Persian Gulf. It was true that the British and the Russians desperately needed to use Iran as a corridor for sending war supplies from the Western world to the Soviet Union, but I knew in my heart that what they did was an act of aggression. I could also understand the reluctance of Reza Shah to agree to the series of demands that the Russians had been making upon him since he, like most Iranians, was aware of the long-range Soviet ambitions with respect to his country.

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Another reason for our special interest in Iran was that we regarded it and Turkey as important shields of the Middle East and South Asia. If the Russians could break through Iran to the Persian Gulf, they would be within a couple of hundred miles of most of the known oil resources of the world and would be overlooking millions of square miles of Southern Asia. Iranian independence and territorial integrity were, therefore, of vital importance, not only to the Western world but to all peoples who looked to Middle Eastern oil as the source of their energy.

MCKINZIE: I wonder if you might help some historians with a little problem involving Iran. When the Soviet did not withdraw their troops, as they were committed to do, President Truman said, in the latter part of his Presidency, that he had sent an ultimatum to Mr. Stalin saying that if he didn’t withdraw those troops that he, President Truman, would send the Sixth Fleet into the

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Persian Gulf. I’ve talked to the people in the historical division of the State Department and they say they can’t find such an ultimatum.

HENDERSON: Well, there is a danger in discussing history and the roles, major or minor, in which one had played. Unless one has the documents before him or has recently consulted them, he’s almost sure to make mistakes, just as I may make mistakes in this conversation with you. I’m sure that the President had never sent an ultimatum of that kind to Stalin. I tried to get a number of strong telegrams out of the Department to our Embassy in Moscow containing messages for the Embassy to deliver to the Soviet Government relating to the Soviet troops in Iran, but my cautious superiors in the Department would not let them go through. If the President had sent such an ultimatum, the Department would not have been so cautious. No, the President didn’t send such an ultimatum. If he had done so, the Russians,

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in my opinion, would have been even more stubborn. They would have believed that the President was bluffing; that he had no intention of going to war with the Soviet Union in the Persian Gulf.

MCKINZIE: There were some people, Mr. James V. Forrestal for one, Secretary Robert P. Patterson for another, who were concerned at the end of the war, that as the British influence waned, that American influence increase in that area for reasons of safeguarding the oil supplies. And, I guess you could name a few other people who, at that time, were actually aware of the importance of oil. Harold Ickes was another such man.

HENDERSON: Well, the people in the Office for Near Eastern and African Affairs, which I happened to head at the time, were very much concerned about the importance of the oil in the area, and we were constantly expressing our concern. On November 12, 1947, I believe that is the date, I made a speech

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in New York on the subject of American interests in the Middle East in which I touched on oil. At that time there was much propaganda and demagogic talk in the press about "oil politics," and oil had become something of a dirty word to be avoided. I said that Middle East oil is the lifeblood of South Asia and Africa and is of great importance to Europe; that an unfriendly power in possession of the great Middle East oil reserves could hamper the rehabilitation of Western Europe and retard the economic development of Africa and Southern Asia; that we should have a more mature approach to the problem of oil since it is not necessarily a symbol of sinister imperialism but a vitally needed commodity like food. That speech was printed in the Department of State Bulletin at the time and is, therefore, available if anyone is interested in the Department’s attitude toward oil in the Middle East during the immediate postwar years.

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MCKINZIE: Might we talk a little bit about the economic people in the State Department?

HENDERSON: I’m sorry. I can’t remember their names. Most of those I had in mind had come in during the war period from the academic world. They were undoubtedly able economists. The knowledge of many of them about the Soviet Union had been acquired in the "liberal" atmosphere of classrooms or from the reading of left-leaning magazines or other literature and from popular and persuasive commentators.

MCKINZIE: There was of course William C. Clayton, the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs.

HENDERSON: Yes, but I would not include him among the economists who differed with us with regard to the Soviet Union. He was highly experienced in world affairs. I was referring to another group, mostly college professors in the economic field who had come into the Department with highly idealistic

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views of what the world should be and how the world they had in mind could be brought about.

MCKINZIE: About integrating world economy and that kind.

HENDERSON: Yes, about an integrated world economy and they took it for granted that Russia would be a partner in such an economy, and in order to show the Soviet Union that its participation would be welcome, they were willing to make concessions here and there to the Soviet Union--concessions that in the end would place more peoples under Soviet control but would not alter Soviet ultimate objectives.

