Centre for Arts, Humanities and Sciences (CAHS), acting on behalf of the University of
Debrecen CAHS
HERBERT HOOVER AND HUNGARY, 1918-1923
Author(s): Tibor Glant
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies (HJEAS), Vol. 8, No. 2,
AMERICAN STUDIES ISSUE: LITERATURE, HISTORY, AND US-HUNGARIAN RELATIONS (Fall,
2002), pp. 95-109
Published by: Centre for Arts, Humanities and Sciences (CAHS), acting on behalf of the University of Debrecen
CAHS
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HERBERT
HOOVER
AND HUNGARY,
1918-19231
wens
Background
Historians tend to view the twentieth century in periods and use
terms like the Progressive Era, Weimar Germany, the inter-waryears, the
Stalin era, or the post-cold war world. There are, however, some
prominent people, witnesses to the twentieth century, whose lives and
careers cut across these lines. Herbert Clark Hoover (1864-1974) was one
of them: his career spanned the past century from the Boxer rebellion in
China to the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the world escaped a nuclear
holocaust by but a hair's breadth. The end of the cold war has made it not
only possible but also necessary to clarify certain aspects of American
relations with the former Iron Curtain countries of East and Central
Europe. Possible, because such research was stronglydiscouraged during
forty-oddyears (1947-1989) of communist rule in countries like Hungary,
and necessary, for the better understanding between peoples and
countries that are now allies in NATO. Spontaneous as well as
manufactured misunderstandings need to be done away with.
In the context of American-Hungarian relations, Herbert Hoover's
contacts with Hungary represent a unique chapter: unlike many others, it
has not been forgotten; it has been misrepresented. Hoover's story of
American dreams found and lost is clearly reflected by the historical
works that assess his career. The friendlyand enthusiastic accounts of the
twenties and early thirties were replaced by more critical ones, blaming
him for the Depression.
The first serious attempt to write a
multi-volume
Hoover biography was launched in the
comprehensive,
eighties by George H. Nash, and he has carried the storyup to November
1918 so far.
Interestingly,in Hungary a similar lack of interest has prevailed:
during the inter-war years Hoover was not discussed in historical works.
If Americans were mentioned at all, Hungarian historians tended to
blame President Wilson for his lack of support for the Hungarians' right
to national self-determination. After 1945, when the short-lived
Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919 was being reinterpreted,Hoover
became an "agent of US imperialism in Europe," not to mention the more
dogmatic terms used.5 The standard Hungarian studies of the peace
conference, less emotional in their language and more historical in their
assessment, failed to do justice to Hoover: they simply narrated some of
his contributionsto the decisions regarding Hungary. All in all, Hoover's
work in East and Central Europe in general, and in
Hungary in particular,
has received very little attention and no politically unbiased and fair
treatment.Therefore, the aim of this essay is to shed some light upon the
Hungarian JournalofEnglish and AmericanStudies 8.2. 2002. Copyright© by
HJEAS. All rightsto reproductionin any formare reserved.
real nature of Hoover's views of, and contacts with, Hungary during and
afterthe Paris Peace Conference, between 1918, when he firsthad to face
the problems of the Danube basin, and 1923, when his last program in
Hungary phased out.
When in November 1918 Hoover sailed for Europe as President
Wilson's economic advisor, he was one of the three best-known and most
admired Americans in the world: Wilson and Colonel House represented
a betterpolitical future(a "scientific peace" following "the war to end all
wars"), and Hoover was the bringer of food and much needed medical
supplies. Hoover had been conducting various relief programs before and
during the war, and it was no surprise to anyone that the peace conference
entrustedhim with the task of carrying out the biggest humanitarian relief
effortto that day. At that early peak of his career and popularity, Hoover
was facing his biggest challenge yet. True, the US was the chief supplier
of relief, but it had to be taken to those who needed it, sometimes even
against the will of America's allies. Hoover believed that everyone
sufferingwas entitled to relief and flatlyrejected French and British plans
to either exclude the populations of the defeated countries or secure
cheap loans in the form of additional relief shipments. Diplomatic
tensions grew, and Wilson found a way out by creating an independent
American federal agency, the American Relief Administration (hereafter
ARA), to do the job. By early 1919 Hoover led an exclusively American
relief organization that spoke for the victorious allies then convened in
Paris to make peace, but which was responsible only to President
Wilson.
Hoover's Team
Hoover's staff was drawn from two main sources: he could, and
did, rely on his formercolleagues in the Belgian relief program launched
in 1914, and secured furtherassistance from the American
Expeditionary
Forces (hereafter AEF) led by General John J. Pershing. His three main
representatives in the region were Captain Thomas T. C. Gregory, a San
Francisco lawyer, Professor Alonzo E. Taylor, a nutrition expert from
Stanford University, and Lieutenant-Colonel William B.
Causey, a
prominent railroad engineer. Taylor headed the Vienna office, Gregory
was his counterpart in Trieste, and
Causey took control of all the
railroads in the territories of the former
Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Hoover's other experts included the diplomat Hugh Gibson, another
former Belgian relief associate, as well as a number of soldiers, some
ostensibly with a Hungarian background (e.g., Emery Pottle and Bernard
Weiss). This was by no means a team oi experts; with the exception of
Taylor and Causey they all learnt theirtrade in the field.
