Chapter V
THE AMERICAN RED CROSS MISSION IN RUSSIA — 1917
Poor Mr. Billings believed he was in charge of a scientific
mission for the relief of Russia .... He was in reality nothing but a mask —
the
Red Cross complexion of the mission was nothing but a mask.
Cornelius Kelleher, assistant to William Boyce Thompson (in
George F. Kennan,
Russia Leaves the War)
The Wall Street project in Russia in 1917 used the Red Cross
Mission as its operational vehicle. Both Guaranty Trust and National City Bank
had representatives in Russia at the time of the revolution. Frederick M. Corse
of the National City Bank branch in Petrograd was attached to the American Red
Cross Mission, of which a great deal will be said later. Guaranty Trust was
represented by Henry Crosby Emery. Emery was temporarily held by the Germans in
1918 and then moved on to represent Guaranty Trust 'in China.
Up to about 1915 the most influential person in the American
Red Cross National Headquarters in Washington, D.C. was Miss Mabel Boardman. An active and energetic promoter, Miss Boardman had
been the moving force behind the Red Cross enterprise, although its endowment
came from wealthy and prominent persons including J. P. Morgan, Mrs. E. H.
Harriman, Cleveland H. Dodge, and Mrs. Russell Sage. The 1910 fund-raising
campaign for $2 million, for example, was successful only because it was
supported by these wealthy residents of New York City. In fact, most of the
money came from New York City. J.P. Morgan himself contributed $100,000 and
seven other contributors in New York City amassed $300,000. Only one person
outside New York City contributed over $10,000 and that was William J. Boardman,
Miss Boardman's father. Henry P. Davison was chairman of the 1910 New York
Fund-Raising
Committee and later became chairman of the War Council of the American Red
Cross. In other words, in World War I the Red Cross depended heavily on Wall
Street, and specifically on the Morgan firm.
The Red Cross was unable to cope with the demands of World
War I and in effect was taken over by these New York bankers. According to John
Foster Dulles, these businessmen "viewed the American Red Cross as a
virtual arm of government, they envisaged making an incalculable contribution to
the winning of the war."1 In so doing they made a mockery of the Red Cross
motto: "Neutrality and Humanity."
In exchange for raising funds, Wall Street asked for the Red
Cross War Council; and on the recommendation of Cleveland H. Dodge, one of
Woodrow Wilson's financial backers, Henry P. Davison, a partner in J.P. Morgan
Company, became chairman. The list of administrators of the Red Cross then began
to take on the appearance of the New York Directory of Directors: John D. Ryan,
president of Anaconda Copper Company (see frontispiece); George W. Hill,
president of the American Tobacco Company; Grayson M.P. Murphy, vice president
of the Guaranty Trust Company; and Ivy Lee, public relations expert for the
Rockefellers. Harry Hopkins, later to achieve fame under President Roosevelt,
became assistant to the general manager of the Red Cross in Washington, D.C.
The question of a Red Cross Mission to Russia came before the
third meeting of this reconstructed War Council, which was held in the Red Cross
Building, Washington, D.C., on Friday, May 29, 1917, at 11:00 A.M. Chairman
Davison was deputed to explore the idea
with Alexander Legge of the International Harvester Company.
Subsequently International Harvester, which had considerable interests in
Russia, provided $200,000 to assist financing the Russian mission. At a later
meeting it was made known that William Boyce Thompson, director of the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York, had "offered to pay the entire expense of the
commission"; this offer was accepted in a telegram: "Your desire to
pay expenses of commission to Russia is very much appreciated and from our point
of view very important."2
The members of the mission received no pay. All expenses were
paid by William Boyce Thompson and the $200,000 from International Harvester was
apparently used in Russia for political subsidies. We know from the files of the
U.S. embassy in Petrograd that the U.S. Red Cross gave 4,000 rubles to Prince
Lvoff, president of the Council of Ministers, for "relief of
revolutionists" and 10,000 rubles in two payments to Kerensky for
"relief of political refugees."