MCKINZIE: Well, those same people were arguing, too, that the countries with which you were concerned, could somehow become a part of that larger world system . . .

HENDERSON: Yes, that’s right.

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MCKINZIE: . . . yes, and even argued publicly that if they were not quickly integrated into it, there would be some kind of social revolution, or violent revolution and they talked about "the revolution of rising expectation among the masses."

HENDERSON: That’s right.

MCKINZIE: Was that a real threat? I’ve read some scholarly stuff that says that that wasn’t the problem, that the awakening hadn’t occurred at that time.

HENDERSON: I don’t think the problem was as serious as some of the extremists put it, but I do think that during the war a lot of people in the Middle East had been awakened--people who previously had not been interested in local or world politics. So many changes were taking place in that area, and there had been so much talk of what was going to be done for the Middle East. There was, I

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believe, a certain amount of "rising expectations." I don’t think these new ideas were of the kind that would lead to immediate violent revolution unless Communist agents would penetrate the area and use them to stir up revolt.

Furthermore, during that period the agents of Moscow were for the most part careful in their propaganda in that area. They did not wish to offend the religious sensibilities of the Moslems. Their main thesis was "the imperialist domination--get rid of the imperialists, they are exploiting you." They were not agitating for the establishment of Communist regimes. Their line was "throw out the imperialists and their stooges and bring in friends of the people." They realized that the Moslems of the Middle East had no more affection for communism than did the people of the Western world. Their propaganda therefore played down ideological points of view and stressed economic and nationalistic.

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MCKINZIE: At what point was the idea of technical assistance seriously considered by the people in your division?

HENDERSON: I can’t remember. Almost immediately following the termination of the Second World War we were urging the extension of economic assistance to some of the countries in our area, and in some instances assistance in the form of military supplies. We, of course, advocated strongly aid to Greece and Turkey in the early part of 1947, but this was aid of all kinds--financial, economic, military, yes and technical, although as I recall it, we did not use the term "technical." We favored experts being sent out, however, to assist the recipients in making the best use of the funds and equipment sent to them. It seems to me that the word, "technical assistance" came into vogue only after I had left the Department and arrived in India.

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MCKINZIE: May we talk about that since we’re on the subject of technical assistance? In India, which of course was just getting on its feet, and with social problems which were potentially violent in nature, I suppose if American assistance was going to make a difference, that would have been a test case, would it not, or at least some people would have looked at it that way? And could you talk a little bit about what your reaction was?

HENDERSON: I was very much in favor of technical assistance to India and other countries in the Middle East and South Asia. There were, of course, several problems connected with it. In the first place, the United Nations was establishing a technical assistance program which would include India. The Chairman of the United Nations for Technical Assistance was Canadian, whose name I cannot recall just now. At any rate just as we were starting to launch our program in India, he arrived in New Delhi and made an off-the-record speech to a meeting of the representatives in that

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city of the British Commonwealth and top Indian officials in which he urged that India look to nationals of the Commonwealth for technical advisors and not introduce American technicians into the country. He intimated that American technicians were not to be trusted, that they would come to India not merely to aid the people there, but to advance American interests there at the expense of India’s partners in the Commonwealth.

I never saw the transcript of that speech but leaks with regard to it came to us from various sources. Some of the British officials and businessmen in India, as well as many Indians, who through long association had friendly feelings for the British, were opposed to Americans coming in any guise to live and work in India. Some of them considered that Americans were more dangerous than the Russians so far as India was concerned, and that it would be unfortunate for American influence to displace the tested and stabilizing

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influence of the British.

On the other hand, there were many Commonwealth officials and businessmen who favored the introduction of American technicians into India. Members of the British and Canadian High Commissions, in particular, went out of their way to cooperate with our technicians when they arrived. Nevertheless, there was, I believe, among other British friends in general a feeling that it would be better for the United States to advance funds to the U.N. for the hiring of foreign technicians than to send in a lot of American technicians who had never had any experience in South Asia. I thought in view of these feelings that we should advise our technicians when they arrived to go out of their way to make it clear that they had come solely to render technical assistance and to do or say nothing that might create the impression that they were trying to undermine British influence.

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MCKINZIE: Would you have approved in principle the idea of technical assistance coming through an international organization rather than coming unilaterally from the United States? Should it have been tied to political objectives of a country?

