May 2, 1919

Colonel House told me that the President had decided to send a fact-finding mission to Armenia and he will ask General Pershing to designate a competent officer to head it. He will publish the report and then await popular reaction at home on its findings. Poor Nubar! Poor Aharonian! Unfortunate Armenians! Our promises are out the window, and the reconstituted Armenian state has not a Chinaman’s chance.

[In April, 1920, the Supreme Council of the Allies, seated still in Paris (the qualifying epithet “War” had been dropped), returned to the charge and formally requested that the United States assume the mandate over Armenia. No attempt was made to describe the geographical limits of what had become a phantom state or the exact whereabouts of these unfortunate people, and Congress took no action in the matter.]