'We should have our own observers of information': the American Commission to negotiate peace looks at Russia, 1919

ABSTRACT

The United States found itself relatively unprepared to participate in the World War I peace conference that convened in Paris in January 1919. President Woodrow Wilson began American preparations for the peace conference in mid-1917, when he established ‘The Inquiry’ to provide background and policy papers for use at the negotiating table. Once the conference began, however, the American peace commissioners realized they required more current information to support their work. To supplement the information provided by the Department of State, the American Commission to Negotiate Peace established its own sources. In addition to participating in a number of inter-allied investigatory missions established by the conferees, the Americans sent twelve field missions of their own to various places in Europe and Asia Minor to collect information. Three of those field missions targeted Russia. The results of those missions were mixed. This article discusses the origins of the Commission’s little-known field mission program and describes the work and activities of the three missions into Russian territory. In doing so, it shows some of the earliest steps in the evolution of a more modern approach to the gathering of foreign intelligence consonant with the more prominent of the United States role in international affairs as a result of the war.

Acknowledgements

The author expresses his appreciation for the assistance of Frank Costigliola, Charles Hawley, Richard Immerman, and Thomas Zeiler.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria.

2. There are no mentions of the work of the Peace Commission’s field missions in two significant overviews. See: Daniel Larsen, ‘Intelligence in the First World War: The State of the Field’, Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 29, no. 2 (2014), 282–302 and Mark Stout, ‘World War I and the birth of American intelligence culture’, Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 32, no. 2 (2017), 378–394.

3. Lippmann to Baker, May 16, 1918, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1919: The Paris Peace Conference (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943), I, 97–98. ‘The Inquiry’ is the grandmother of all American finished intelligence organizations. See Gelfand, ‘The Inquiry’: American Preparation for Peace, 1917–1919. For an overview of the political situation in Europe after World War I, see Robert Gerwarth, The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016.

4. House to Wilson and Lansing, November 8, 1918, quoted in Gelfand, 132. Mayer, Politics and Diplomacy of Peacemaking: Containment and Counterrevolution at Versailles, 367.

5. Lasch, The American Liberals and the Russian Revolution, 244.

6. Johnson, ed., Turbulent Era: A Diplomatic Record of Forty Years, I, 355, 381; Gelfand, 132.

7. Polk was in charge of the Department of State while Lansing was serving as a peace commissioner in Paris.

8. Department of State (Polk) to Embassy France (Sharp), December 21, 1918, Department of State Central Decimal File (hereafter CDF) 861.00/3503. All cited records with the prefix ‘CDF’ come from Record Group 59: General Records of the Department of State, United States National Archives (USNA). Those with a prefix of ‘CDF 861’ are on National Archives Microfilm Publication M316: Records of the Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1910–1929.

9. On February 27, 1918, Ambassador David R. Francis closed the embassy in Petrograd and moved it east to Vologda to avoid the approaching Germans, who had moved deep into Russian territory. In July, Bolshevik authorities pressured the nine diplomatic missions that had evacuated to Vologda to move to Moscow, which they considered safer. The missions, including the Americans, instead chose to relocate north to Archangel, where they arrived on July 26, 1918, and where the embassy remained until it closed in September 1919.

10. American Commission to Negotiate Peace (hereafter Ammission) to Department of State, January 22, 1919, Department of State (Polk) to Embassy Russia (Poole), January 24, 1919, CDF 861.00/3682. For discussion of the internal Russian political situation, see: Lincoln, Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War, Mawdsley, The Russian CivilWar, and Engelstein, Russia in Flames: War, Revolution, Civil War, 1914–1921. The latest entrant to this literature is Antony Beevor, Russia: Revolution and Civil War, 1917–1921.

11. Ammission to Department of State, January 22, 1919, Department of State to Consulate Omsk (Harris), January 24, 1919, CDF 861.00/3683.