HENDERSON: Perhaps I was somewhat prejudiced, but it was and still is my opinion that in general technical aid coming through an international body was not likely to be as effective as direct aid from a single nation. It seemed to me that the American money spent for direct technical assistance accomplished as a rule more than the same amount spent for aid going through international channels. I am not opposed to aid going through international channels, and at times we should, in my opinion, contribute to such aid, but I think that aid direct from one country to another is likely to be the most effective. It seemed to me that American technicians working on

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a program which is purely American, are inclined to take more pride in their work and to be more enthusiastic than those representing an international organization.

MCKINZIE: When it was fairly clear that there was going to be American aid to India, you mentioned before we started our conversation here that you had sent a detailed memorandum on the way aid should be administered.

HENDERSON: That’s right. We received circular instructions from the Department asking us to give our recommendations as to the method in which aid should be administered; and I wrote a dispatch in which I suggested that we not try to set up aid missions as such. It was my feeling that an aid mission would require too much overhead. It would need offices, secretaries, automobiles, several layers of authority forming a hierarchy, and so forth. My thought was that we would approach

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technical assistance by asking the Government of India where it needed technical assistance and what kind of assistance it would like for us to send it. We might also ask the Indian Government if it would like for us to send an expert on certain technical problems to look over the situation, who, after an investigation, might advise the Indian Government what kind of technicians would be most helpful and then if the Indian Government would ask us to send them, we could do so. Our experts, I thought, should however work in the Ministry or farm or factory where needed, side by side with his Indian colleagues. They should not flaunt high salaries and superior scales of living. The Americans could be rewarded on their return to the United States by receiving in lump sum the portions of their salaries not paid to them while in India. I believe that for an American technician to receive from the United States three or four times the

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amount of pay as his Indian colleagues or superiors received would eventually create hard feelings. This was my idea in general.

MCKINZIE: I see. Of course, that did not get implemented, but what kind of technicians then did you see in India before you left?

HENDERSON: They sent us excellent technicians. They were, in general, a hard-working, capable, and tactful group of men and women. When I left India in September 1951 for Iran, our aid mission was still growing. It doubled and even trebled in size after I had left. I was very pleased with what its members were doing and how they conducted themselves. When I arrived in Iran, I found that our aid mission there was already almost at full strength. Shortly after my arrival there, a new "Director of Technical Cooperation" was attached to the Embassy with the rank of Minister. He was highly experienced, having served in the

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Department of Interior as Assistant Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation and later as Assistant Secretary.

MCKINZIE: William Warne?

HENDERSON: Yes, and he was a great asset to our work in Iran. I came to have great respect and deep affection for him. His predecessor, who was preparing to return to the United States just as I arrived, had also done a good job. He had been associated with the University of Utah or Utah State University, I forget which, but he had brought into his mission a number of technicians, for the most part from Utah, who were experienced in the field of agriculture. Since the climate and land of Utah have many similarities to those in Iran, they fitted beautifully into the agricultural program. Most of them had large families and their own automobiles, and every Sunday their loaded cars could be seen streaming

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across the countryside in the direction of the mountains. Although their scale of living was far above that of their Iranian counterparts, nevertheless, they were very popular among their Iranian fellow workers.

MCKINZIE: Mr. Ambassador, since we are on the subject of technical assistance in this area, maybe we could go on and ask you to relate again a very unpleasant incident that occurred in Iran, which you told me about before we started. That was the tragic trip to Iran of Henry Bennett who was the President’s appointee, as Chief of the Technical Cooperation Administration. As I recall, he was coming in December of 1951.

HENDERSON: That’s right, he was due to arrive in Tehran in December 1951, about three months after my arrival there.

MCKINZIE: As I recall, he was going there for the purpose of getting a country agreement with respect to aid

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with Iran.

HENDERSON: Yes, he was to work out with the Iranians a somewhat detailed aid agreement. I had been looking forward to seeing him and went down to the airport to meet him. It was one of those December days in Tehran when a soft flaky snow made it difficult to see more than several hundred feet above the ground. We could hear a plane passing back and forth above the airfield but we couldn’t see it and it apparently could not see the ground. It was an Egyptian plane with an experienced Egyptian pilot.

MCKINZIE: You were there with the official welcoming party?

HENDERSON: Yes, I was there with representatives of the Embassy, our Aid Mission, and several high ranking Iranian officials. For some fifteen or twenty minutes, the plane would pass over us, circle and then come again. Finally it disappeared. After waiting for another hour, I returned to the

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Embassy and called several airfields in the vicinity, one in Abadan and the one in Baghdad, as well as our Embassy in Baghdad and our Consulate in Abadan, to ascertain if the plane had landed in one of them. When finally darkness fell and we had heard nothing, I had dark forebodings.

