Ambassadorial Embroglio

Onetime U. S. Ambassador to Germany James Watson Gerard set out last week to test and strain the slowly and cautiously built up relations and good will now existing between the U. S. State Department and the Turkish Foreign Office. To Manhattan newsgatherers he charged that the Turkish Government has offered "an intolerable insult to the American people" by despatching to Washington as Ambassador His Excellency Monkhtar Bey, now enroute to his post.

How the mere presence in Washington of so suave and polished a statesman as Ambassador Moukhtar Bey could constitute an "insult" was explained by Mr. Gerard on the grounds that Moukhtar Bey took part during 1919 in negotiations between the Turkish and Soviet Governments, which were followed by Armenian massacres and the partition of Armenia between Russia and Turkey, at a time, declared Mr. Gerard, when "the Armenian Republic was recognized by the allied and associated nations, including the United States."

As everyone knows, the present Turkish frontier, inclosing part of Armenia was recognized by the Lausanne treaty, which the U. S. Senate has refused to ratify (TIME, Jan. 31). Therefore onetime Statesman Gerard, now chairman of the American Committee Opposed to the Lausanne treaty, was only performing his chosen duty, last week, when he flayed Moukhtar Bey--but Mr. Gerard chose also to rebuke the U. S. State Department.

Irate, he broadly hinted that the Department acted "unconstitutionally" when it negotiated the modus vivendi (TIME, March 7) on the basis of which the U. S. has already sent to Turkey that alert and statesmanly "career diplomat," Ambassador Joseph C. Grew. Since the appointments of Ambassadors Grew and Moukhtar Bey have been an accomplished fact for months, some observers thought it churlish of Mr. Gerard to wait until the Turkish Ambassador was actually en route, last week, before delivering himself as follows: "The Senate will soon have an opportunity to express itself upon the so-called modus vivendi, and if it should find as we believe it will find, that it is illegal and unconstitutional then the Ambassadors must return to their respective homes."