12. Ammission to Consulate Helsingfors (Haynes), January 21, 1919, American Commission to Negotiate Peace General Records (hereafter ACNP) 861.91/1, Ammission to Legation Romania, January 21, 1919, ACNP 861.91/2. All cited records with the prefix ‘ACNP’ come from Record Group 256: Records of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace, United States National Archives. Those records are on National Archives Microfilm Publication M820: General Records of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace and are available online through the National Archives Catalog.

13. See Mayer, Politics and Diplomacy, and Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and the Versailles Peace.

14. Van Deman to Grew, January 11, 1919, ‘Report on Bolshevism’, ACNP 861.00/111.

15. Ammission to the American embassy or legation in England, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, and Spain, January 16, 1919, ACNP 861.00/125A; Ammission to Department of State, January 17, 1919, CDF 861.00/3639.

16. Mezes to Executive Committee, June 14, 1918, quoted in Thompson, Russia and Versailles, 149.

17. Ammission to Department of State, December 31, 1918, ACNP 184.01/3A. The matter of wearing uniforms or civilian attire was a matter of serious discussion within the Commission. General Tasker Bliss, one of the American commissioners, was concerned that soldiers not wearing uniforms would be accused of being spies. Bliss to Lansing, January 17, 1919, ACNP 184.01/15.

18. Sidney Mezes to Joseph Grew, Executive Secretary of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace, January 21, 1919, ACNP 184.01/7.

19. The Commission established the following field missions: First Dresel Mission to Germany, Second Dresel Mission to Germany, Coolidge Mission to Countries of the Former Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bullitt Mission to Russia, Morgenthau Mission to Poland, Riggs Mission to South Russia, Gherardi Mission to Germany, Greene Mission to the Baltic Provinces of Russia, Halstead Mission to Germany, Austria, and Hungary, Bandholtz Mission to Hungary, Miles Mission to Montenegro, and King-Crane Commission to Turkey.

20. Dresel to Harrison, February 19, 1919 ACNP 184.016/30; Ammission to Department of State, February 21, 1919, CDF 861.00/3904. Leland Harrison was central to the Department of State intelligence effort during World War I.

21. R.H. Lord to William C. Bullitt, January 23, 1919, ACNP 184.016/11. How to handle Russian representation at the peace conference was the first major Russian-related issue that arose. Even though Russian issues were a key problem at the peace conference, there was no official Russian representation due to the confused political situation in that country; no single faction stood out as representative. The purpose of the proposed conference at Prinkipo Island was to have the various factions in the Russian civil war hash out their differences so that matters relating to that country could be taken up by the peace conference with Russian participation. The unrealistic proposal vanished in the churn of events even as the peace conference continued to deal with Russian matters and matters that touched on Russia.

22. Commissioner at Constantinople (Heck) to Embassy France, January 13, 1919, ACNP 184.016/31. The Commission’s field mission to southern Russia overlapped with Department of State efforts to gather information there. Unlike the Commission’s clearly temporary presences, the Department’s activities were aimed at being more permanent. German and Bolshevik advances in early 1918 forced the Department’s representatives there to leave. In early 1919, the Department took steps to reintroduce American personnel to southern Russia. It did that not only to keep tabs on the progress of the Russian civil war in southern Russia, but to follow British and French intervention there. That effort ultimately included American consular personnel, the Special Agent of the Department of State to South Russia, and the American High Commissioner in Constantinople. From early 1919 through later 1920, when the Bolsheviks finally conquered the area, those three groups provided the Department with the bulk of its information on political, military, and economic matters in southern Russia.

23. Harrison to Grew, January 16, 1919, and Churchill to Grew, [January 13, 1919], ‘M-23’ Russian Field Mission, box 106, Leland Harrison Papers, Library of Congress (Hereafter LC); Ammission to Department of State, February 14, 1919, CDF 861.00/3854.

24. Ammission to Department of State, February 13, 1919, ACNP 184.016/26A. Churchill to Grew, [January 13, 1919], ‘M-23’ Russian Field Mission, box 106, Leland Harrison Papers, LC.