Nestled as it was among the mountains, the Tehran airport presented grave dangers during snowstorms. So early the following morning when the snow had ceased to fall, I asked our Naval Attache if he could fly in his plane over the area to look for the missing plane. He reported a couple of hours later that he had spotted what might be a wrecked plane at the bottom of a foothill several miles from the airport.

Along with a couple of junior members of the Embassy and followed by Iranian officials and a physician, our Naval Attaché and I set out at once in a jeep for the hills where our attaché had seen an object that might be the plane. After

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several miles we left the road and followed a camel trail until we saw pieces which might have come from a plane that had been skidding and rolling down from one of the higher hills. We left the jeep and walked through a narrow rocky defile which led us to the wreck. Several bodies were lying by the plane, some were still in it, and several were strewn along the hillside. The first body that we came to proved to be that of Dr. Bennett, and that of his wife was only a few yards distant. Among the other American citizens who perished in the wreck were Mr. Albert Crilley, Dr. Bennett’s special assistant; Mr. James T. Mitchel, a photographer who was making photographic records of various Point IV activities; Miss Emijean Snedegar, a commissioned officer of the U.S. Public Health Service, who was on a mission for the Department of State; Mr. Benjamin Hill Hardy, an expert in the field of public relations who was assisting Dr. Bennett; Mr. Louis Hedrick

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Jordal, who was serving in Baghdad as an Exchange Professor of Biology, and who was coming to Iran to spend Christmas with friends; and Mr. Jesse Lee Smith, an engineer who was on a business trip. The broken bodies were taken to Tehran and prepared for shipment to the United States. Some five days later, on December 27, I believe, the Embassy had memorial services for the eight Americans, which were attended by most of the American community in Tehran and by representatives of the Iranian Government.

MCKINZIE: May we go back a little bit to 1947, to the events about which much has been written. I guess you were the duty officer the day that the British sent the note in February, that they were not going to be able to . . .

HENDERSON: No, I was not the duty officer because the Department was still open. The duty officer is the person who remains on duty after the Department

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is closed for the day or for the weekend in order to handle any emergency that might arise. I’ll tell you the story of what happened on the fateful afternoon of Friday, February 21, l947. I was at the time Director for Near Eastern, African, and South Asian Affairs. Along about 3 o’clock in the afternoon Jack Hickerson, who at the time was Acting Director for European Affairs, called me on the telephone. He said that the Counselor of the British Embassy would like to see me urgently and asked if I could receive him. I replied that I could receive the Counselor at once.

When the Counselor arrived, perhaps a half hour later, he handed me the copies of two notes, the originals of which he said the Ambassador would present to the Secretary of State, General Marshall, on Monday. Since these notes were rather important, the Embassy as a courtesy was giving the Department copies in advance so that the

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Secretary would not be taken too much by surprise.

I thanked the Counselor, who left without discussing the contents of the notes. When I looked at them I realized how important they were. One related to Greece, and the other to Turkey, both countries which were in the area of the responsibility of our office. In brief, the notes stated that in view of the difficult financial position in which Great Britain found itself, it must discontinue the military, financial, and economic aid that it had been giving to Greece and Turkey as of March 31, 1947, and expressed the hope that the United States would shoulder the burden of giving the aid which these two countries sorely needed. The British Government intended to refrain from making an immediate announcement of its decision in the hope that in the interim the United States Government would decide to take the responsibility for assisting these two countries.

Secretary Marshall had the habit of leaving

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the Department before noon on Fridays and making himself available until Monday morning. I, therefore, called up Jack Hickerson, who specialized on British affairs, went to his office and showed him the notes. The two of us, thereupon, asked Mr. Acheson, who was in charge of the Department in the absence of the Secretary, for an urgent interview. Mr. Acheson was very busy but he received us at once. After looking at the notes he said to me, "I want you to get your staff together and work like hell over this weekend. What I expect from you is a memorandum which I can give to the Secretary early Monday morning (the Secretary’s appointment had been set at 10 o’clock). Between now and Monday I want you to bring this memorandum to me so we can go over it.

