William Harrison Standley

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William Harrison Standley as Admiral (1945)

William Harrison Standley (born December 18, 1872 in Ukiah , California , † October 25, 1963 in San Diego ) was an American admiral and diplomat .

Life

Military career

Standley's grandfather was a hotel owner and his father was a sheriff in Mendocino County , California. Standley entered the United States Naval Academy (USNA) after graduating from school, graduating from illustration in 1895. He then served for two years on the cruiser " USS Olympia ".

He experienced his “ baptism of fire ” in the Spanish-American War (1898). In the subsequent Philippine-American War (1899-1902) he was awarded for bravery. After the war he did service in California ports. He got his first command on the island of Tutuila, which belongs to American Samoa . During the First World War he was in charge of the expansion of the Annapolis naval base, Maryland . This was followed by commands in larger naval units on the Atlantic and a delegation to the Chief of Admiralty Staff (CNO).

In 1932 he was promoted to Vice Admiral and after a few months to Admiral , at the end of 1933 the new President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him to CNO. Again and again he represented the sick Minister of the Navy Claude A. Swanson in this post and thus came into contact with the closest political leadership. He remained in command of the Navy until 1937 when he retired. He was succeeded by William Daniel Leahy .

Standley became a consultant to the New York Fair ( Great New York State Fair ) and a boat manufacturer. He also appeared as a political speaker, denouncing the German Empire , Italy and the Soviet Union as "enemies of democracy".

In February 1941, Standley was brought back from retirement into active naval service, initially he was seconded as one of the representatives of the US Navy to the planning staff for the defense industry. In the fall of 1941 he became the highest representative of the Navy in the land lease program led by Ambassador W. Averell Harriman , in the context of which armaments were delivered to the USSR on a large scale. In this capacity, Standley also visited Moscow with Harriman. However, Standley spoke out in favor of imposing conditions on Stalin. After the bombing of the war port Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he was appointed to the investigative commission set up by Roosevelt.

Use as a diplomat

In February 1942, Roosevelt sent Standley to Moscow as US ambassador, who replaced Laurence Steinhardt there. His main role in this post was to coordinate the delivery of American armaments. However, he criticized the information policy of the Soviet leadership, which in his opinion had withheld information that was important for the war effort from the American allies. He came into conflict with Roosevelt's special envoy Joseph E. Davies , who, according to Standley, pleaded for unreserved support for the Stalin regime and tried to suppress any criticism of it, including by the American press.

In Moscow, Standley supported the efforts of the Polish government- in- exile in London to investigate the whereabouts of nearly 10,000 Polish officers who had been taken prisoner by the Soviets in autumn 1939. He made friends with the Polish ambassador Stanisław Kot and later with his successor Tadeusz Romer . He also met the head of the search office of the Polish Anders Army , Count Józef Czapski . He spoke to Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Vyshinsky , then Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov , and finally even Stalin about the missing officers, but received only evasive answers.

When, in April 1943, the German press, controlled by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, reported the discovery of mass graves containing the bodies of shot Polish officers in the Katyn forest and accused the Soviet secret service of mass murder, he telegraphed to Washington that there was indeed evidence for this Version speak.

When the Kremlin took the Polish request for an investigation by the International Committee of the Red Cross to break off diplomatic relations with the government-in-exile, Standley tried in vain to persuade Molotov to return this step. As a sign of solidarity, he accompanied the declared Polish ambassador Tadeusz Romer on his departure to the train station. He also warned the State Department that Stalin was obviously planning to set up a puppet government made up of Polish communists grouped around the agitator Wanda Wasilewska .

In his 1955 memoir, Standley stated that he had obviously lost Roosevelt's trust because of his critical stance towards the Soviet leadership. He therefore submitted a resignation letter. He had complained in vain to Roosevelt that behind his back special ambassadors from the White House were building their own channels to Moscow. The immediate reason for this was the posting of Joseph E. Davies to the Kremlin, where he handed a sealed letter from Roosevelt to Stalin. Standley was not allowed to accompany Davies or learn of the content of the message. Roosevelt accepted the request, in October 1943 Standley resigned from the diplomatic service. His successor in Moscow was W. Averell Harriman, Standley referred to him in a private letter as a "show-off" ( bravado ).

On his return to Washington Standley was seconded as an advisor to the OSS military intelligence under William J. Donovan . At the end of the Second World War, he resigned from the public service in August 1945.

