Harrison M. Symmes Quotes
These four mongrels are supposed to be our defense against Communism and the extremes of Arab Nationalism in the Middle East.
This quotation illustrates the derogatory and disrespectful attitude that many high level American officials then had towards Arab leaders. No one objected to or reprimanded Symmes for his use of the word “mongrels”. And he was the State Departments leading expert on the Middle East and Arab Cultures. In the photo, Symmes is the gentlemen on the right.
Harrison M. Symmes, 1921–2010, State Department Middle East Expert, Under Secretary of State for Middle Eastern Affairs, U. S. Ambassador to Jordan, Reference to King Saud of Saudi Arabia, King Hussein of Jordan, President Chamoun of Lebanon, and President Nuri Said of Iraq, White House Meeting with President Eisenhower, Central Intelligence Agency, State Department and Defense Department leaders, September 1957
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Ironically, at the time she wrote this column, Mrs. Roosevelt was being accused of being a communist by some Southerners who associated her strong views against racism and segregation. Some in the North thought she was a communist because of her active role in the New Deal, Yet here she was, willing to use military force to prevent Soviet expansion.
Indeed, many of the countries went communist as Kennan predicted.
The occasion was the visit to Washington of French Minister M. Jean Letourneau. The French were fighting the communists in Vietnam and the U. S., not yet in the fight, promised material and political aid, but no military participation. It was almost a decade later that America sent its first military personnel to Vietnam. The West was persuaded that the French could handle the situation. When they were defeated, America and Britain assumed that it was the notorious military incompetence of the French that accounted for the situation rather than the competence and commitment of the Vietnamese Communists and their support of the majority of the people.
This was an incredible prediction with no other world leader thinking it possible for decades until that is exactly what happened.
There were many who thought that the Russians would view the Mutual Security Act as aggressive and they might respond with some kind of aggressive retaliation and this could lead to war. Others felt that containment would reduce the likelihood of war.
Agree resigned from the CIA in protest to its political positions.
Harrison Matthew Symmes was a career American diplomat who served as the American Ambassador to Jordan from 1967–1970. When he retired from the Foreign Service in 1974, Symmes became President of Windham College followed by becoming Resident Director of Mount Vernon in 1977.,
