Norman Armour

Norman Armour

Norman Armour (October 14, 1887– September 27, 1982) was a career United States diplomat who The New York Times once called "the perfect diplomat". In his long career spanning both World Wars, he served as Chief of Mission in eight countries, as Assistant Secretary of State for Political Affairs, and married into Russian nobility.

Career

Armour was born in Brighton, England while his parents were vacationing there. He grew up in Princeton, New Jersey and graduated from St. Paul's School and Princeton University in 1909. In 1913, he graduated from Harvard Law School before returning to Princeton to study diplomacy. His first posts were to Austria in 1912 and France from 1915-1916 before formally entering the Foreign Service.

Russia

One of his first assignments in the foreign service was as Second Secretary in the United States embassy in Petrograd in the Russian Empire, beginning in 1916 (during World War I). After the collapse of Czarist Russia, the Bolsheviks seized control of the government and signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers which marked their exit from World War I. (These events precipitated the Russian Civil War which would lead to the formation of the Soviet Union in 1922.) Prior to the formal signing of the treaty, the United States partially evacuated their embassy, but Armour remained as part of the limited staff. On July 25, the Russian authorities ordered the diplomats out of Petrograd and a new legation was set up in Vologda. The North Russia Campaign, an Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War, further destabilized the situation and resulted in the legation becoming essentially under siege. (The Russian army had already attacked the British consulate and killed its Attache.) At this point, the order of events for Armour becomes somewhat unclear.

According to news reports of the time, Armour was arrested and brought back to Moscow, where he and other Americans (diplomats and otherwise) were allowed to flee the country on August 26, by train to Sweden, arriving on September 5. Later, it was revealed that Armour had during this period used a fake Norwegian passport and, disguised as a courier, sneaked back into Petrograd and arranged for Princess Myra Koudashev, (1895 - 1990), of Petrograd to escape the country. (Contrary to the contemporary reports, his obituary in the New York Times also says that he did not travel in the refugee train from Moscow, but rather escaped himself to Finland, still disguised as a courier, where he caught up with them.) On November 2, shortly after they arrived back in the United States, they announced their engagement. They were married February 2, 1919 in Brussels, Belgium.

Russian background of Mrs. Armour

Née Myra Sergueievna Koudashev, Mrs. Amour was a daughter of a first marriage of Tatar Prince Serguey Vladimirovich Kudashev, (Kiev, Russia, 14 September 1863 - Florence, Italy, 27 February 1933), to a Russian Countess of the Nieroth family , being born in Saint Petersburg, 7 April 1895, while her brother Serguey was born there on 2nd October 1901.

Serguey married a woman from Jaén 18 years younger than him in Spain at the age of 51, dying at Girona, Spain, aged 90, no issue.

Sister Myra married however American diplomat Norman Armour at Stockholm, Sweden, on 2nd February 1919, giving birth to Norman Armour Jr. (Brussels, Belgium, 10 February 1920 - U.S. 1978), who married twice, at Boston, July 1941, and at San Francisco, October 1952.

Over the following years, diplomat Armour serves in a number of embassies and consulates, including those in Belgium, The Netherlands, Uruguay, Italy, the United States Department of State (1922–1924), Japan (1925–1928), and France (1928–1932).

France

In 1929, after the death of Myron T. Herrick on March 31, 1929, Armour was made Chargé d'affaires and Head of the Embassy in Paris until the selection of a replacement. This was Armour's first time as Chief of Mission. Armour was also an extremely popular social figure in France and he and his wife were often written about in American newspapers, flaunting the Parisian high life.

Haiti

Hispaniola is the second-largest island in the Caribbean (after Cuba), with an area of 76,480 square kilometers (29,530 sq mi). Haiti has 10,620 square miles (27,500 km2), 9 millions inhabitants, life expectancy 61 years, speaks Creole. the Dominican Republic 18,704 square miles (48,440 km2), 9.6 million inhabitants, life expectancy 74 years, speaks Spanish. Literacy rate in the 2000s (over 15 years old) is 52.9% in Haiti, 87% in the Dominican Republic.

In 1932, Armour was elevated to Envoy and assigned as Minister to Haiti, roughly half of the Santo Domingo Island in the Caribbean, the other half being known as Spanish speaking Dominican Republic. His primary responsibility in Haiti was to work toward returning the government of the country back to native hands at the conclusion of the United States occupation of Haiti which had been in effect since prior to World War I for some 19 years . He was selected to the position due to his fluency in French, but also as a sign to the Haitians that the United States would put a well-respected diplomat in their country. On August 7, 1933, Armour signed a treaty with Haiti "to return government functions to the Haitians by October 1944 and to withdraw the United States Marines stationed there by November 1944. (The plan would actually succeed ahead of schedule as Marines left the country on August 14, 1934.)"