I went back to my office immediately and called in the members of my Greek, Turkish, and Iranian Division, also my economic assistants,

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and we set to work. We held a series of conferences, and drafted and redrafted until late Friday night. We worked all day Saturday and did not leave the office until nearly midnight. By 11 o’clock Sunday we had ready a memorandum which seemed to us to meet the situation. I immediately telephoned Mr. Acheson at his residence in Georgetown, and he asked that I bring it to him at once. To my relief he expressed himself as satisfied with it. The following morning he gave it to the Secretary at 9 o’clock and they decided that the matter was of such importance that the Secretary would tell the British Ambassador, after the Ambassador had presented the notes, that he would like to think about them and talk to the President before making any comment with respect to them.

The Secretary asked me to be present during his conversation with Lord Inverchapel, the British Ambassador. My memorandum describing their conversation is to be found in Foreign Relations of

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the United States, 1947, Volume V.

I had not been surprised when Mr. Acheson had approved our memorandum of action. He and I had been discussing the problems of Greece and Turkey for some time, and both of us felt that a crisis with regard to them was imminent. We did not know what form the crisis would take. We felt, however, that the British could not indefinitely continue to carry the burden of Greek and Turkish assistance.

MCKINZIE: Do you recall, in those meetings that you held with your staff over that weekend, was your staff and the people in your division pretty much agreed? Was it almost inevitable that the final document was going to result?

HENDERSON: Well, I think that the answer to that is "yes" so long as you leave the word "almost" in the question. All of us had been worried about the problems of Greece and Turkey, particularly Greece, for months. Such aid as they had been receiving

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from the British was insignificant compared with the problems and their needs. We had tried to find some method for giving loans of a modest character or grants to them. We had been turned down. The National Advisory Committee on International Monetary and Financial Problems had taken the position that there was no legislation that would authorize such assistance to them. That was rather irritating to us at a time when we were granting large loans to Communist-dominated countries like Poland.

The British decision expressed in the notes handed to the Secretary would make the situation of Greece and Turkey even more desperate. All of us were agreed that if the British should make their announcement that aid to Greece and Turkey would be suspended after March 31, and there was no prospect of aid coming from the United States, the morale in both countries would sink to such a level that their Governments would have difficulty in rallying the peoples to resist the pressures

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that were being placed upon them from the Communists and the Soviet Union and its satellites. The guerrilla warfare carried on in Greece with the support of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia was sapping the strength and endurance of Greece. Although the propaganda pressure that the Soviet Union had been applying to Turkey with regard to its eastern provinces and the Dardanelles had eased somewhat since the United States had taken such a firm stand on behalf of Turkey in the late summer of 1946, it would undoubtedly be resumed if it would appear that the Western Powers were losing their interest in the maintenance of Turkish independence and territorial integrity.

We were unanimous in our belief that some way should be found to let the Greek and Turkish Governments know that the United States was planning to come to their assistance before the British decision was announced. We believed that since at present there was no legislation under

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which such assistance could be extended, appropriate legislation should be enacted. That would mean action on the part of Congress. But members of the Congress would not be likely to vote for such legislation unless they could be given to understand the gravity of the situation and unless they would be given to feel that such legislation would have national support.

It seemed to us that the following steps should be taken:

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Churchill, who during the war years had vied with President Roosevelt in lauding the Soviet Union as our freedom loving ally, had already presented some of the facts of life so far as the Soviet Union and communism were concerned to the American people during the course of an address that he had made at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, an address that had shocked and distressed many Americans, who since Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union in June 194l, had come to consider that broadside attacks on the Soviet Union and communism were in bad taste. Nevertheless, we felt that unless the American people could be made conscious of what the Soviet Union, its satellites, and the Communist parties throughout the world were doing, Congress would not have the support necessary for the passage of the required legislation.

Although in our memorandum we did not try to

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spell out word for word the contents of the various documents to be presented, including the President’s speech, we did, however, if my memory serves me correctly, indicate some of the lines that might be followed. I regret that the original memorandum cannot be found. Mr. Acheson apparently gave the copy that I handed him to the Secretary. One copy, I believe, went into the files of the Office for Near Eastern, African and South Asian Affairs, which was used during the preparation of the documents and apparently misplaced. In pursuance of the regulations governing secret documents, I retained no copy for myself.

In general, the program proposed in the memorandum was carried out. The Secretary discussed the matter with the President; the President called in the leaders of Congress and explained the situation to them. Much time was spent on the drafting of the President’s speech and other documents, including the proposed legislation and

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the support of it. Differences of opinion with regard to various passages in the draft of the President’s speech were resolved by Mr. Acheson who served as umpire. All our work was done in secrecy--on a "need to know" basis--we could not, therefore, discuss our problems with many of our colleagues in the Department. Since the two countries involved were in the Middle East, the draft which Mr. Acheson took to the President limited the application of the policy expressed in it to "the free peoples of the Middle East who are resisting attempted subjugation..." When the President was making certain alterations in the draft, he said to Mr. Acheson that he saw no reason to limit the announced policy to the Middle East, it should have worldwide application. Thus, the President himself made this important decision in what was to become known as the "Truman Doctrine."

