Parker himself wrote to the Foreign Office: "In fact we have an organization extraordinarily widespread in the United States, but which does not know it is an organization. It is worked entirely by personal association and inspired by voluntary effort, which has grown more enthusiastic and pronounced with the passage of time. . . . Finally, it should be noticed that no attack has been made upon us in any quarter of the United States, and that in the eyes of the American people the quiet and subterranean nature of our work has the appearance of a purely private patriotism and enterprise."

By 1917 Parker had one hundred and seventy thousand addresses in his book. A hundred and seventy thousand people to whom he was sending material. Obviously, he wasn't sending it all himself. He was sending to people who sent to people who sent to people. The material was passed on.

Table Five. Distinguished American Recipients of Wellington on House Publications

We have, unfortunately, very little good information on his activities, but we do have some information. The table was drawn from one notice from Parker, sent to the Foreign Office in July, f 916. These were the important people to whom he sent propaganda. "Public Men Generally" probably included anyone with "The Honorable" in front of their name. Note the scientific men, lawyers, YMCA officials, senators, representatives, libraries, newspapers. Down the list you have "Distinguished Men for Distribution." In other words, distinguished friends who would give the propaganda to other people. "Others and Miscellaneous," twenty two hundred and twelve. This is a limited list, but it is interesting that it covers the "Who's Who" in American society. These publications were primarily directed against Germans, but quite a few of the materials that were sent were propaganda against the Turks.

It has to be remembered that missionary propaganda was going very strong at the time. The greatest effect against the Turks undoubtedly came from missionary propaganda. But in the United States the fact that the British propaganda appeared as well was very important, because the two supported each other. Again and again, in the missionary propaganda against the Turks in the United States you see statements such as, "You can tell that what we say is true because our old friend, Ambassador Bryce, agrees with us." The two propagandas fed on each other, when in fact they, were mainly drawn from the same sources, primarily the missionaries. Most of the records have been destroyed, but we do know that five hundred and fifty five American newspapers were sent materials from the propaganda office. We know that the missionary organizations also distributed this material. In fact, at one point the missionaries had a problem because three thousand copies of the Blue Book had been sent from Wellington House to the American missionary organization, three thousand copies, but American customs held them. Customs said the missionaries could not distribute them unless they paid duty. The American government intervened and ordered the books be let them through without payment. The missionaries distributed them. Toynbee gave a list of newspapers to the American missionary Relief Committee, a list of newspapers to which they were to send the book as if it was their own idea. Toynbee even provided press releases they could copy, reviews that they could send, pre-written, to publish in American newspapers. The Secretary of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, Charles Vickery, wrote Toynbee that he had distributed books "to 200 others that do not chance to be on your list. I am endeavoring to see that every editor and molder of public opinion in the country has a copy."

Parker had distributed fifteen thousand copies of this book to prominent Americans. Now we do not know what the deals were made with publishers. We know the Blue Book was reprinted in America, we know that many of these books, almost all the books that are on that original list given above, were printed in both Britain and in the United States, some by an American company that was owned by the British publisher MacMillan. Wellington house articles were surely published in American newspapers. However, the records have been destroyed. We will probably never know what deals were made.

I am running out of time, but I want to be sure to tell you one thing, and that is that it is important to Note that both Toynbee and Bryce believed that what they were doing was right. I have no question but they indeed believed the Turks had slaughtered Armenians. They surely believed that what they were doing was lying and exaggerating in the general service of the ultimate truth and in the service of their country. They lied, as they admitted this themselves in their writings. But it was war. Such things were and are accepted in war.

The strange thing is that Wellington House had distributed similar, in some cases almost identical, propaganda against the Germans. As you know, not long after the war the Wellington House campaign against the Germans was studied, described, and often censured by scholars. In fact Bryce and Toynbee together had written a very similar but shorter book about so-called German Atrocities in Belgium. That book contained the same sort of thing seen in the Armenian Blue Book: "X, Y, and Z" and unknown and fraudulent sources. After the war, the Belgians investigated and found that the book was almost completely lies. The Belgians had wanted it to be true, but they reported their findings accurately. Yet no one has looked into the propaganda directed against the Turks. After all these years, no one has decried this propaganda. If one reads the basic books on the British Propaganda Ministry, and there are quite a few books on the subject, they never discuss the campaign against the Turks, only the Germans. I believe the reason that no one has researched the topic and uncovered the lies told of the Turks is that no one cared. They were just Turks.

Table Six. Books Recommended in Today's Bibliographies.

E.F. Benson, Crescent and Iron Cross
E.F. Benson, Deutschland über Allah
Fa'iz El-Ghusein, "Bedouin Notable of Damascus" [sic], Martyred Armenia
(J. Lepsius), Germany, Turkey, and Armenia: Selections of Documentary Evidence
A.P. Hacobian, Armenia and the War
Esther Mugerditchian, From Turkish Toils
Martin Niepage, The Horrors of Aleppo
Harry Stuermer, Two War Years in Constantinople
Arnold J. Toynbee, Armenian Atrocities: the Murder of a Nation
Arnold J. Toynbee, ed., The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916
Arnold J. Toynbee, Turkey, A Past and a Future
Arnold J. Toynbee, The Murderous Tyranny of the Turks

Source: Richard G. Hovannisian, The Armenian Holocaust

Today the books that I have described to you are still recommended to American school children and university students. They are still a basic element of school histories and advocacy by Armenian scholars. The table is a list of the Wellington House books that were particularly on the Armenians. Every one of these books except one is in the standard bibliography of Armenian History published by Professor Richard Hovannisian. The only one that is not is the book by Benson, Deutschland über Allah, perhaps because of the provocative title. Every other one, including Toynbee's books and the imaginary Ghusein, are recommended. I challenge you to read those books and not say, "My God, how could anyone write this?" Yet these are still the sources recommended to American and, I expect, British students. By no means have the products of World War I British propaganda disappeared. Indeed, the Blue Book, The Armenian Atrocities the Murder of a Nation has just been reprinted and celebrated in a book signing in the House of Lords. There is a reason this book has been reprinted and the reason is not scholarship.

World War One propaganda from Wellington House and from the missionaries is routinely reprinted and quoted. In the United States, World War I propaganda is accepted as true in Congress. It is obviously also accepted in the French Parliament. It appears in high circles of state along with along with other fabrications, such as the spurious quote from Adolf Hitler (implying that Adolf Hitler was an expert on Armenian history.) Even the Turkish Republic for many years was quiet on the Armenian Issue. It did not say a word, did not oppose these lies. The Turks were afraid, with some justification, of Turkish irredentism and of calls for revenge for what had been done to the Turks. They wished the Turks to resign themselves to living in Anatolia, forget past injuries and the lands that had been lost, and get about the business of building a new home. Only in the last twenty years has this history began to be truly studied in Turkey, and there are still very few people that are looking into it.

Very few have opposed the continued propaganda against the Turks. The lies that were told during wartime have had half a century and more to incubate. Now they are the accepted wisdom. Everyone thinks they know what the Turks did. In fact, what they know is what the British Propaganda Ministry and the missionary propagandists wanted them to believe. Those of us, whether historians or not, who care that the truth be known have a duty to try to right this historic wrong, to make sure that the propaganda of long ago finally dies in our own time.

Thank you
Justin McCarthy