In August 1917 the American Red Cross Mission to Russia had
only a nominal relationship with the American Red Cross, and must truly have
been the most unusual Red Cross Mission in history. All expenses, including
those of the uniforms — the members were all colonels, majors, captains, or
lieutenants — were paid out of the pocket of William Boyce Thompson. One
contemporary observer dubbed the all-officer group an "Haytian Army":
The American Red Cross delegation, about forty Colonels,
Majors, Captains and Lieutenants, arrived yesterday. It is headed by Colonel
(Doctor) Billings of Chicago, and includes Colonel William B. Thompson and many
doctors and civilians, all with military titles; we dubbed the outfit the "Haytian
Army" because there were no privates. They have come to fill no clearly
defined mission, as far as I can find out, in fact Gov. Francis told me some
time ago that he had urged they not be allowed to come, as there were already
too many missions from the various allies in Russia. Apparently, this Commission
imagined there was urgent call for doctors and nurses in Russia; as a matter of
fact there is at present a surplus of medical talent and nurses, native
and foreign in the country and many haft-empty hospitals in the
large cities.3
The mission actually comprised only twenty-four (not forty),
having military rank from lieutenant colonel down to lieutenant, and was
supplemented by three orderlies, two motion-picture photographers, and two
interpreters, without rank. Only five (out of twenty-four) were doctors; in
addition, there were two medical researchers. The mission arrived by train in
Petrograd via Siberia in August 1917. The five doctors and orderlies stayed one
month, returning to the United States on September 11. Dr. Frank Billings,
nominal head of the mission and professor of medicine at the University of
Chicago, was reported to be disgusted with the overtly political activities of
the majority of the mission. The other medical men were William S. Thayer,
professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University; D. J. McCarthy, Fellow of
Phipps Institute for Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, at Philadelphia;
Henry C. Sherman, professor of food chemistry at Columbia University; C. E. A.
Winslow, professor of bacteriology and hygiene at Yale Medical School; Wilbur E.
Post, professor of medicine at Rush Medical College; Dr. Malcolm Grow, of the
Medical Officers Reserve Corps of the U.S. Army; and Orrin Wightman, professor
of clinical medicine, New York Polyclinic Hospital. George C. Whipple was listed
as professor of sanitary engineering at Harvard University but in fact was
partner of the New York firm of Hazen, Whipple & Fuller, engineering
consultants. This is significant because Malcolm Pirnie — of whom more later —
was
listed as an assistant sanitary engineer and employed as an engineer by Hazen,
Whipple & Fuller.
The majority of the mission, as seen from the table, was made
up of lawyers, financiers, and their assistants, from the New York financial
district. The mission was financed by William B. Thompson, described in the
official Red Cross circular as "Commissioner and Business Manager; Director
United States Federal Bank of New York." Thompson brought along Cornelius
Kelleher, described as an attache to the mission but actually secretary to
Thompson and with the same address — 14 Wall Street, New York City. Publicity for
the mission was handled by Henry S. Brown, of the same address. Thomas Day
Thacher was an attorney with Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett, a firm founded by
his father, Thomas Thacher, in 1884 and prominently involved in railroad
reorganization and mergers. Thomas as junior first worked for the family firm, became assistant
U.S. attorney under Henry L. Stimson, and returned to the family firm in 1909.
The young Thacher was a close friend of Felix Frankfurter and later became
assistant to Raymond Robins, also on the Red Cross Mission. In 1925 he was
appointed district judge under President Coolidge, became solicitor general
under Herbert Hoover, and was a director of the William Boyce Thompson
Institute.
THE 1917 AMERICAN RED CROSS MISSION TO RUSSIA
|
Members from Wall Street financial
community and their affiliations
|
Medical
doctors
|
Orderlies,
interpreters,
etc.
|
| Andrews (Liggett &
Myers Tobacco)
|
Billings (doctor)
|
Brooks (orderly)
|
| Barr (Chase National
Bank)
|
Grow (doctor)
|
Clark (orderly)
|
| Brown (c/o William B.