Hoover's staff played a special role within the American
Commission to Negotiate Peace (henceforth ACNP); in fact, it was one
96
of the four main groups that made up the ACNP. The other three were the
State Department people led by Secretary of State Robert Lansing, the
Inquiry experts lea by Colonel House, and a small but powerful team of
independent economic experts including the young John Foster Dulles as
well as Bernard M. Baruch and Vance McCormick. As Wilson's strong
grasp of foreign policy decision-making disintegrated in Paris, a rivalry
emerged between the State Department people on the one hand, and the
Inquiry and ARA staffs on the other. Jealousies flared up, making
effective work well-nigh impossible. The fact of the matter was that
Wilson distrusted Lansing and relied heavily on the other two groups
even in diplomatic matters. One telling example: during the final days of
the Hungarian Soviet Republic, the Halstead mission in Vienna was
instructednot to get involved in negotiations about the futureof Hungary,
exactly when Gregory was hammering out the details of a peaceful
takeover in Budapest with Bela Kun's semi-official envoy in Vienna,
Vilmos Bohm.9
Hoover's team had direct telegraphic connections with Paris and
carried out some intelligence work too. Histories of American
intelligence are quick to point out the lack of any effective intelligence
organization in tne US or within the AEF;
yet, the story of the peace
conference suggests that American political, military, and economic
intelligence came into being after the Great War, not least due of the
effortsof ARA and the Inquiry representatives in the field. One way to
support this argument is to cite the proclamation of the Hungarian Soviet
Republic on March 21, 1919: the ARA and Inquiry missions reported the
event on the same day to Paris, while on March 29 (eight days later),
American military intelligence informed the president that there was "no
immediate danger of a Bolshevik takeover in
Hungary."
Hoover was in an enviable position: he had a reliable and
experienced staff with direct lines of communication to Paris, he was
working with the full support of his president and in the name of the
peace conference, but without direct French, British, or Italian control.
He could use, even abuse, the immense popularity of the Americans
without being associated directly with the less popular allies of his
country. He could strengthenhis position in the field by supplying relief,
and in Paris by supplying vital political, military, and economic
intelligence to the conference. His disadvantages were much fewer: he
depended on Wilson and the US Congress for funding and had no
American militaryback-up in the field. Since he never visited the Danube
basin in person, he had to rely on second-hand informationcoming from
his representatives and from the allies, which made his work rather
difficult once he ventured into the world of local politics. His
representatives were no real experts of the region they worked in, and the
constantly changing political and military situation ruled out preliminary
planning.
97
Relief Work
Although the ARA delivered relief supplies from London to
Yekaterinburg, across no less than five time zones, its chief target area
was Central and Eastern Europe. In the "armistice period" (between the
signing of the German armistice and peace treaty, November 11, 1918
and June 28, 1919 respectively), more precisely until the fall of the
Hungarian Soviet Republic (August 1, 1919), Hungary was placed under
blockade and had to pay cash for all relief deliveries- which were cut off
once the Kun regime took over in Budapest. Afterwards, during the
"reconstruction period," th6 blockade of Hungary was lifted and serious
relief work started.
Despite Hoover's desire to help sufferingpopulations throughout
Europe, immediately after the war the defeated countries received only
limited relief supplies and had to pay hard cash for them. Hungary was no
exception: during the Karolyi era she received 319 tons of supplies and
paid $250,000 for them. Meanwhile, the new Czecho-Slovak Republic, a
successor state of the defeated Austro-Hungarian Empire, but treated as a
victor, received over half a million tons of relief material but paid for
only 70 tons. Cashing in was not necessarily a priority,but cashing in on
the deliveries to the defeated countries
(with the notable exception of
that
Hoover
treated
relief
work as regular business.
proves
Austria)
According to a most telling figure published by the Hoover Institution on
War, Revolution, and Peace, 46.5% of relief deliveries were paid for in
cash during the "armistice period."13
The summer of 1919, especially the five weeks between the signing
of the Versailles treaty and the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic,
brought about changes for Hoover's team too. The blockade of Hungary
was lifted, and the first ARA
representative arrived in Budapest on
August 7. The firstARA program inside Hungary was launched six days
14
later, and work was terminated in 1923. In the "reconstruction period,"
the priorities of the ARA were reconsidered. Earlier, it was a matter of
survival: food, coal, and medicine were needed. Later on, especially by
the early twenties, the post-armistice wars of the Danube basin were over,
basic food production resumed, and the Spanish flu epidemic had been
contained. Now the focus shifted to child feeding and specialized
foodstuff.Accordingly, the ARA helped create the European Children's
Fund (hereafter ECF) to take care of the former and introduced a
warehouse system to tackle the latter.
The ECF had offices in the various countries that were included in
the program, and worked in cooperation with the local authorities. In
Hungary the American Child Welfare Mission included four American
soldiers: Gardner Richardson, Carleton G. Bowden, Garlaisle M.