25. In addition to Riggs, the mission included the following members and an eleven-man Naval Communications Party (five officers, six men): Captain William Berry (spoke French and German), Captain James Steinberg (spoke Russian and German), Captain Ulysses Bachman (spoke Russian and German), Captain Simon Reisler (spoke Rumanian and German), 1st Lt. Norman Whitehouse (spoke French), 1st Lt. H.H. Khachadoorian (spoke Turkish, Armenian, and French), 2nd Lt. Evangelos Stamoules(spoke Greek and French), 2nd Lt. Copley Amory, Jr. (spoke Russian and French), 2nd. Lt. John Hynes (spoke French, expert accountant), Benjamin Burgess Moore (spoke French, Russian, and German), Sgt. W.A. English (stenographer and typist), Corporal L.N. Wolf (stenographer and typist), Pvt. 1st Cl. L.E. Boland (orderly), Pvt. Walter Nichols (orderly), and Pvt. 1st Cl. Clement Cronin (stenographer and typist, spoke Russian). See Ammission to Department of State, February 13, 1919, ACNP 184.016/26A and Tyler to Grew March 29, 1919, ACNP 184.016/41. In 1917 and 1918, the U.S. consulate general in Moscow sent observers to the area, demonstrating earlier U.S. interest in events there.

26. Harrison to Grew, January 16, 1919, ACNP 184.016/5 and Lansing to Wilson, January 17, 1919, ACNP 184.45/10. The proposed distribution was: Odessa, Kiev, Kishinev, Bessarabia, Sebastopol, Ekaterinodar, the Caucasus, and the Don country. As carried out, however, not all those locales were visited.

27. Harrison to Grew, January 16, 1919, ACNP 184.016/5; Moore in Tiflis to Tyler, May 5, 1919, ACNP 184.01602/37.

28. Ammission to Department of State, February 13, 1919, ACNP 184.016/26A; Riggs to Ammission, March 1, 1919, ACNP 184.016/33.

29. The definitive account is Kenez, Civil War in South Russia, 1919–1920: The Defeat of the Whites.

30. Riggs to Ammission, March 1, 1919, ACNP 184.016/33; Tyler to Grew, March 29, 1919, ACNP 184.016/41.

31. Ammission to Riggs, March 7, 1919, ACNP 184.016/33A.

32. Tyler to Grew, March 25, 1919, ACNP 184.016/36; Grew to Patchin, March 24, 1919, ACNP 184.016/38. While the vast majority of the reports were sent as telegrams, longer reports were sent via couriers. For example, Berry sent an almost 100-page report on April 19 entitled ‘Report on Trans-Caucasia and Daghestan’. See ACNP 184.01602/23.

33. Now referred to as Ukraine.

34. Riggs in Odessa to Ammission, March 23, 1919, ACNP 184.01602/7; Ammission to Department of State, June 23, 1919, ACNP 184.016/86A; Moore in Tiflis to Ammission, March 28, 1919, ACNP 184.01602/13.

35. Grew to Tyler, March 28, 1919, ACNP 184.016/40.

36. Tyler and Bliss to Grew, March 29, 1919, ACNP 184.016/41.

37. Lord to Grew, April 22, 1919, ACNP 184.016/54.

38. Lord to Grew, April 22, 1919, ACNP 184.016/54; Lord to Grew May 27, 1919, ACNP 184.016/75.

39. Riggs to Tyler, May 10, 1919, ACNP 184.016/70; Lord to Grew, May 16, 1919, ACNP 184.016/65. Riggs was designated by President Wilson in late June as the American representative on the Allied Commission to be present at the negotiations between the German-Austrians and the Yugoslavs in Carinthia. Ammission to Department of State, Telegram, June 201,919, ACNP 184.1-Riggs, E. Francis.

