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."
AMERICAN RED CROSS
MISSION TO RUSSIA, 1917
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
half-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 & 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.
AMERICAN RED CROSS
MISSION TO RUMANIA
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 than 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.
THOMPSON IN KERENSKY'S RUSSIA
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.
THOMPSON GIVES THE
BOLSHEVIKS $1 MILLION
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."
SOCIALIST MINING PROMOTER RAYMOND ROBINS9
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
Limit of Area
Controlled by Bolsheviks, January 1918
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.