MCKINZIE: That’s an interesting point. I was not personally aware of that.

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HENDERSON: I was not aware of how the change came about until several years ago. Shortly after his death, Mr. Acheson told me of his conversation with the President as they were looking over the draft. You asked a few minutes ago if there were any differences of opinion among members of my staff as we drafted the document. I indicated that we were all in agreement. During the following week as the task force was enlarged, certain disagreements did take place. George Kennan, for instance, who came over from the War College to work with us, thought that our assistance should be limited to Greece; that Turkey because of its geographical position was in an area with respect to which the Soviet Union was extremely sensitive, and that for us to undertake to come to the aid of Turkey was therefore a rather serious commitment. I disagreed. We put the matter up to Mr. Acheson who decided that Turkey should be included. I, personally, would have liked to include Iran, which

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also was sorely in need of help following its tribulations during the war years. But since the British had not asked us to assume any responsibilities with regard to Iran I did not push the matter.

MCKINZIE: When the President finally did call in the members of Congress, Vandenberg is alleged to have said to him, "Mr. President, the only way you are ever going to get this is to make a speech and scare hell out of the country," or something like that.

HENDERSON: Well, in general that was our idea from the very beginning. We did not use the expression "scare the hell out of them." That’s the Congressional way of stating our purpose. We used Department of State language like "tell them the truth about the situation." One of our problems, by the way, was to obtain from the Greek and Turkish Governments requests for aid in a language which could be included in our support of the proposed

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legislation. We prepared for the Greek and Turkish Embassies in Washington statements describing what we were planning to do and added to these statements the drafts of the kind of requests we needed. I handed these statements and drafts to the Embassies and indicated that if they wanted aid, we hoped that the requests would come as soon as possible. The Greek request came almost immediately and was almost identical with our draft. The Turkish Foreign Office apparently entered into a number of conversations in Ankara before replying. It had made a number of changes in our draft, but its request was in a form that suited our purpose.

MCKINZIE: Then did you have, personally, dealings with the legislature in the process?

HENDERSON: No, I did not go before Congress or testify.

MCKINZIE: I mean on an informal basis.

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HENDERSON: I may have discussed the subject in passing with various Congressmen whom I would happen to meet socially. But I did not do any lobbying. At the request of Mr. Acheson I did make a number of speeches on the subject in various parts of the country.

MCKINZIE: I know that your name is not on the hearings.

HENDERSON: Those hearings were so important that Dean Acheson handled them personally. In the meantime I had a number of other urgent problems relating to my area which could not be neglected: Iran, Palestine, India, various Arab and African countries and entities. I assigned one of the most able associates in my office, Jack Jernegan, to assist Mr. Acheson, and he did an excellent job. I was also keeping in constant touch with our Embassies in Athens and Ankara.

MCKINZIE: May we pursue the business of the Greek-

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Turkish thing for a little bit? After the money was forthcoming, then there was some question over how the money could most appropriately be used, and you went to Greece then in the summer of l947, did you not?

HENDERSON: Yes.

MCKINZIE: Was this to speak with Ambassador Lincoln MacVeagh and with Dwight Griswold over how this money might be used?

HENDERSON: No, there were disagreements about how the money for Greek aid should be spent, but I did not go to Greece to discuss those differences.

MCKINZIE: The newspapers at the time had made this comment. Could you address yourself to that point, please?

HENDERSON: Well, I was busy tending to my own business connected with troubles in half a dozen countries when early one morning in the last part of August,

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Mr. Lovett, who had succeeded Mr. Acheson as Under Secretary, asked me by telephone to come to his office. He said: "The President wants you to leave for Greece this evening." He added that a number of prominent Greeks in this country had been to the White House to complain because the new Government in Greece, headed by Tsaldaris, was a one-party Government. All the members of the Cabinet belonged to the Nationalist Party, which was pro-monarchist and conservative. These visitors to the White House, all of whom were "liberal minded," said that most Greeks in the United States were also "liberal," and there was a growing resentment that the United States was giving aid to, and thereby strengthening, a pro-monarchist government. They insisted that unless a coalition government replaced at once a one-party conservative government, the Greeks in the United States would be able to destroy the effectiveness of our aid program. They might even be able to prevail on Congress to withhold

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funds for the program. Our able Ambassador to Greece, Mr. MacVeagh, had tried without success to persuade Tsaldaris to bring members of other parties into his Government. "Your job, therefore," said Mr. Lovett, "is to leave at once for Greece and there in company with our Ambassador to let Tsaldaris know that the success of our aid program is endangered unless Greece has a coalition government."