He joined the Council against Communist Aggression (CACA), which mainly consisted of representatives of conservative Protestant church circles, including politicians and publicists as well as former military officials.

In 1952, Standley testified before the Madden Commission , the US Congress' committee to investigate the Katyn massacre . He sharply criticized Roosevelt and Joseph E. Davies. According to him, the White House made no efforts in 1943/44 to get to the bottom of the question of the perpetrator, but instead accepted the Soviet version, which incriminated the Germans, without review.

The guided missile cruiser " William H. Standley " bears his name, as does a recreation area in northern California, the Admiral William Standley State Recreation Area.

Awards

Selection of decorations, sorted based on the Order of Precedence of Military Awards :

literature

  • Dennis Dunn: Caught between Roosevelt and Stalin. America's Ambassadors to Moscow. Lexington 1998, pp. 147-199.
  • William H. Standley / Arthur A. Ageton: Admiral Ambassador to Russia. Chicago, IL: Henry Regnery, 1955.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jeremiah M "Doc" Standley Find A Grave Memorial # 29011798, August 14, 2008.
  2. ↑ Biographical information, unless otherwise stated, according to: Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships - William H. Standley ( Library of Congress Web Archives Collection)
  3. ↑ Dennis Dunn: Caught between Roosevelt and Stalin. America's Ambassadors to Moscow. Lexington 1998, pp. 179-180.
  4. ↑ David Mayers: FDR's Ambassadors and the Diplomacy of Crisis: From the Rise of Hitler to the end of World War II. Cambridge 2013, pp. 226-227.
  5. ↑ Dennis Dunn: Caught between Roosevelt and Stalin. America's Ambassadors to Moscow. Lexington 1998, pp. 179-180.
  6. ^ William H. Standley / Arthur A. Ageton: Admiral Ambassador to Russia. Chicago 1955. p. 371.
  7. ↑ The Katyn Forest Massacre. US Government Printing Office. Washington 1952, Vol. VII, p. 2044.
  8. ^ William H. Standley / Arthur A. Ageton: Admiral Ambassador to Russia. Chicago 1955, p. 401.
  9. ↑ Bogdan Grzeloński: Niedobrani sojusznicy: ambasadorzy Roosevelta w ZSRR. Warsaw 2013, pp. 265, 268
  10. ↑ The Katyn Forest Massacre. US Government Printing Office. Washington 1952, Vol. VII, pp. 2043-2045.
  11. ^ William H. Standley / Arthur A. Ageton: Admiral Ambassador to Russia. Chicago 1955, p. 404.
  12. ↑ The Katyn Forest Massacre. US Government Printing Office. Washington 1952, Vol. VII, p. 2069.
  13. ↑ Bogdan Grzeloński: Niedobrani sojusznicy: ambasadorzy Roosevelta w ZSRR. Warsaw 2013, p. 268.
  14. ^ William H. Standley / Arthur A. Ageton: Admiral Ambassador to Russia. Chicago 1955, p. 408.
  15. ↑ The Katyn Forest Massacre. US Government Printing Office. Washington 1952, Vol. VII, p. 2067.
  16. ↑ Dennis Dunn: Caught between Roosevelt and Stalin. America's Ambassadors to Moscow. Lexington 1998, p. 148.
  17. ^ William H. Standley / Arthur A. Ageton: Admiral Ambassador to Russia. Chicago 1955, pp. 367, 381.
  18. ↑ Bertram D. Hulen, Stanley offers resignation in pique, in: New York Times , May 29, 1943, p. 2
  19. ^ William H. Standley / Arthur A. Ageton: Admiral Ambassador to Russia. Chicago 1955, pp. 366-375.
  20. ↑ David Mayers: FDR's Ambassadors and the Diplomacy of Crisis: From the Rise of Hitler to the end of World War II. Cambridge 2013, pp. 226-227.
  21. ^ Full text of "Khrushchev Vists FBI File" archive.org
  22. ^ Philipp Jenkins: The Cold War at Home: The Red Scare in Pennsylvania 1945-1960 . Chapel Hill NC 1999, pp. 191-192.
  23. ↑ The Katyn Forest Massacre. US Government Printing Office. Washington 1952, Vol. VII, pp. 2042-2074.
  24. ^ Admiral William Standley State Recreation Area ( English ) State of California. Retrieved October 9, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Standley, William Harrison
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American admiral and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH December 18, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Ukiah , California
DATE OF DEATH October 25, 1963
Place of death San Diego , California