Davidson, and Wallace B. Johnson. The Hungarians established an
Executive Committee, a Main Committee, a Ladies' Committee, and yet
another one for collecting donations. These Hungarian committees
98
included physicians, professors, politicians, and various religious
dignities representingthe major religions in the country. Bureaucracy was
running riot, but child feeding was restricted almost exclusively to
Budapest. The ECF also ran a clothing program, which was extended
beyond the city limits of the Hungarian capital, and covered the country
from Miskolc in the northeast to Gyor in the northwest. The warehouse
program was also centered around Budapest and operated on a cash-andcarry basis. Hungarians in the United States could buy food vouchers for
their relatives and mail them as postcards. Once in Hungary, the postcard
food voucher could be taken to a warehouse and exchanged for the
appropriate food package. The cheapest voucher cost 10 dollars, the most
expensive 50. Budapest, accounting for more than one-fifth of the
remaining population of Trianon Hungary, was hard hit by a refugee
crisis: people from the territoriesnow belonging to the successor states
fled to the capital. This, at least in part, explains why much of the ARA
effortswere centered around the Hungarian capital city on the Danube.
All in all, during the "reconstruction period," the ARA distributed
more than 1.5 million tons of supplies worth some $220 million. The new
target area was Soviet-Russia, which received 47.2% of all deliveries,
while Hungary had to settle for 1.3%. This, however, was 70 times more
than what had made it to Hungary during the "armistice period."
Actually, many of the deliveries to Hungary came as donations or for
credit, Hungary paid a modest sum of $60,000 between 1919 and 1924;
and the final claims were settled only in 1973. Two-thirds of the 21,000
tons of relief to Hungary were provided for by a loan from the US Grain
Corporation (its legal background will be discussed later), half of the
remaining one-third was funded from President Wilson's national
security budget through the ECF, and the Hungarian-Americans
contributed another 1630 tons. Between 1919 and 1923 Hungary received
all the benefits of American support available to the other defeated
countries. The one outstanding exception was Austria, which, for
political reasons discussed later, received considerably more support' in
the "reconstruction period" more than ten times as much as Hungary.
Relief was no straightand easy business, and a number of political
and economic factors made life and work
extremely difficult for the
ARA. Political rivalries in the field and in Paris and raising the necessary
funding for the various programs were arguably the most pressing issues.
Political rivalries in the field and in Paris represented a major challenge
to the work of the ARA. In the field, in our case in the Danube basin, the
successor states of the former Austro-Hungarian empire launched their
campaigns against defeated Hungary and Austria as well as against each
other to secure large chunks of territorybefore the peace conference in
Paris could make its decisions. In fact, there is strong evidence to suggest
that the French encouraged these military adventures in order to help
force their security projects on the Paris Peace Conference in the form of
faits accomplis. Initial British protests were dropped around May 1919,
99
the Italians were directly interested (they claimed certain parts of
southern Austria on the basis of the Treaty of London, signed in 1915).
while the Japanese showed little inclination to get involved in continental
European affairs. The Americans wanted to secure an umbrella treaty
including the League of Nations and expected to settle all territorial
issues later, after wartime hatreds had cooled off. Incompatible political
projects spiced with the fear of bolshevism in Paris, together with wars in
the center of Europe combined for a situation in which even estimating
the real needs of the people was no easy task.
In this situation Vienna was seen as the frontieroutpost of western
values and culture, and became the regional center for political as well as
relief missions. Its traditions and strategic location earned Austria special
treatmentfrom the peace conference and the Americans alike: she was
treated as a semi-victor. Nothing proves this better than the fact that the
ARA supplied a hidden, actually illegal, loan to Vienna at the turn of
1918-1919, with the consent of President Wilson and the peace
conference. The details of this transaction take us into the other major
problem area for Hoover, funding the relief programs, for which six
differentsources were used.
(1) The US Congress passed a bill on February 25, 1919 to grant a
loan of $100 million to the various European states, but the defeated
countries (Germany, Austria, Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria) were
excluded. Later, in March 1920, another law made it possible for the US
Grain Corporation to sell wheat on credit, and this time the former
enemy
countries were not excluded. (2) In the transition period between the
signing of the armistice and the congressional loan Hoover used $5
million from President Wilson's special budget for national
security and
defense. (3) The Treasury floated a combined loan of $87 million to
Rumania, Czechoslovakia, and the new Serbo-Croat-Slovenian state. (4)
To handle the Austrian crisis and to secure Vienna's
support, the US
granted a loan of $16 million to London, which, in turn, could supply
Austria without the Wilson administration
directly violating the
congressional restrictions imposed on Hoover on February 25. (5) Relief
agencies and organizations other than the ARA (for example the
international and the American Red Cross) also did some work in the
region, but no reliable details of their activities have been published so
far. (6) Finally, as has been pointed out
earlier, anv state could buy
American supplies for cash, with the notable exception of the Hungarian
Soviet Republic.
Special treatment for Austria as well as the refusal to supply
d
Bolshevik Hungary even for cash suggests that American relief work was
not completely separated from
political activities. Actually, this was
something Hoovei and his staffnever denied: '"the boss" and Gregory in
their memoirs described no less than five
(!) revolutions in Hungary and
proudly claimed that they themselves brought about the fall of the
Hungarian Soviet Republic and prevented Habsburg restoration by
failing
100
a Rumanian sponsored government that took the oath of office on the
Archduke Joseph in August 1919. Their picturesque accounts bear titles
like "Overthrowing a Red Regime: How a San Francisco Attorney
Ousted Bela Kun" and include anecdotes like the one about the cable that
Gregory sent to Hoover about "Archie on the carpet."19 Historical
evidence suggests that these claims are somewhat exaggerated and hardly
hold water, but are not necessarily conscious misrepresentations.