Thompson)
|
McCarthy (medical
research; doctor)
|
Rocchia (orderly)
|
|
Cochran (McCann Co.)
|
Post (doctor)
|
|
| Kelleher (c/o William
B. Thompson)
|
Sherman (food chemistry)
|
Travis (movies)
|
| Nicholson (Swirl & Co.)
|
Thayer (doctor)
|
Wyckoff (movies)
|
|
Pirnie (Hazen, Whipple
& Fuller)
|
|
|
| Redfield (Stetson,
Jennings & Russell)
|
Wightman (medicine)
|
Hardy (justice)
|
| Robins (mining
promoter)
|
Winslow (hygiene)
|
Horn (transportation)
|
| Swift (Swift & Co.)
|
|
|
| Thacher (Simpson, Thacher
& Bartlett)
|
|
|
| Thompson (Federal Reserve
Bank of N.Y.)
|
|
|
| Wardwell (Stetson, Jennings
& Russell)
|
|
|
| Whipple (Hazen, Whipple
& Fuller)
|
|
|
| Corse (National City Bank)
|
|
|
| Magnuson (recommended by confidential agent of Colonel
Thompson)
|
|
|
Alan Wardwell, also a deputy commissioner and secretary to
the chairman, was a lawyer with the law firm of Stetson, Jennings & Russell of
15 Broad Street, New York City, and H. B. Redfield was law secretary to Wardwell.
Major Wardwell was the son of William Thomas Wardwell, long-time treasurer of
Standard Oil of New Jersey and Standard Oil of New York. The elder Wardwell was
one of the signers of the famous Standard Oil trust agreement, a member of the
committee to organize Red Cross activities in the Spanish American War, and a
director of the Greenwich Savings Bank. His son Alan was a director not only of
Greenwich Savings, but also of Bank of New York and Trust Co. and the Georgian
Manganese Company (along with W. Averell Harriman, a director of Guaranty
Trust). In 1917 Alan Wardwell was affiliated with Stetson, Jennings 8c Russell
and later joined Davis, Polk, Wardwell, Gardner & Read (Frank L. Polk was
acting secretary of state during the Bolshevik Revolution period). The Senate
Overman Committee noted that Wardwell was favorable to the Soviet regime
although Poole, the State Department official on the spot, noted that
"Major Wardwell has of all Americans the widest personal knowledge of the
terror" (316-23-1449). In the 1920s Wardwell became active with the
Russian-American Chamber of Commerce in promoting Soviet trade objectives.
The treasurer of the mission was James W. Andrews, auditor of
Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company of St. Louis. Robert I. Barr, another member,
was listed as a deputy commissioner; he was a vice president of Chase Securities
Company (120 Broadway) and of the Chase National Bank. Listed as being in charge
of advertising was William Cochran of 61 Broadway, New York City. Raymond
Robins, a mining promoter, was included as a deputy commissioner and described
as "a social economist." Finally, the mission included two members of
Swift & Company of Union Stockyards, Chicago. The Swifts have been previously
mentioned as being connected with German espionage in the United States during
World War I.
Harold H. Swift, deputy commissioner, was assistant to the
vice president of Swift & Company; William G. Nicholson was also with Swift
& Company, Union Stockyards.
Two persons were unofficially added to the mission after it
arrived in Petrograd: Frederick M. Corse, representative of the National City
Bank in Petrograd; and Herbert A. Magnuson, who was "very highly
recommended by John W. Finch, the confidential agent in China of Colonel William
B. Thompson."4
The Pirnie papers, deposited at the Hoover Institution,
contain primary material on the mission. Malcolm Pirnie was an engineer employed
by the firm of Hazen, Whipple & Fuller, consulting engineers, of 42 Street,
New York City. Pirnie was a member of the mission, listed on a manifest as an
assistant sanitary engineer. George C. Whipple, a partner in the firm, was also
included in the group. The Pirnie papers include an original telegram from
William B. Thompson, inviting assistant sanitary engineer Pirnie to meet with
him and Henry P. Davison, chairman of the Red Cross War Council and partner in
the J.P. Morgan firm, before leaving for Russia. The telegram reads as follows:
WESTERN UNION TELEGRAM New York, June 21, 1917
To Malcolm Pirnie
I should very much like to have you dine with me at the
Metropolitan Club, Sixteenth Street and Fifth Avenue New York City at eight
o'clock tomorrow Friday evening to meet Mr. H. P. Davison.