Canada

After the death in office of Warren Delano Robbins, Armour was made Minister to Canada. His appointment to Canada so soon after his success in Haiti was meant to underscore Canada's importance to the United States, according to the New York Times.

During his time in Canada, the State Department banned marriages between diplomatic personnel and the citizens of foreign countries they served due to potential conflict of interest problems. Though there were at this time 122 diplomats that had taken foreign wives, Armour's high-profile relationship with his highborn Russian wife and the way in which they were engaged were commonly cited by the press on both sides of the issue.

Chile & Argentina

In 1938, Armour was appointed as Ambassador to Chile,756,950 km2 , 292,183 sq mi, 17.2 million inhabitants in the year 2011, was a post which he served relatively uneventfully.

The following year, he was appointed as Ambassador to Argentina, 766,890 km2 , 1,068,302 sq mi, 40 million people year 2010, as the Second World War was heating up. During this period, Armour worked to negotiate better trade relations with these South American countries, and once the United States entered the war, to apply pressure on them to not support the Axis Powers. (One of the provisions of the treaty that he helped negotiate essentially cut off the supply of Tungsten, essential for steels in armored tanks and in electrical lamps, to Japan from Argentina. Imports from that country to Japan accounted for half of that country's supply.) However, Argentina refused to budge off key issues and remained ostensibly neutral.

In 1941, Armour was made honorary director of the 1st Pan-American Games which were to be held in 1942. Unfortunately, the games were called off due to the war.

Near the end of the war, on January 26, 1944, Argentina finally caved to pressure from Britain and the United States and broke ties with the Axis Powers. However, almost immediately after, the General Edelmiro Julián Farrell seized power in a coup from President General Pedro Pablo Ramírez.

Both Generals backed quite closely General Juan Domingo Perón, (1895 - 1974), their successor from June 1946 to July 1974, who was President in three different periods,namely, 1946–1952, 1952 - 1955 till a military coup ousting him and then from September 1973, after 18 years in the exile, to 1 July 1974 when he died.

As a result of this turmoil, the United States refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new government. Armour was ordered to remain in Argentina, but not to officially establish relations of any kind with the new government until a list of conditions were met. The United States officially suspended relations with the country on March 3, 1944, believing that the coup was backed by pro-Axis groups. Armour was officially recalled June 27, 1944.

After his recall, Armour was made acting-Chief of the Department of Latin American Affairs, now probably integrated under the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs in the State Department, until his appointment the following year, 15 December 1944, to Spain, presenting his credentials three and a half months later, March 24, 1945.

Spain & retirement

In Spain, Armour continued to apply pressure on the government of Francisco Franco due in part to its support of the Axis powers during the Second World War. On his retirement on November 29, 1945, formally, 1st December 1945, only 8 months afterwards, the United States further isolated Spain by refusing to send another Ambassador until 1951.

A resolution of the United Nations, document 32(I) 9th February 1946, commended General Franco's regimen stating: " .... the actual Spanish Government, founded through the help of the powers of the Axis, not possessing , in view of his origins , nature, historical and the intimate association with the agreeing States, the conditions justifying his admission...", in Spanish: "....El actual gobierno español, el cual habiendo sido fundado con el apoyo de las potencias del Eje, no posee, en vistas de sus orígenes, su naturaleza, su historial y su íntima asociación con los Estados agresores, las condiciones que justifiquen su admisión."

During that period December 1945 - March 1951, the U.S. embassy remained open with a succession of Chargé d'Affaires, namely, Philip W. Bonsal, from March 1946 to June 1947, Paul T. Culbertson, from June 1947 to December 1952 and Stanton Griffis.

The later Chargé d'Áffaires was appointed on February 1, 1951 again as an Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary presenting his credentials: March 1, 1951, just only one month after his appointment but he relinquished the charge January 28, 1952, 12 months after.

Diplomat Griffis was one the sons of American Far East Orientalist, mainly Japanese life, culture and thought, William Elliot Griffis, (1843 - 1928), A Congregationalist sort of priest educated at the Dutch Reformed Church at New Brunswick. This Stanton seems to bear no relation to Alice Griffiths, and became also U.S. Ambassador to Poland (July 1947 - April 1948), Egypt (September 1948 - March 1949), and Argentina (November 1949 - September 1950), under President Harry S. Truman. Stanton Griffis was ambassador to Argentina while General Juan Domingo Perón, deceased 1974, and wife Eva Duarte de Perón were in power and wrote of his experiences in a book titled Lying In State

In 1947, Armour came out of retirement to serve as an Assistant Secretary of State of Political Affairs under George C. Marshall. On July 15, 1948, he retired for a second time. Three years later, in 1950, Armour was asked out of retirement again to serve as Ambassador to Venezuela. In 1954, he came out of retirement for a third time to serve as Ambassador to Guatemala, a post he only served in for seven months.