Politics
As has been pointed out, collecting intelligence was one of the key
tasks of Hoover's men in the field: the ACNP needed reliable
information to make decisions and develop its stand when dealing with
its negotiating partners at the peace table. Since Wilson disregarded the
State Department people and, for reasons explained earlier, could hardly
count on the military intelligence division of the AEF, this kind of work
was shared by the ARA and the various Inquiry missions in the field. The
ARA had a serious advantage:
many of Hoover's associates had been
with
him
in
working
occupied Belgium during the war, so intelligence
work was not new to them. While the boundaries between relief and
intelligence work were not drawn clearly, political meddling was indeed a
very loose interpretationof the Wilsonian principle of not interferingin
the domestic affairsof other countries.
A detailed analysis of American policies towards Hungary would
much
go
beyond the scope of the present study. Therefore, the following
discussion will be limited to establishing Hoover's actual influence on
Wilson and his policies and to evaluating his actual contribution to the
fall of the Kun regime and the Archduke Joseph.
As regards the Hungarian Soviet Republic, the four great powers in
Paris agreed on one single
thing: it was dangerous, and it would be better
for Europe if it did not survive long. The French demanded military
intervention, the British and the Italians, for different reasons, were
hesitant to go along, while the Americans
preferred,and actively sought,
a peaceful solution. The successor states joined the French in demanding
intervention,since this seemed an easy way to secure furtherterritories
and then lay a claim to them at the peace table. This was something the
Americans wanted to prevent, and, of course, President Wilson had the
final say on the American position.
Wilson's approach towards the successor states of the AustroHungarian Empire crystallized only during the final months of the world
war. He expected some sort of regional cooperation to replace the old
empire of the Habsburgs and believed that undisturbed railroad and water
transportationwere prerequisites for this. His chief goal in Paris was to
create the institutional framework for the final settlement of conflicting
territorialclaims and expected that to happen only under the aegis of the
101
League of Nations. Such sweeping considerations suggest a lack of
coherent policy towards Hungary, and the available records of the peace
conference also indicate that he dealt with the various countries of the
region on a day-to-day basis. In so doing, he had to rely on information
coming from his advisors: above all, the other four commissioners
plenipotentiary (House, Bliss, White, and Lansing), and his agents in the
field. There is no evidence to prove that either House or White dealt with
Hungary; while, as has been pointed out before, Wilson tended to
disregard his secretary of state. This made the advice coming from Bliss
and Hoover more valuable and important.
Wilson trusted Bliss and nis advice. The general believed that
military intervention would create an even more unjust and untenable
situation. More than once did he express his fear that furtherlosses would
strengthenthe Hungarians' will to fight,and that might eventually force
the US to send troops in. He went on to argue that the boys should be
brought back home and maintained that the use of American troops was
out of the question: it would be very difficultto explain to the American
public just how a small, landlocked nation, surrounded by hostile
neighbors sponsored by France, threatened the security of the United
States to the level that direct military interventionwas necessary. Bliss
was unwilling to support a military intervention because he saw two
equally unacceptable alternatives: it would either create even more unjust
borders or American troops would have to be used.
Bliss is one of the most underrated members of the ACNP, in spite
of the fact that he remained Wilson's only key advisor to retain the
president's confidence even after the conference. It is common
knowledge that even the legendary Wilson-House friendship did break
down and that eventually there emerged some misunderstandings
between Hoover and his boss. Bliss continued to enjoy Wilson's
sympathy and support because he shared the president's views on the
futureof the "new world" and never wanted to take center stage. Wilson
took Bliss to Paris on the suggestion of his close friend and secretary of
war, Newton D. Baker. Bliss was the only qualified military expert of the
ACNP, and most military intelligence landed on his desk. Thus, in the
ACNP, he was the only one who could offer reliable insights on the
situation in the center of Europe, and Wilson greatly appreciated this. In
military matters, especially wlien what he said coincided with what the
president wanted to hear, the voice of Bliss was an importantone.21
Hoover too tended to reject the militarysolution, but his arguments
were somewhat differentfrom those outlined by Bliss.22 He
accepted the
general's view that there were no American troops available that could be
sent to Hungary. More importantly, furthermilitary action would have
threatened the favorable positions of his team, especially the American
control over railroad and water transportation,and thus the whole relief
operation. His Quaker education also prompted him to seek a peaceful
solution. Despite the fact that on one or two occasions he
agreed to
102
intervention,he even disapproved of the blockade of Hungary. He never
liked the Bolsheviks and thought, like many other Americans, that
"people with full bellies are not Bolsheviks." And once Wilson accepted
the blockade, as a compromise to avoid intervention,Hoover had no
other choice but to go along. After all, he was a federal employee. When
in July he finally accepted the blockade as a lesser evil, he hoped that it
would convey the message to the Hungarian people that only the Kun
regime stood between them and American relief. While this was a clearcut case of economic diplomacy, the whole thing became academic
within two weeks when internal problems and the Rumanian invasion
brought down the Hungarian Soviet Republic.