I knew Tsaldaris quite well. He had made a number of trips to the United States, and while he was in Washington he and I had had several discussions regarding the aid program and other facets of Greek-American relations. It was true that he was a conservative. During the period immediately following the war he had unswervingly opposed the Communists when most Greek political leaders, not knowing whether Greece would fall to the Communists like its Balkan neighbors, sat on the fence. His National Party had won overwhelmingly

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in the recent Greek elections, the fairness of which had been attested by a team of American observers. I, therefore, demurred at going on the mission. Mr. Lovett said that if I did not go, someone else possibly less sympathetic to Tsaldaris would be sent.

When I met Mr. MacVeagh at the airport two days later, I told him the purpose of my mission and added that one reason why I had consented to undertake it was that neither I nor anyone in the Department wanted the Ambassador to be compelled to do it.

When the Ambassador presented me to Tsaldaris, I told the latter in as gentle a manner as I could what our problem was in the United States and that I had been sent to see him and to ask him to help us. He said, "I have tried to set up a coalition government, but the members of other parties insist that they will not participate in any government headed by the Nationalist Party of which I am a member. More than half of the members of our

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Parliament are members of my party and it would be difficult to make them understand why our Prime Minister must be the member of some minority party." He added that perhaps I might be able to persuade the minority parties to be more reasonable. Mr. MacVeagh said that he would be glad to introduce me to the leaders of some of the other parties.

During the next two days the Ambassador and I talked with three or four leaders of the opposition parties but found them adamant. They apparently had already agreed among themselves that the new Prime Minister should be Sophoulis, the leader of the Liberal Party, which had once been one of the great parties of Greece, but at the time had only a handful of members in the Parliament. To make a long story short, Tsaldaris finally capitulated. It was arranged that the new Prime Minister would be Sophoulis and Tsaldaris would be his Deputy.

I was unhappy at the result of my mission.

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Tsaldaris, in my opinion, was the kind of strong man that Greece needed at the time, whereas the aged Sophoulis was inclined to waver when it came to making tough decisions.

MCKINZIE: Mr. Ambassador, this is, I guess, a kind of philosophic question, and one that only a naive historian would ask, but what you describe constitutes intervention into the internal affairs of a sovereign nation .

HENDERSON: Perhaps it could be called indirect intervention. I did not tell him that he must resign or that Greece must have a coalition government. I did tell him about the problem we were facing in the United States, a problem that might involve eventually the curtailment of termination of aid to his country. It can be argued, I suppose, that in telling him frankly what our problem was, I was really inviting him to resign. Whether or not it was intervention, it was a mission with

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regard to which I took no satisfaction. I did, however, take some satisfaction in one aspect of that mission. While I was in Greece, I had long talks with Mr. MacVeagh; Mr. Dwight Griswold, the head of our Aid Mission to Greece; and the top American military leaders. On my return to the United States, I told General Marshall that I thought we were not giving enough attention to the internal military problems of Greece. There was no purpose in trying to build roads and help establish factories only to have them torn down or destroyed by the guerrillas. We should have as an advisor in Greece a strong military leader who had experience in guerrilla warfare. After hearing my story, the Secretary arranged for the Chiefs of Staff to make a fresh review of the needs of Greece in connection with its struggle with the guerrillas. Eventually our military aid to Greece was strengthened and Lt. Gen. Van Fleet, who was experienced in guerrilla warfare, was

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sent to Greece to take charge of the military portion of the program.

MCKINZIE: I wonder if we might talk about Israel, and I don’t presume to know even where we might begin? Perhaps you could, for the record, give some background to this problem?

HENDERSON: During the years that I was serving as Minister to Iraq (November 1943 to March 1945), the Iraqis were becoming increasingly concerned about our attitude towards Palestine. They construed statements made by American politicians and various American organizations favoring the establishment of a Jewish home in Palestine to mean that they were in favor of the establishment of a Jewish State in that area. They did not believe that the Zionists would be satisfied with having a sort of "old folks home" in Palestine. On various occasions members of the Iraqi Government brought up the subject to me. Those who were the most friendly toward the United States seemed to

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be the most concerned.