According to an interview in 1976, Armour indicated that he was proudest of his work in 1954, protesting the attacks of Joseph R. McCarthy (1908 - 1957), a Republican Senator from Wisconsin, then a lawyer but raised at a farm, on the members of the Foreign Service, with his initial 1950 Wheeling Speech, suspected of connivance with Communism during the ongoing Cold War.

Note that the famous Wheeling Speech, February 9, 1950, is related to McCarthys speech on Lincoln Day to the Republican Women Club of Wheeling, West Virginia, a U.S. city with about 28,000 inhabitants in 2010.

With a Russian wife, no matter whether she was an exiled Tsarist times aristocrat descending from Tatar Princes settled at the Saint Petersburg corridors of power centuries before, there werre grounds for deep suspicions and as a Catholic member of the Democratic Party under Democrat Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt , (January 1882 - 12 April 1945), and Harry S. Truman, (U.S. President April 1945 - January 1953) still more, of course. The enemy was within and at thousands of Kilometers as well, something to worry about. indeed, for the next decades.

Armour died in 1982 and was buried in Princeton Cemetery.

References

"Allied Ambassadors Still In Petrograd". The New York Times: p. 2. 1918-02-26.  "Bolsheviki Regime Practically at War With Allied Powers". The Atlanta Constitution: p. 1. 1918-08-15.  "Americans Flee From Bolsheviki". The Atlanta Constitution: p. 3. 1918-09-08.  "Story of Allied Consuls' Withdrawal From Russia Bares Bolshevik Threats". The Washington Post: p. 17. 1918-09-15.  "To Wed Russian Princess". The New York Times: p. 15. 1918-11-02.  "Embassy Secretary Back from Russia". The New York Times: p. 24. 1918-11-06.  "Marriage Announcement". The New York Times: p. 15. 1919-02-03.  "Hoover Appoints Norman Armour Envoy to Haiti". Chicago Daily Tribune: p. 3. 1932-08-14.  "Armour Appointed Minister to Haiti". The New York Times: p. 14. 1932-08-14.  "Treaty Signed with Haiti for Marines' Withdrawal". Los Angeles Times: p. 1. 1933-08-08.  "Our Minister to Canada". The New York Times: p. 18. 1935-05-22.  "Armour Gets Games Post". The New York Times: p. S8. 1941-09-14.

Cortesi, Arnaldo (1941-11-28). "Argentina Sells U.S. All Tungsten". The New York Times: p. 1.  "U.S. to Hold Up Recognition of Argentina Chief". Los Angeles Times: p. 1. 1944-03-05.  "Recall Armour in New Blow at Argentine Rule". Chicago Daily Tribune: p. 8. 1944-06-28.  "Armour New Head of U.S. Latin Bureau". The New York Times: p. 10. 1944-07-19.  "Armour Quits Post Today". The New York Times: p. 2. 1945-12-01.  "Norman Armour Named Assistant Secretary of State". Chicago Daily Tribune: p. 33. 1947-06-10.  "Norman Armour Retires Again". The New York Times: p. 8. 1948-07-16.  Krebs, Alvin (1982-09-29). "Norman Armour, 94, Dies". The New York Times: p. D26.

External links

• Norman Armour Papers at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University
• Norman Armour at Find a Grave

Diplomatic posts
Preceded by Myron T. Herrick	United States Chargé d'Affaires ad interim, France 1929	Succeeded by Walter E. Edge
Preceded by Dana G. Munro	United States Minister to Haiti 1932–1935	Succeeded by George A. Gordon
Preceded by Warren Delano Robbins	United States Minister to Canada 1935–1938	Succeeded by Daniel C. Roper
Preceded by Hoffman Philip	United States Ambassador to Chile 21 April 1938–10 June 1939	Succeeded by Claude G. Bowers
Preceded by Alexander W. Weddell	United States Ambassador to Argentina 19 June 1939–29 June 1944	Succeeded by Spruille Braden
Preceded by Carlton J. H. Hayes	United States Ambassador to Spain 1945	Succeeded by Stanton Griffis
Preceded by Walter J. Donnelly	United States Ambassador to Venezuela 7 December 1950–2 October 1951	Succeeded by Fletcher Warren
Preceded by John Peurifoy	United States Ambassador to Guatemala October 18, 1954–May 9, 1955	Succeeded by Edward J. Sparks

Persondata
Name	Armour, Norman
Alternative names
Short description	American diplomat
Date of birth	October 14, 1887
Place of birth	Brighton, England
Date of death	September 27, 1982
Place of death