Before discussing the American-Hungarian negotiations preceding
the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic and the thwartingof Habsburg
restoration,one furtherpoint should be made. On the lower levels of the
ACNP some commissioners pushed for intervention.This more militant
group included experts as diverse as Professor Charles Seymour of Yale,
the former head of the Austro-Hungarian division of the Inquiry now
serving on two territorialcommissions, Allen W. Dulles, and Gregory in
the field. Since they did not report directly to the president, their reports
and opinions made it through to the chief executive through the double
filter of Bliss and Hoover, who, because of their convictions described
earlier, refused to present military action as a valid alternative to any
peaceful solution.23
Rejecting military intervention meant that Wilson, Hoover, and
Bliss had to seek a peaceful solution, and they did. One aspect was
economic pressure, the refusal to grant to Hungary any relief deliveries
even for hard cash. At the same time Hungary's blockade was' by no
means airtight; smuggling emerged as one of the most prosperous
businesses along the Hungarian-Austrian border. Furthermore, the
Americans denounced the Italians for smuggling contraband into
Hungary, which seemed ridiculous, since the Americans controlled the
railroads of the former Habsburg Empire through Causey. All in all, it
seems that Hoover made no serious effort to enforce the blockade of
Bolshevik Hungary.24 Such leniency of course boosted the American
position in secret talks with the Hungarian Soviet Republic and
individual Hungarians.
Accordingly, the Coolidge mission and the ARA engaged various
members of the Kun regime in secret talks.25 In April, for
example,
following the futile mission of General Smuts, Philip Marshall Brown of
the Coolidge mission contacted Kun directly and tried to persuade him to
transformhis government. He held out the bait of an invitation to Paris,
but in returnhe wanted Kun out of his own government. Obviously, on
these grounds no deal was
possible. In July the social democrat Vilmos
Bohm discussed the possibility of a peaceful takeover in Hungary with
Gregory in Vienna. At that time Bohm was Kun's envoy to the Austrian
capital, but most Hungarian historians agree that he probably pursued an
103
independent line when he finalized an eight-point deal with the
American, which then was cabled to Paris for approval. It was during this
set of negotiations that the state department mission led by Albert
Halstead was instructed to stay out of Hungarian affairs. All this,
however, came to no avail, since the Hungarian Soviet Republic
collapsed in the meantime. Events in Hungary moved too fast to find an
acceptable political solution in time, and Bliss' nightmare of further
looting and injustices materialized.
In a series of articles titled "Stemming the Red Tide," written in
1921 for a monthly magazine called The World's Work, Gregory went as
far as to claim that he himself failed the Kun regime and recited the story
of his negotiations in Vienna. This was not necessarily a lie; it was a
misunderstanding. All that he saw was that he made a deal and a social
democratic government took over from Kun. But he failed to realize that
the people involved in this new government were not necessarily the ones
he and Bohm thought should nave been included. Similarly, Hoover's
claim that strong American protests prevented a Habsburg restoration in
Hungary was a loose interpretationof what happened: he ignores the fact
that none of the four great powers in Paris were willing to accept the
returnof the Habsburgs and that it were the French officers controlling
the Rumanian invasion army who forced Bucharest to drop the project.
Eventually, Sir George Clerk assembled a coalition government in
Hungary later in the fall, and its representatives were invited to Paris. Bv
that time most Americans, including Hoover himself, had gone home.
In summation we may say that Hoover's moderate stand delayed the
military intervention of Hungary, but he and his team played a much
smaller part in failing the Kun regime than they themselves believed.
Gregory offered his impressions right after the war, when most details
were not known, while Hoover wrote about these events several decades
later and made extensive, often word-for-word,use of Gregory's account.
Hoover's Motivations
Thus, Herbert Hoover conducted a major relief and intelligence
organization that got directly involved in the hectic political events of
post-World War I Hungary. He stood for the policy of "rather blockade
than intervention" and exerted a moderating influence on the more
militantAmerican and allied delegates in Paris. When in August 1919 he
could startwork in Hungary, he did and stepped up relief activities: in the
"reconstruction period" Hungary received all the benefits of available
American support. But what were Hoover's real motivations? Was he the
"unselfish humanitarian" of his admirers or the "evil imperialist" of his
communist and revisionist critics?
On a personal level his Quaker background and extreme pessimism
were the key factors. Unlike Nixon later, Hoover was a genuine
Quaker
104
and opposed violence and wars. He, like Wilson, wanted to "end all
wars" and was willing to work for that end some sixteen hours a day. In
his memoirs he described America's war effortand the work of the ARA
as "America's firstcrusade" and often talked about the four horsemen of
the Apocalypse in a somewhat surprising tone:
Then new fears came to the world. The two horsemenof
Death and War passed on, but now came Famine and
Pestilence,and theircamp followerswitheven moreviolence.
. . . This fear was sharpened by the possibilitythat the
pressure of starvation would break down the weak
of Centraland EasternEurope into
revolutionary
governments
.
.
.
Communism,which had capturedRussia, was a
anarchy.
new formof organized destructionof Liberty.. . . Soon we
began to realize that its infectiouspoison was spreading
alarminglyamong all starvingpeoples. Here loomed up a
defeatof all we had foughtfor-toestablishliberty.