40. Lord to Grew, April 22, 1919, ACNP 184.016/54.

41. Commissioner at Constantinople to Ammission, enclosing message from Berry, August 23, 1919, ACNP 184.016/117.

42. See Mayer, Politics and Diplomacy, 464–471; Lasch, American Liberals, 185–203; Farnsworth, William C. Bullitt and the Soviet Union, 32–54; and Bullitt, ed., For the President Personal and Confidential, 3–14.

43. For an overview of early U.S. information gathering activities in Russia, see Langbart, '”Spare No Expense:” The Department of State and the Search for Information About Bolshevik Russia, November 1917-September 1918'.

44. In mid-January, William H. Buckler, a special assistant in the U.S. embassy in London, met with Maxim Litvinov in Stockholm. Litvinov had been sent there to establish contacts with the Allies and Associated Powers as part of an effort to reach a modus vivendi.

45. Thompson, Russia and the Versailles Peace, 150.

46. Lord to Bullitt, January 23, 1919, ACNP 184.016/11, Bullitt to Bowman, January 29, 1919, ACNP 184.016/15.

47. Ammission to Department of State, February 21, 1919, CDF 861.00/3904.

48. Grew to Mezes, February 21, 1919, ACNP 184.1-Pettit, Walter, W.; Ammission to U.S. Legation Sweden, February 26, 1919, ACNP 184.02202/1.

49. Ammission to Bullitt, February 26, 1919, ACNP 861.00/292B.

50. During the later controversy over the Bullitt mission, Commissioners White and Bliss sent a letter stating the mission was never discussed by the American commissioners and declaiming any knowledge until after they departed. White and Bliss to Grew, November 19, 1919, ACNP 184.022/29. This letter is somewhat contradicted by a note in the files that indicates that the commissioners discussed the February 23 telegram informing the Department of State about the purpose of the Bullitt trip. Herter to Grew, February 24, 1919, ACNP 184.022/5. While on the mission, Bullitt’s substantive telegrams were designated for President Wilson, Secretary Lansing, and Colonel House only. See for example Consulate Helsingfors to Ammission transmitting message from Bullitt, March 16, 1919, ACNP 184.02202/5.

51. Grew to Mezes, February 21, 1919, ACNP 184.1-Pettit, Walter; Ammission to Embassy Great Britain, February 21, 1919, ACNP 184.022/3; Bullitt to Bowman, January 29, 1919, ACNP 184.016/15. While Bullitt’s sympathies might have made him welcome in Moscow, he was relatively young and had no experience as a negotiator; given the limitations in his prior experience he was clearly out of his depth in dealing with major Bolshevik leaders, regardless of the high opinion of House and others. Pettit, too, was politically liberal in outlook. He had served for about a year in the Military Intelligence Division. He read and spoke Russian and had traveled and resided there previously. His initial assignment with the Commission was in the Russian Division of the Section of Territorial, Economic, and Political Intelligence. Pettit was originally recommended for the Mission to South Russia but did not go there. Lord to Grew, March 18, 1919, ACNP 184.1-Pettit, Walter, W.; C.M. Story to Robert Lansing, December 24, 1918, ACNP 184.01/2. Lynch was a Yeoman in the Navy and served as Bullitt’s secretary in Paris. He was discharged from the Navy in order to accompany Bullitt in civilian clothes. Patchin to Grew, April 3, 1919 and Bullitt to the Personnel Committee, April 4, 1919, both ACNP 184.1-Lynch, Robert E. While Pettit remained in the Army while accompanying Bullitt, he wore civilian attire. On the way to Russia, he wrote one of his colleagues that ‘so far the trip has been delightful. All trace of uniform disappeared in London and I am beginning to accustom myself once more to hitching up a Boston garter on a calf less leg’. Petit to Bowman, March 1, 1919, ACNP 184.1-Pettit, Walter W. While all this was taking place, Bullitt was also dealing with the death of his mother from influenza. See Langbart, ‘The “Spanish Flu” Pandemic of 1918–1919: A Death in Philadelphia’.