I can remember that on various occasions both the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister told me that if the United States should decide to take a firm stand in establishing a Zionist state in Palestine, the whole Arab world would begin to feel that the United States had become an enemy of the Arabs. They said that the Soviet Union would certainly take advantage of the situation; that those Arabs who were friendly toward the West would be eliminated one by one, and that the whole Middle East would become anti-American.

I sent a number of reports to the Department with regard to these conversations. I think it was in November 1944 I wrote a personal letter to Wallace Murray, the Director for Near East and African Affairs, indicating that I hope that the Department did not think that I was overemphasizing the importance of the Palestine problem or that

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I was becoming rabidly anti-Zionist, but that I considered it my duty to inform it that if the United States should intervene in Palestine on behalf of the Zionists, our relations with Iraq would be adversely affected in every field. It seemed to me that our Government should be given to understand what might be expected in the Middle East if it should espouse the Zionist cause. I felt that the Department should be informed with force and bluntness about the situation; that for me to mince words in order to save myself from criticism would be cowardly. Although my letter was of a personal nature, not intended for the files of the Department, it found its way into the files and was published in Foreign Relations of the United States.

MCKINZIE: What kind of response did Mr. Murray give you?

HENDERSON: I didn’t receive a reply and never knew why he had put it in the official files.

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George Wadsworth, our Minister in Syria, was a veteran in the Middle East, and at times I would fly over to have lunch with him and to discuss our common problems. When I asked him how he handled questions put to him by the Syrians, he said that he was telling them that the United States would never back the establishment of a Jewish State. He said that he was quite sure that the United States Government would not go so far as to support the establishment of such a State, what we have been hearing is only the irresponsible talk of politicians. I told him that I was not so sure of what our attitude would be. When the Iraqis talked to me about Palestine, I was telling them that I was interested in their views and thanking them for giving them to me; and that I would convey them to my Government.

Before returning to the United States to assume my new position in the Department, I visited a number of Arab countries, including in particular Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Egypt. Our Ministers

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in those countries told me of the concerns of the Governments to which they were accredited regarding our attitude toward the Palestine problem. Some of the officials of those countries to whom they introduced me also expressed concern over the same problem. Old Ibn Saud in Saudi Arabia made the future of Palestine the most important topic of my conversation with him. He said, however, that he relied on the integrity and good sense of President Roosevelt, which he thought would prevent the United States from following policies which would alienate the Arab world.

When I arrived in the Department in April l945, three days after the death of President Roosevelt, I realized that the problem of Palestine would be one of the crosses which I would have to bear and that it would be a heavy one.

MCKINZIE: And very early too, was it not, because in December of 1945 there were all that hundred

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thousand extra emigrants.

HENDERSON: Yes, the emigrants were a part of the same problem--many of them, who after years of misery and suffering, were in internment camps awaiting transportation to Palestine. Some people may think that I had no sympathy for those poor refugees looking for a place to go. I, in fact, had deep sympathy for them, but it seemed to me at the time that civilized countries throughout the world should lower their immigration barriers and welcome them. The United States, Canada, Australia, a number of Latin-American countries could have made room for them. I thought that in going to Palestine they would not find the happy, quiet Jewish National Home which they were looking for. There, I was convinced, they would be encountering new anxieties and uncertainties in a small country in a hostile environment. Their lives would be torn by tumults and violence, and furthermore the people whom they

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would be displacing would also become refugees, homeless and miserable. I used the word "displacing" because I could not conceive how there could be a Jewish State in Palestine unless many members of the Arab majority were pushed out.

The Zionists, however, were determined that, come what may, the displaced Jews in Europe and even those who were not displaced who were willing to do so, should go to Palestine. Now was the time, they seemed to think, a time that might not come again in another thousand years, for the Jews to be assembled again in their own old homeland. They were not interested in trying to make it possible for the Jewish refugees to go to the United States or to any place other than Palestine. Although many American Jews were not Zionists, most of them looked to the Zionists for leadership in solving the problems of the Jewish refugees.

Under pressure of the Zionist juggernaut, the President, members of Congress, other leaders in American political life, the press, and the radio

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found themselves entangled in the problems of Palestine. The pressure on the Department of State was terrific, and my office unfortunately was one of the centers of the storm. Most of the basic decisions were made, however, at much higher levels--the President himself or perhaps the Secretary of State or an Under Secretary.