It seems now, with the benefit of twenty-twentyhindsight, that a
pessimist Quaker was the best possible solution for Central and Eastern
Europe. But Hoover was more than that: he was a professional
administrator and businessman too. Hoover the administrator felt
responsible for his team of the ARA and the American farmers he had
encouraged to produce more and more during the final two years of the
war. As for the ARA, he rejected military intervention because he had
every reason to believe that unnecessary military adventures would
thwart his relief work28 and bring about even greater chaos in Central
Europe. As far as the farmers were concerned, he wanted to sell
everythingthey produced and returnthem their well-deserved profits.
And here comes Hoover the businessman. The American farmers
were the losers of turn-of-the-centuryindustrialization, and they found
new markets only with the coming of a global war. The Wilson
administration initiated a number of projects, including cheap loans for
mechanization, to boost production. Hoover wanted to use the extra food
in Europe and made contingency plans for 1919, believing that the war
would continue for another year. Much to his relief, surprise, and to some
extent discomfort, the war ended in November 1918. Hoover could not
go back to the farmers and tell them to stop growing food, not least
because that would have driven them
bankrupt, which, in turn, might
have led to social unrest that the Wilson administration was unwilling to
risk immediately before the 1918
congressional elections. His religious
conviction, to which he had testified in his Chinese and Belgian relief
campaigns, and his desire not to let down the farmers, combined for a
policy of trying to use the extra food in his extended relief programs.29
And this is why he insisted on cash payment in most cases, especially
when dealing with defeated countries and Bolshevik regimes.
105
There was yet another consideration driving Hoover in the region,
one that American historians tend to avoid and communists tend to
emphasize: he and many of his associates viewed the ARA as a possible
source of information for American big business and saw in Eastern and
Central Europe a new target area for future American investments.
Nowhere was this more obvious than in the case of the Rumanian oil
fields. The Bratianu government cleverly used these as a bargaining chip
in dealing with the Americans, French, and British in an attemptto secure
the best possible boundaries for Greater Rumania. And the same Hoover
who eventually agreed to use the blockade as a bargaining chip in
bringing down the unwanted government of Bela Kun, now openly
condemned these Rumanian policies. So much so, that when the
Rumanian premier accused him of using American relief deliveries to
secure the oil fields for himself (!), he simply described Bratianu as a
"horse thief." As we know from George Orwell, "All animals are equal,
but some animals are more equal than the others."
Herbert Clark Hoover was neither the uninterested philanthropist
his admirers think he was, nor the evil imperialist of communist and
revisionist historiography. He was not the master diplomat he himself
thought he was, either. He did have a touch of all three about him, but,
above all, he was a decent man, one of the few Americans who should
have received the Nobel Peace Prize but never did. His work in Hungary
after the First World War represents a unique chapter in the history of
American-Hungarian relations inasmuch as it has not been forgotten,it
has been misrepresented. Quite interestingly, Hoover himself largely
contributed to that by telling only parts of the story in no less than four
memoirs published between 1942 and 1961. This essay was meant to be
the firststep towards doing away with these misrepresentations.
NOTES
Researchforthisarticlewas jointlysponsoredby a grantfromthe Herbert
Hoover PresidentialLibraryand Museum,West Branch,Iowa, and two Hungarian
OTKA F 025 268 andFKFP 0120/1999.
scholarship
programs:
Will Irwin,HerbertHoover. A Reminiscent
Biography(New York, 1928),
EdwinEmerson,Hooverand His Times.LookingBack Through
theYears(GardenCity,
1932),EugeneLyons,TheHerbertHooverStoiy(Washington,
D.C., 1963),JoanHoff
Wilson,HerbertHoover:Forgotten
Progressive(Boston.1975").
GeorgeH. Nash, TheLifeof HerbertHoover.VolumeI: TheEngineer,18741914, VolumeII: The Humanitarian,
1914-1917,VolumeIII: Masterof Emergencies,
/9/7-/?/<?
(New York,1983, 1988. 1996V
The bestsuch^accountis: Jen6Horvath,
A magyarkerdesa XX. szazadban.II.
A trianonibekeszerzodes
megalkotasaes a revizio utja. (Budapest, 1939). ( The
HungarianQuestionin the Twentieth
Century.VolumeII: The TrianonPeace Treaty
and theRoad to Territorial
Revision.)
Such languagewas characteristic
of the earlydocumentary
collectionsand
historicalaccountsfromthe 1950s. See for example:A magyarmunkasmozgalom
106
Hatodikkotet:A Magyar Tanacskoztarsasag,
tortenetenek
valogatottdokumentumai.
1919. marcius21-1919. augusztus1. CBudapest
, 1960). (Selecteddocumentsof the
Volumesix: TheHungarianSovietRepublic,
history
oftheHungarianlabormovement.
March21-August1, 1919.)
Zsuzsa L. Nagy,,A parizsi bekekonferencia
es Magyarorszag,1918-1919
(Budapest,1965); Magda Ad&m,TheLittleEntenteand Europe,1920-1929(Budapest,
1993); M&riaOrmos,FromPadua to theTrianon,1918-1920^Budapest,1990).Hoover
was treatedwithsimilarlackof interest
instudies
intheUnited
byHungarians
States:PeterPastor,HungarybetweenWilsonanapublished
Lenin: TheHungarianRevolution
of
1918-1919and theBig Three(New York,1976); Bela K. Kiraly,PeterPastorand Ivan
Sandres,eds., Essays on WorldWarI: Total Warand Peacemaking,A Case Studyon
Trianon(New York,1982).
Suda L. Bane andRalphHaswellLutz,eds.,Organization
ofAmerican
Reliefin
Europe. 1918-1919( Stanford.
1943).chao.2.
Bane and Lutz,Organization
, chap.2; ArnoJ.Mayer,Politicsand Diplomacy
and Counterrevolution
at Versailles,1918-1919(New
of Peacemaking:Containment
York,1969) 367-69.
For detailssee ArthurWalworth,Wilsonand His Peacemakers:American
1919 (New York, 1986), and therelevant
Diplomacyat theParis Peace Conference,
sectionsfromJordan
A. Schwatrz,TheSpeculator:BernardM. Baruchin Washington,
1917-1965(Chapel Hill, 1981). For theinstructions
sentto HalsteadabouttheB6hmGregory negotiationssee: Tamds Magyarics, "Amerikai misszi6k a magyar
Tanacsk6zt£rsas£g
idej&i/'Multunk1997/4,3-38; esp. 35-36. (AmericanMissionsin
SovietRepublic.)
Hungan;duringtheHungarian
and
Andrew,For thePresident'sEyes Only:SecretIntelligence
Christopher
theAmericanPresidency
to Bush (New York, 1995),chap. 2: "The
fromWashington
FirstWorldWarandAfter:FromWooarowWilsonto Herbert
Hoover."
Libraryof Congress:WoodrowWilsonPapers:Series 6N: War Department
GeneralStaff:DailyIntelligence
Summaries.
The ARA and Inquirycablesmaybe found
of theACNP in theNationalArchivesin Washington,
D.C. (RG
amongthedocuments
256). Copies of theARA cables mayalso be foundin theARA papersin theHoover
Institution
on War, Revolution,and Peace in Stanford(cables), and in therHerbert
HooverPresidential
to in thetextare
Libraryin WestBranch,Iowa. The ones referred
all includedintheboundvolumeon Hungary.
The "reconstruction
period"lasteduntil1923,whenAmericanreliefworkwas
and CentralEurope.Hooverthenwas commercesecretary
phasedout in Soviet-Russia
underHarding.The terminology
used here comes fromHoover's own team. The
followingaccount,unless otherwisestated,is based upon Frank M. Surfaceand
RaymondL. Bland,AmericanFood in the WorldWar and Reconstruction
Period.
underthedirectionofHerbertHoover,1914 to 1924
OperationsoftheOrganizations
statistical
accountof Hoover'sworkand the
(Stanford,1931). This is an encyclopedic,
basicsourceofall lateraccounts.One othercomment:in theabsenceof reliablesources
medicalreliefand thecontributions
of otherrelieforganizations
are notdiscussedhere.
A surveyoftheAmericanRedCrossarchivesmavshedmorelighton theseissues
Surfaceand Bland,AmericanFood, 49-52,202-05;on theCzechssee: 168; on
cashpavments
see: 142-46.
Surfaceand Bland,AmericanFood, 202.
In theso-called"claimssettlement"
of 1973 theUS and Hungarysettledtheir
financialdisputes.Thiswas partof thebroaderprocessof "normalization"
outstanding
betweenEast and West.The HungarianForeignMinistryrecordsin the Hungarian
NationalArchivesin Budapestcarryall the Hungariandocuments.The American
sourcesareyetto be madeavailableforresearch.
Surfaceand Bland,AmericanFood, 81, 202-05, 634-55 (includingall the
relevantstatistics);
ARABulletin,1919-1923, in theARA papersin bothStanford
and
WestBranch;AmericanReliefAdministration
EuropeanChildren'sFund:An Account
107
Mission
oftheWorkinHungaryWritten
bytheMembersoftheAmericanChildWelfare
(Budapest,1920) Thisbookletwas simultaneously
publishedin Hungarian.
Zsuzsa L. Nagy's articleon alliedreliefoperations
offersa detailedanalysisof
Austria'sspecialstatus:"Az antantsegelyprogramja
es az 1918-1919.£viforradalmak,"
Parttorteneti
Kozlemenyek1963/3,37-68 (The Allied Relief Operationand the
Revolutions
of 1918-1919).As regardsthehiddenAmericanloanto Vienna,see Surface
andBland,AmericanFood, 34.
aurraceand Bland,AmericanFood. j4-35; in greater
detail:j4-124.
Hoover'sfourmemoirsare:America'sFirstCrusade(New York, 1942,);The
MemoirsofHerbertHoover: VolumeTwo: YearsofAdventure,
1874-1920,
(New York,
1951); The Ordeal of WoodrowWilson(New York, 1958); and An AmericanEpic:
Volume3: Famine in Forty-FiveNations: The Battleon the FrontLine, 1914-1923
(Chicago, 1961). Gregory'saccountwas printedin The World'sWorkbetweenApril
and June1921,pp. 608-13,95-100, 153-64.The Britishversionof thesame magazine
beganto printthestoryin August1921. The "Archieon thecarpet"storyrefersto the
Allied rejectionof Habsburgrestoration
in Hungaryimmediately
afterthe fall of the
HungarianSovietRepublicin August1919. It comesforma coded cable Gregorysent
to Hooverin Paris.