52. In a telegram to his wife, Bullitt indicated that he was going ‘on short mission to Scandinavian countries’. William Bullitt to Ernesta Bullitt, February 22, 1919, ACNP 184.1-Bullitt, William C.

53. Ammission to Department of State, February 23, 1919, ACNP 184.022/5. Lansing also informed British and French peace commissioners that Bullitt was going to Russia for ‘information purposes only’. Ammission to Department of State, March 10, 1919, ACNP 184.02202/3.

54. Consulate Viborg to Department of State, March 8, 1919, CDF 861.00/4039; Bullitt to Ammission, March 25, 1919, ACNP 184.02202/11. When departing from Stockholm for Helsingfors before heading into the unknown of Bolshevik territory, Bullitt signed off his telegram ‘Au revoir’. Legation Sweden to Ammission, March 4, 1919, ACNP 184.02202/2.

55. Helsingfors to Ammission, April 1, 1919, ACNP 184.1-Pettit, Walter W. The search of the baggage caused serious alarm. The Commission requested a report on what happened to the code including how long it was out of Pettit’s possession, who handled it, and the possibility of it being copied. Pettit reported that while his luggage was opened, the code was not taken out and ‘certainly could not have been examined’ which satisfied the Commission. Ammission to Helsingfors, April 2, 1919, Helsingfors to Ammission, April 5, 1919, and Embassy Stockholm to Ammission, April 7, 1919, all ACNP 184.1-Pettit, Walter W.

56. White and Bliss to Grew, November 191,919, ACNP 184.022/29; Ammission to Embassy Great Britain, February 21, 1919, ACNP 184.022/3; Ammission to U.S. Legation Norway, February 26, 1919, ACNP 184.02202/1.

57. Consulate Helsingfors to Ammission transmitting message from Bullitt, March 8, 1919, ACNP 184.02202/3, Consulate Helsingfors to Ammission transmitting message from Bullitt, March 11, 1919, ACNP 184.02202/4, Consulate Helsingfors to Ammission transmitting message from Bullitt, March 16, 1919, ACNP 184.02202/5.

58. Scholarship on the context of Bullitt’s mission is lacking. All four of the major works on him examine his mission out of the context of the missions in general. Farnsworth (1967) describes Bullitt as being more interested in negotiating than fact-finding. Brownell and Billings (1987) indicate Lansing was interested in information while Bullitt was interested in negotiating. Cassella-Blackburn (2004) describes the trip primarily as a negotiating mission. Etkind (2017) says the official purpose was fact-finding but ignores that aspect in favor of Bullitt’s negotiating.

59. See Bullitt to Ammission, March 11, 1919, ACNP 184.02202/4 and Bullitt to Ammission, received March 18, 1919, ACNP 184.02202/6. In the latter message Bullitt noted that ‘The Soviet Government is firmly established and the Communist Party is strong politically and morally. There is order … . One feels as safe as in Paris’. Sending Bullitt to the Bolshevik-controlled area was not the only American effort to find out what was going on there. It is a separate story, but the Department of State was using its diplomatic and consular posts on the periphery of Russia and in White-controlled areas to gather as much information as possible.

60. While the American commissioners did not find Bullitt’s major informational report of much use or interest, it was considered important enough for publication in the series Foreign Relations of the United States. See: Department of State, Papers Relating to the Feign Relations of the United States: 1919: Russia (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1937), pp. 85–95.

61. Lansing Desk diary, March 26, 1919, Lansing Papers, LC.

62. Bullitt may have envisioned a return to Moscow in a permanent diplomatic capacity. If so, he had to wait many years. Bullitt became the first U.S. ambassador to the USSR after the United States recognized the Soviet Union in 1933. He served as ambassador to France from 1936 to 1940. He soured on the Communists during his time in Moscow and became an ardent Cold Warrior.