W. B. Thompson, 14 Wall Street
The files do not elucidate why Morgan partner Davison and
Thompson, director of the Federal Reserve Bank — two of the most prominent
financial men in New York — wished to have dinner with an assistant sanitary
engineer about to leave for Russia. Neither do the files explain why Davison was
subsequently unable to meet Dr. Billings and the commission itself, nor why it
was necessary to advise Pirnie of his inability to do so. But we may surmise
that the official cover of the mission — Red Cross activities — was of
significantly less interest than the Thompson-Pirnie activities, whatever they
may have been. We do know that Davison wrote to Dr. Billings on June 25, 1917:
Dear Doctor Billings:
It is a disappointment to me and to my associates on the War
Council not have been able to meet in a body the members of your Commission ....
A copy of this letter was also mailed to assistant sanitary
engineer Pirnie with a personal letter from Morgan banker Henry P. Davison,
which read:
My dear Mr. Pirnie:
You will, I am sure, entirely understand the reason for the
letter to Dr. Billings, copy of which is enclosed, and accept it in the spirit
in which it is sent ....
The purpose of Davison's letter to Dr. Billings was to
apologize to the commission and Billings for being unable to meet with them. We
may then be justified in supposing that some deeper arrangements were made by
Davison and Pirnie concerning the activities of the mission in Russia and that
these arrangements were known to Thompson. The probable nature of these
activities will be described later.5
The American Red Cross Mission (or perhaps we should call it
the Wall Street Mission to Russia) also employed three Russian-English
interpreters: Captain Ilovaisky, a Russian Bolshevik; Boris Reinstein, a
Russian-American, later secretary to Lenin, and the head of Karl Radek's Bureau
of International Revolutionary Propaganda, which also employed John Reed and
Albert Rhys Williams; and Alexander Gumberg (alias Berg, real name Michael
Gruzenberg), who was a brother of Zorin, a Bolshevik minister. Gumberg was also
the chief Bolshevik agent in Scandinavia. He later became a confidential
assistant to Floyd Odlum of Atlas Corporation in the United States as well as an
adviser to Reeve Schley, a vice president of the Chase Bank.
It should be asked in passing: How useful were the
translations supplied by these interpreters? On September 13, 1918, H. A.
Doolittle,
American vice consul at Stockholm, reported to the secretary of state on a
conversation with Captain Ilovaisky (who was a "close
personal friend" of Colonel Robins of the Red Cross
Mission) concerning a meeting of the Murman Soviet and the Allies. The question
of inviting the Allies to land at Murman was under discussion at the Soviet,
with Major Thacher of the Red Cross Mission acting for the Allies. Ilovaisky
interpreted Thacher's views for the Soviet. "Ilovaisky spoke at some length
in Russian, supposedly translating for Thacher, but in reality for Trotsky ....
"to the effect that "the United States would never permit such a
landing to occur and urging the speedy recognition of the Soviets and their
politics."6 Apparently Thacher suspected he was being mistranslated and
expressed his indignation. However, "Ilovaisky immediately telegraphed the
substance to Bolshevik headquarters and through their press bureau had it appear
in all the papers as emanating from the remarks of Major Thacher and as the
general opinion of all truly accredited American representatives."7
Ilovaisky recounted to Maddin Summers, U.S. consul general in
Moscow, several instances where he (Ilovaisky) and Raymond Robins of the Red
Cross Mission had manipulated the Bolshevik press, especially "in regard
to the recall of the Ambassador, Mr. Francis." He admitted that they had
not been scrupulous, "but had acted according to their ideas of right,
regardless of how they might have conflicted with the politics of the accredited
American representatives."8
This then was the American Red Cross Mission to Russia in
1917.
In 1917 the American Red Cross also sent a medical assistance
mission to Rumania, then fighting the Central Powers as an ally of Russia. A
comparison of the American Red Cross Mission to Russia with that sent to Rumania
suggests that the Red Cross Mission based in Petrograd had very little official
connection with the Red Cross and even less connection with medical assistance.
