Ämnet för min C-uppsats handlar om diskussionen om vad som kan ...

country’s interests. I wish therefore not forbear to express my acknowledgement for the mannerYou have fulfilled your informative duty. 320Judging from this highly appreciative tone, it should be safe to contend that Wallenberg’srecommendation in regard to the Armenian questions did too weigh heavily in forming theSwedish decision-making when the League suggested that Sweden should take the mandate role.Baring in mind the descriptions which Wallenberg depicted about the Armenian people, theirsentiments and the unavoidable negative impacts on Swedish economic interests in the region, itis not hard to understand Stockholm’s firm negative replies to the League of Nations.Taking into account the background, earlier mission, and goals of G. O. Wallenberg, it is oflittle surprise to find the shift in the tone from the Swedish representation in Constantinople. Theeconomic gains at hand were too important to be sacrificed for moral issues. The denial of theArmenian massacres, freed Sweden from its moral obligations. And Sweden was far from alone.Almost all other former Entente Powers, as well as any other state, were busy securing their shareof the spoils of the former Turkish Empire. Here, we content ourselves to the case of USA, justto demonstrate the pattern. The US Ambassador to Constantinople, Henry Morgenthau, was, ifnot the most, then one of the active messengers informing the world about the ongoingArmenian massacres. 321 But the American attitude, both in Constantinople and Washington,changed radically, and much alike that of Sweden’s, once the Kemalists took over in Turkey. TheU.S. High Commissioner to Turkey, Admiral Mark L. Bristol, was a striking spokesman of thedenial policy, arguing that “the Armenians are a race like the Jews – they have little or no nationalspirit and poor moral character.” This, Bristol argued, was a firm argument for dropping, as soonas possible, all support for the Armenian Republic and instead courting the new Kemalist Turkey,in order to get access to the oilfields of the former Turkish Empire. 322 Bristol’s correspondent atthe U.S. State Department, Allen Dulles, supported these initiatives: “Confidentially the StateDepartment is in bind. Our task would be simple if the reports of the atrocities could be declareduntrue or even exaggerated, but the evidence, alas, is irrefutable.” 323 State Secretary Lansing’sclose supporter, the retired U.S. Admiral William Colby Chester contented that “the Armenianshad been deported not to deserts, but to ‘the most delightful and fertile parts of Syria… at greatexpense of money and effort’.” 324 The drastic change of Swedish and US rhetoric is too strikinglysimilar to be ignored.1922 marked the exit of the Armenian issues in the documents of Swedish ForeignDepartment. Now the Kemalist movement had a firm grasp over Turkey and was in directnegotiations with the Foreign Powers. Independent Armenia was long gone and incorporatedinto the Soviet Union, thus losing all means to advocate a solution to the Armenian question.320 RA, UD, nr. 146a, November, 23, 1922.321 Morgenthau, 1918. Also see Jones, 2006, p. 105,106.322 See note 164 on p. 37.323 Simpson, 1995, p. 34.324 Simpson, 1995, p. 35.70