63. The United States did not immediately recognize the proclaimed independence of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, taking the stance that such territorial changes should wait for the Russian political situation to sort itself out, presumably in a non-Bolshevik manner. Only after it became clear that the Soviet regime was in place to stay and that the three states would preserve those lands as non-communist did the U.S. recognize those countries in 1922.

64. Lord to Grew, February 1, 1919, ACNP 184.015/1.

65. Herter to Grew, February 4, 1919, ACNP 184.015/1: Ammission Action Memorandum No. 26, February 2, 1919, ACNP 184.015/1; Lansing to Wilson, February 10, 1919, ACNP 184.015/1; Pettit to Bowman, February 17, 1919, ACNP 184.015/2; Grew to Greene, March 6, 1919, ACNP 184.015/2A; Grew to Taylor, March 12, 1919, ACNP 184.015/7; Minutes of the Daily Meeting of the Commissioners Plenipotentiary, March 12, 1919, ACNP 184.00101/32.

66. Greene to W. Cameron Forbes, March 9, 1919, in Hale, The Letters of Warwick Greene, 1915–1928, 91.

67. Ibid. In some cases, the officers chosen by Greene were not relieved by their commanding officers so Greene had to choose alternatives. Tyler to Grew, March 11, 1919, ACNP 184.015/9.

68. Tyler to Embick, April 10, 1919, ACNP 184.015/35. Initially, the mission included Lt. Col. Warwick Greene, Lt. Col. E.J. Dawley (military expert), Maj. Alvin Devereux (military expert), Lt. Cdr. John Gade (naval attaché in Copenhagen; familiar with region and naval expert; spoke Norwegian, Danish, French, and German), Lt. Ludlow Alexander (spoke German and French), 2nd Lt. Robert Hale, 2nd Lt. A. H. Stonestreet (spoke German), and Army Field Clerks Louis Rosenthal and J. Holbrook Chapman and Corp. Joseph Saliunas. Gade had perhaps the most relevant experience. He had been serving as a naval attaché in the region. Memo to Commissioners No. 157, March 12, 1919, ACNP 184.015/9.

69. For more detail see: Hale, The Letters of Warwick Greene, 1915–1928. Greene’s grandfather, General George Sears Greene, served with distinction in the U.S. Army during the Civil War. His actions on Culp’s Hill at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, are credited with largely saving the day on that part of the battlefield.

70. Ammission to Legation Denmark, March 12, 1919, ACNP 184.015/3, Legation Denmark transmitting report from Greene to Ammission, April 1, 1919, ACNP 184.01502/1, Legation Denmark transmitting report from Greene to Ammission, April 8, 1919, ACNP 184.010502/8, Greene to Grew, Preliminary Report on Latvia, April 23, 1919, ACNP 184.01502/10.

71. Legation Denmark transmitting report from Greene to Ammission, April 13, 1919, 184.01502/4.

72. Greene to Ammission, April 23, 1919, ACNP 184.010502/10; Legation Denmark transmitting report from Greene to Ammission, April 25, 1919, ACNP 184.01502/11; Solbert to Bliss, April 28, 1919, ACNP 184.010502/7–1/2.

73. Greene to Ammission, May 3, 1919, ACNP 184.01502/20, Greene to Ammission, May 3, 1919, ACNP 184.01502/22, Dawley to Ammission, May 15, 1919, May 15, 1919, ACNP 184.01502/29, Ammission to Greene, May 26, 1919, ACNP 861c.00/85a, Legation Denmark to Ammission, June 14, 1919, ACNP 184.015/48, Greene to Ammission, July 9, 1919, ACNP 184.01502/74. Telegrams generally arrived within 24 hours while written reports could take from 3 to 5 days to reach Paris. For an example of sharing with the Department, see Ammission to Department of State, August 3, 1919, ACNP 184.01502/62.

74. Legation Denmark transmitting report from Greene to Ammission, May 4, 1919, 184.01502/22–1/2. Gade’s lengthy report is at Greene to Grew, Report #1 on Finland, May 3, 1919, ACNP 184.01502/21.