This account is based in partupon the earliercited workson the peace
conference
(note3 above) as well as on thepresentauthor'sconclusionsin his Through
thePrismof the HabsburgMonarchy:Hungaryin AmericanDiplomacyand Public
OpinionduringtheFirstWorldWar(New York,1998),andhisadditionalresearch.
I he Buss papers are sharedby the Hoover Institution
and the Libraryof
studies:
David F. Trask,
Congress.He has been thesubjectof onlytwocomprehensive
"
GeneralTaskerHoward Bliss and the "Sessionsof the World, 1919 (Philadelphia,
1966) and Frederick
Palmer,Bliss,Peacemaker.TheLifeand LettersofGeneralTasker
HowardBliss (Freeoort,
NY. 1970: rot.ofthe1934edition
V
The followingaccount is based upon an extensivereadingof the various
Hoover collectionsin Stanfordand West Branch,and the related memoirsand
collections.An important
volumenotyet mentionedis FrancisWilliam
documentary
O'Brien,ed., Two Peacemakersin Paris: The Hoover-Wilson
Post-Armistice
Letters,
1918-1920(College Station, 1978). Threeimportant
articlesthatdiscussHoover'swork
in Hungary:George W. Hopkins,"The Politicsof Food: UnitedStates and Soviet
Hungary,March-August,1919," Mid-America1973/4,245-70; James Smallwood,
The UnitedStatesand the Hungarian
"Bancjuo'sGhostat theParisPeace Conference:
Question,"East European Quarterly1978-79/3,
289-307; and FranzAdlgasser,"The
Rootsof CommunistContainment:
AmericanFood Aid in Austriaand Hungaryafter
WorldWarI," GiinterBischofand AntonPelinka,eds.,Contemporary
AustrianStudies.
Vol.3: Austriain theNineteenFifties(New Brunswick,
1995), 171-88.BothHopkins,a
and Smallwood,an orthodoxhistorian,arriveat the same conclusion:
revisionist,
Hooverused cold war-likemethodsto failtheHungarianSovietRepublic,butwhilethe
former
condemnsWilsonand Hooverequally,thelatterputsall theblameon Hoover
and Lansing. Adlgassersystematically
analysesthe cold war-likemethodsused by
stand.The mostseriousproblemwiththisdebateis
Hoover,ana also takesa revisionist
thattheearliercitedHungarianhistorians
haveprovedthattheKun regimewas failedby
a combination
of domesticunrestand theRumanianinvasion.S&ndorVad6sz, a senior
Hungarianhistorian,
publisheda confidential
reporton the food situation,whichwas
written
on July25, 1919,barelya weekbeforethefinalcollapseoftheHungarianSoviet
Republic.In his concludingremarksVadasz confirmsthatthe economic problems
contributed
to the collapse,but pointsto the factthatthe vervsame reportincluded
detailedcontingency
thattheKun
plans for1920,whichmustbe seen as ai/indication
regime expected to survive into the next year. "Nagyon bizalmas elelmezesi
1919. iulius25." Agrdrtdrteneti
helyzetjelentes,
Szemle 1980/3-4,463-71 (Extremely
confidential
reporton thefoodsituation).
108
For detailssee: Magyarics,"Amerikaimisszi6k,"30-31. The correspondence
betweenWilsonand Bliss ana Wilsonand Hooveris inthemanuscript
collectionscited
oftheHoover-Blissfilter.
above,andprovestheexistenceandeffectiveness
Smugglingis discussedby Mrs.GaborSandorinAusztriaes a Magyarorszagi
Tanacskoztarsasag
(Budapest,1969;Austriaand theHungarianSovietRepublic
), while
Hoover
hischargesagainsttheItaliansinhismemoirs
citedabove.
"repeated
The mostrecentaccountis Magyarics,
"Amerikaimissziok."
_ rordetailsin bnglishsee: Ormos,tromPadua, part3: up totheTrianon.
283.
„ Hoover,YearsofAdventure,
On at leastone occasionHooverencouragedmilitary
intervention
to prepare
thegroundforrelief.In May 1919 he encouragedGermanGeneralRUdigervon der
Goltz to occupythe cityof Riga, thenunderBolshevikcontrol.David S. Foglesong,
America'sSecretWarAgaianstBolshevism.
U. S. Intervention
in theRussianCivil War,
1917-1920(ChanelHilL 1995^256-57.
" Nash touches
upontheseissuesin thethirdvolumeof his Hooverbiography,
MasterofEmergencies,
1917-1918.Hooveralso freelydiscussedtheseproblemsin his
memoirsand inhis letters
to Wilsonon January
6 and 8, 1919.Fordetailssee: O'Brien,
Two Peacemakers
, 28-34. Adlgasser(172) cleverlyemphasizesHoover's interestin
thefarmers
butignoreshisreligiousconvictions.
supporting
For detailssee StephenBonsai,Suitorsand Suppliants:TheLittleNationsat
Versailles(PortWashington,
NY, 1969;rpt.ofthe1946edition)170-71.
109