Whereas the Red Cross Mission to Rumania valiantly upheld the Red Cross twin
principles of "humanity" and "neutrality," the Red Cross
Mission in Petrograd flagrantly abused both.
The American Red Cross Mission to Rumania left the United
States in July 1917 and located itself at Jassy. The mission
consisted of thirty persons under Chairman Henry W. Anderson, a lawyer from
Virginia. Of the thirty, sixteen were either doctors or surgeons. By comparison,
out of twenty-nine individuals with the Red Cross Mission to Russia, only three
were doctors, although another four members were from universities and
specialized in medically related fields. At the most, seven could be classified
as doctors with the mission to Russia compared with sixteen with the mission to
Rumania. There was about the same number of orderlies and nurses with both
missions. The significant comparison, however, is that the Rumanian mission had
only two lawyers, one treasurer, and one engineer. The Russian mission had
fifteen lawyers and businessmen. None of the Rumanian mission lawyers or doctors
came from anywhere near the New York area but all, except one (an
"observer" from the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.), of the
lawyers and businessmen with the Russian mission came from that area. Which is
to say that more than half the total of the Russian mission came from the New
York financial district. In other words, the relative composition of these
missions confirms that the mission to Rumania had a legitimate purpose — to
practice medicine — while the Russian mission had a non-medical and strictly
political objective. From its personnel, it could be classified as a commercial
or financial mission, but from its actions it was a subversive political action
group.
PERSONNEL WITH THE AMERICAN RED CROSS MISSIONS TO RUSSIA
AND RUMANIA, 1917
|
|
AMERICAN RED CROSS
MISSION TO
|
|
Personnel
|
Russia
|
Rumania
|
|
Medical (doctors and surgeons)
|
7 |
16
|
|
Orderlies, nurses
|
7 |
10 |
|
Lawyers and businessmen
|
15 |
4 |
| TOTAL |
29 |
30 |
SOURCES:
American Red Cross, Washington, D.C.
U.S. Department of State, Petrograd embassy, Red Cross file,
1917.
|
The Red Cross Mission to Rumania remained at its post in
Jassy for the remainder of 1917 and into 1918. The medical staff of the American
Red Cross Mission in Russia — the seven doctors — quit in disgust in August 1917,
protested the political activities of Colonel Thompson, and returned to the
United States. Consequently, in September 1917, when the Rumanian mission
appealed to Petrograd for American doctors and nurses to help out in the near
crisis conditions in Jassy, there were no American doctors or nurses in Russia
available to go to Rumania.
Whereas the bulk of the mission in Russia occupied its time
in internal political maneuvering, the mission in Rumania threw itself into
relief work as soon as it arrived. On September 17, 1917, a confidential cable
from Henry W. Anderson, chairman of the Rumania mission, to the American
ambassador Francis in Petrograd requested immediate and urgent help in the form
of $5 million to meet an impending catastrophe in Rumania. Then followed a
series of letters, cables, and communications from Anderson to Francis
appealing, unsuccessfully, for help.
On September 28, 1917, Vopicka, American minister in Rumania,
cabled Francis at length, for relay to Washington, and repeated Anderson's
analysis of the Rumanian crisis and the danger of epidemics — and worse — as
winter closed in:
Considerable money and heroic measures required prevent far
reaching disaster .... Useless try handle situation without someone with
authority and access to government . . . With proper organization to look after
transport receive and distribute supplies.
The hands of Vopicka and Anderson were tied as all Rumanian
supplies and financial transactions were handled by the Red Cross Mission in
Petrograd — and Thompson and his staff of fifteen Wall Street lawyers and
businessmen apparently had matters of greater concern that Rumanian Red Cross
affairs. There is no indication in the Petrograd embassy files at the U.S. State
Department that Thompson, Robins, or Thacher concerned himself at any time in
1917 or 1918 with the urgent situation in Rumania. Communications from Rumania
went to Ambassador Francis or to one of his embassy staff, and occasionally
through the consulate in Moscow.
By October 1917 the Rumanian situation reached the crisis
point. Vopicka cabled Davison in New York (via Petrograd) on October 5:
Most urgent problem here .... Disastrous effect feared ....
Could you possibly arrange special shipment .... Must rush or too late.
Then on November 5 Anderson cabled the Petrograd embassy saying
that delays in sending help had already "cost
several thousand lives." On November 13 Anderson cabled Ambassador Francis
concerning Thompson's lack of interest in Rumanian conditions:
Requested Thompson furnish details all shipments as received
but have not obtained same .... Also requested him keep me posted as to
transport conditions but received very little information.
Anderson then requested that Ambassador Francis intercede on
his behalf in order to have funds for the Rumanian Red Cross handled in a
separate account in London, directly under Anderson and removed from the control
of Thompson's mission.
What then was the Red Cross Mission doing? Thompson certainly
acquired a reputation for opulent living in Petrograd, but apparently he
undertook only two major projects in Kerensky's Russia: support for an American
propaganda program and support for the Russian Liberty Loan. Soon after arriving
in Russia Thompson met with Madame Breshko-Breshkovskaya and David Soskice,
Kerensky's secretary, and agreed to contribute $2 million to a committee of
popular education so that it could "have its own press and... engage a
staff of lecturers, with cinematograph illustrations" (861.00/ 1032); this
was for the propaganda purpose of urging Russia to continue in the war against
Germany. According to Soskice, "a packet of 50,000 rubles" was given
to Breshko-Breshkovskaya with the statement, "This is for you to expend
according to your best judgment." A further 2,100,000 rubles was deposited
into a current bank account. A letter from J. P. Morgan to the State Department
(861.51/190) confirms that Morgan cabled 425,000 rubles to Thompson at his
request for the Russian Liberty Loan; J. P. also conveyed the interest of the
Morgan firm regarding "the wisdom of making an individual subscription
through Mr. Thompson" to the Russian Liberty Loan. These sums were
transmitted through the National City Bank branch in Petrograd.
Of greater historical significance, however, was the
assistance given to the Bolsheviks first by Thompson, then, after December 4,
1917, by Raymond Robins.
Thompson's contribution to the Bolshevik cause was recorded
in the contemporary American press. The Washington Post of February 2,
1918, carried the following paragraphs:
GIVES BOLSHEVIKI A MILLION
W. B. Thompson, Red Cross Donor, Believes Party
Misrepresented. New York, Feb. 2 (1918). William B. Thompson, who was in
Petrograd from July until November last, has made a personal contribution of
$1,000,000 to the Bolsheviki for the purpose of spreading their doctrine in
Germany and Austria.
Mr. Thompson had an opportunity to study Russian conditions
as head of the American Red Cross Mission, expenses of which also were largely
defrayed by his personal contributions. He believes that the Bolsheviki
constitute the greatest power against Pro-Germanism in Russia and that their
propaganda has been undermining the militarist regimes of the General Empires.
Mr. Thompson deprecates American criticism of the Bolsheviki.
He believes they have been misrepresented and has made the financial
contribution to the cause in the belief that it will be money well spent for the
future of Russia as well as for the Allied cause.
Hermann Hagedorn's biography The Magnate: William Boyce
Thompson and His Time (1869-1930) reproduces a photograph of a cablegram
from J.P. Morgan in New York to W. B. Thompson, "Care American Red Cross,
Hotel Europe, Petrograd." The cable is date-stamped, showing it was
received at Petrograd "8-Dek 1917" (8 December 1917), and reads:
New York Y757/5 24W5 Nil — Your cable second received. We have
paid National City Bank one million dollars as instructed — Morgan.
The National City Bank branch in Petrograd had been exempted
from the Bolshevik nationalization decree — the only foreign or domestic Russian
bank to have been so exempted. Hagedorn says that this million dollars paid into
Thompson's NCB account was used for "political purposes."
William B. Thompson left Russia in early December 1917 to
return home. He traveled via London, where, in company with Thomas Lamont of the
J.P. Morgan firm, he visited Prime Minister Lloyd George, an episode we pick up
in the next chapter. His deputy, Raymond Robins, was left in charge of the Red
Cross Mission to Russia. The general impression that Colonel Robins presented in
the subsequent months was not overlooked by the press. In the words of the
Russian newspaper Russkoe Slovo, Robins "on the one
hand represents American labor and on the other hand American
capital, which is endeavoring through the Soviets to gain their Russian
markets."10
Raymond Robins started life as the manager of a Florida
phosphate company commissary. From this base he developed a kaolin deposit, then
prospected Texas and the Indian territories in the late nineteenth century.
Moving north to Alaska, Robins made a fortune in the Klondike gold rush. Then,
for no observable reason, he switched to socialism and the reform movement. By
1912 he was an active member of Roosevelt's Progressive Party. He joined the
1917 American Red Cross Mission to Russia as a "social economist."
There is considerable evidence, including Robins' own
statements, that his reformist social-good appeals were little more than covers
for the acquisition of further power and wealth, reminiscent of Frederick Howe's
suggestions in Confessions of a Monopolist. For example, in February 1918
Arthur Bullard was in Petrograd with the U.S. Committee on Public Information
and engaged in writing a long memorandum for Colonel Edward House. This
memorandum was given to Robins by Bullard for comments and criticism before
transmission to House in Washington, D.C. Robins' very unsocialistic and
imperialistic comments were to the effect that the manuscript was
"uncommonly discriminating, far-seeing and well done," but that he had
one or two reservations — in particular, that recognition of the Bolsheviks was
long overdue, that it should have been effected immediately, and that had the
U.S. so recognized the Bolsheviks, "I believe that we would now be
in control of the surplus resources of Russia and have control officers at all
points on the frontier."11
This desire to gain "control of the surplus resources of
Russia" was also obvious to Russians. Does this sound like a social
reformer in the American Red Cross or a Wall Street mining promoter engaged in
the practical exercise of imperialism?
In any event, Robins made no bones about his support for the Bolshevists.12 Barely three weeks after the Bolshevik phase of the Revolution
started, Robins cabled Henry Davison at Red Cross headquarters: "Please
urge upon the President the necessity of our continued intercourse with the
Bolshevik Government." Interestingly, this cable was in reply to a cable
instructing Robins that the "President desires the withholding of direct communications by representatives
of the United States with the Bolshevik Government."13 Several State
Department reports complained about the partisan nature of Robins' activities.
For example, on March 27, 1919, Harris, the American consul at Vladivostok,
commented on a long conversation he had had with Robins and protested gross
inaccuracies in the latter's reporting. Harris wrote, "Robins stated to me
that no German and Austrian prisoners of war had joined the Bolshevik army up to
May 1918. Robbins knew this statement was absolutely false." Harris then
proceeded to provide the details of evidence available to Robins.14
Harris concluded, "Robbins deliberately misstated facts
concerning Russia at that time and he has been doing it ever since."
On returning to the United States in 1918, Robins continued
his efforts in behalf of the Bolsheviks. When the files of the Soviet Bureau
were seized by the Lusk Committee, it was found that Robins had had
"considerable correspondence" with Ludwig Martens and other members of
the bureau. One of the more interesting documents seized was a letter from
Santeri Nuorteva (alias Alexander Nyberg), the first Soviet representative in
the U.S., to "Comrade Cahan," editor of the New York Daily Forward.
The letter called on the party faithful to prepare the way for Raymond
Robins:
(To Daily) FORWARD July 6, 1918
Dear Comrade Cahan:
It is of the utmost importance that the Socialist press set
up a clamor immediately that Col. Raymond Robins, who has just returned from
Russia at the head of the Red Cross Mission, should be heard from in a public
report to the American people. The armed intervention danger has greatly
increased. The reactionists are using the Czecho-Slovak adventure to bring
about invasion. Robins has all the facts about this and about the situation in
Russia generally. He takes our point of view.
I am enclosing copy of Call editorial which shows a general
line of argument, also some facts about Czecho-Slovaks.
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