75. Lord and Morison to the Commissioners, April 23, 1919, ACNP 185.1722/6; Ammission to Legation in Denmark for Greene, May 26, 1919, ACNP 861C.00/85a, Morison to Whitehouse, April 29, 1919 and Ammission to Greene through Legation Denmark, April 30, 1919, ACNP 184.010502/17.

76. Greene to Tyler, June 5, 1919, ACNP 184.01502/42 and Greene to Tyler, June 6, 1919, ACNP 184.01502/43.

77. Greene to Grew, June 30, 1919, ACNP 184.01502/60.

78. Gade to Miles, June 25, 1919, CDF 861.00/4782.

79. Ibid.,

80. Miles to Phillips, June 28, 1919, CDF 861.00/4782; Ammission to Department of State, July 25, 1919, ACNP 184.45/139.

81. Greene to Grew, June 30, 1919, ACNP 184.01502/60.

82. Greene to Grew, July 9, 1919, ACNP 184.01502/74, Ammission Action Memorandum No. 463, July 10, 1919, ACNP 184.015/69, Grew to Greene, July 15, 1919, ACNP 184.01502/74.

83. Ammission to Commissioner to the Baltic Provinces, August 4, 1919, ACNP 184.015/104A.

84. Devereux to Grew, August 1, 1919, ACNP 184.01502/88; Ammission Action Memorandum 539, August 6, 1919, ACNP 184.015/105; Commissioner to the Baltic States to Ammission, August 11, 1919, 184.01502/90; Tyler to Grew, August 17, 1919, ACNP 184.01502/90.

85. Ammission to Department of State, August 19, 1919, CDF 861.01/119.

86. Department of State to Ammission, August 26, 1919, CDF 861.01/119, Phillips to Gade, CDF 123 G 11/5.

87. Department of State to Ammission, September 10, 1919, ACNP 184.015/119; Department of State to Embassy Great Britain, October 14, 1919, CDF 123 G 11/10b; Embassy Great Britain to Ammission, October 15, 1919, ACNP 184.015/132. For more information on Gade, see Devenny, ‘Captain John A. Gade, US Navy: An Early Advocate of Central Intelligence’.

88. Miles to Harrison, February 18, 1919, CDF 861.00/3940a.

89. Department of State to Ammission, March 19, 1919, ACNP 184/137.

90. Grew to Patchin, March 24, 1919, ACNP 184.016/38, and, for example, Ammission to Department of State, March 20, 1919, ACNP 184.63/94.

91. Department of State to Embassy France, May 29, 1919, Ammission to Department of State, June 9, 1919, ACNP 861.00/689.

92. Department of State to Ammission, March 20, 1919, CDF 861.00/4121a.

93. Kirk to Grew, March 22, 1919, Ammission to Department of State, March 23, 1919, ACNP 184.02202/9–1/2; Ammission to Department of State, March 29, 1919, ACNP 184.02202/11. The initial sensitivity regarding sharing Bullitt’s reports with the Department of State is not further explained in the records. When the British press made queries about those reports, the American commissioners declined to release them, Lansing’s recommendation being ‘Keep entirely silent’. Ammission Action Memorandum No. 201, April 1, 1919, ACNP 184.02202/11.

94. Grew to Lord, July 3, 1919, ACNP 184/187; Poole to Wright, July 13, 1919, volume 1, Papers of J. Butler Wright, USNA.

95. Kennan, Russia and West Under Lenin and Stalin, 148.

Additional information

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David A. Langbart

David A. Langbart is an independent scholar. In his day job, he is an archivist in Research Services at the U.S. National Archives, where he is the specialist on the records of the foreign affairs agencies. Opinions are those of the author and do not reflect those of any agency of the U.S. Government. He is the recipient of the first-ever Anna K. Nelson Prize for Archival Excellence of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR).