Charles E. Bohlen

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Charles E. Bohlen
United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union
In office April 20, 1953 – April 18, 1957
Preceded by	George F. Kennan
Succeeded by	Llewellyn E. Thompson
United States Ambassador to the Philippines
In office 4 June 1957 – 15 October 1959
Preceded by	Albert F. Nufer
Succeeded by	John D. Hickerson
United States Ambassador to France
In office 1962 – 1968
Preceded by	James M. Gavin
Succeeded by	Sargent Shriver
Born	August 30, 1904 Clayton, Jefferson County, Washington
Died	December 31, 1974

Charles Eustis “Chip” Bohlen (August 30, 1904 – December 31, 1974¹) was a United States diplomat from 1929 to 1969 and Soviet expert, serving in Moscow before and during World War II, succeeding George F. Kennan as United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union (1953–1957), then moving to the Philippines (1957–1959), and to France (1962–1968). Graduate of Harvard College Class of 1927.

His great-aunt's father was American Civil War General Henry Bohlen, born 1810, the first foreign-born, (Germany), Union general in the Civil War, her husband being a brother of Charles Bohlen's grandfather.

His great-aunt and uncle were also the parents of Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, who used the name Krupp because he married Bertha Krupp, of the several centuries old saga of German weapons makers , the Krupp family, and who gave name to the enormous Bertha howitzer type of guns used by the Germans sieging Paris.

It was from this marriage between a Gustav von Bohlen und Halbach, related to this first German born General from the American Civil War Karl Bohlen, Charles Bohlen that Gustav von Bohlen und Halbach , a.k.a. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach with Bertha Krupp that famous weapons manufacturer during the World War II Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (1907–1967), came about.

One daughter of our Charles Eustis Bohlen , Avis, with the same name than her mother, Avis Howard Thayer, (1912 - 1981), became a distinguished diplomat in her own right serving successively as deputy chief of mission in Paris under Ambassador Pamela Harriman, US Ambassador to Bulgaria, and Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, while another daughter, Celestine, became a journalist and was a Moscow-based reporter for The New York Times.

Ambassadress in Bulgaria, Avis, (born 1940), and Moscow - based Journalist, Celestine, got also an uncle on her mother side, Charles Wheeler Thayer, Charles Thayer, Charles W. Thayer, (Villanova, Delaware County, Pensyilvania, 1910 - Salzburg, Austria , August 27, 1969), who worked also closely associated to his brother in law, was also a U.S. Vice Consul in Moscow, 1937, 1940, Berlin, 1937-38, Hamburg, 1939-40, Kabul, Afghanistan, 1943; colonel in the U.S. Army during World War II; head of the State Department's international broadcasting division, including the "Voice of America", 1947-49; U.S. Consul General in Munich, 1952-53; in March 1953, when attacks on his loyalty by U.S. Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy inspired a State Department investigation into his diplomatic career, he resigned from the Foreign Service; later a writer.

Grandson on his mother side of United States Senator James Biddle Eustis , (1834 - 1887), Ambassador to France under 22nd and 24th President Stephen Grover Cleveland, (1837 - 1908) . Charles Eustis Bohlen joined the State Department, learned Russian and became a Soviet specialist, working first in Riga, Latvia.

In 1934, aged 30, he joined the staff of the embassy in Moscow. In 1940–41 he worked in the American Embassy in Tokyo, and was interned for six months before release by the Japanese in mid-1942. He worked on Soviet issues in the State Department during the war, accompanying Harry Hopkins on missions to Stalin. He worked closely with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and was Roosevelt's interpreter at the Tehran Conference (1943) and the Yalta Conference (1945).

In 1946 he disagreed with his friend Ambassador George Kennan on how to deal with the Soviets (Harper 1995). Kennan proposed a strategy of containment of Soviet expansion, while Bohlen was more cautious and recommended accommodation, allowing Stalin to have a spheres of influence in Eastern Europe.

Just by that time, in May 1946 the rockets base of Kapustin Yar, near the town of Znamensk was made operational with German detained engineers from Peenemünde supervised by General Vasili Voznyuk , (1907 - 1976, September 12), as the Americans were doing with other Germans headed by famous rocket engineer Werner von Braun.

Meantime, in MITT, Moscow, Sergey Bodrov, not the film director cited by Wikipedia today, started researches on jet propulsion and ballistic missiles, bearing in mind the advantages of researching the difficult, dangerous and sophisticated advices on using liquid hydrogen at around -252ºC for their propulsion as put forward by returned scientist from England, controversial Russian engineer Peter Kapitza. Some of the ICBM´s designs were carried out in Votkinsk, South of the Urals mountains, near the line with Southern Siberia.

About 10 years later, Northern Arctic Plesetsk Cosmodrome, was also set up. Both, rather military concerns, were later replaced for more convenient essays by the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in the actual Kazajastan.

Ambassador Kennan, declared persona non grata for some declarations about the Soviet Republics in Berlin in September 1952 would not be allowed to come back to Russia by Stalin, the Embassy being run by Chargé d´Affairs Jacob Beam, deceased 1993. Later, Jacob Beam would be American Ambassador in Moscow, too, from August 31, 1966 to March 5, 1969.

On the 20th January 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower, first General Head of NATO, descending of the German family named Eisenbauer was the American President at the White House but there was not yet an American Ambassador in Moscow by the time Stalin died in March 1953.

Since January 1953, there was considerable political stirr within the High Classes of Soviet Power related to the deaths of Andrey Zhdanov, deceased 1948, and Cherbakov when cared for by some 20 eminent medical doctors, such as Academician V. N. Vinogradov, Preobrayenski, Sherechevski, Vasilenko, Zakusov, Zelenin..., and not less than 2 brillian medical women, Nina A. Popova and L. F. Timachiuk, publicily rewarded with medals and awards. Timachiuk had been formerly associated to M. D. Riumin, executed on 6th April 1953.

Meanwhile Stalin had died already by March 1953. It was only American Chargé d´Affairs, Jacob, who would represent the American Power at the individual total eclipse of Stalin.

Eisenhower, then, decided that internationally cultured and highly educated Charles Eustis Bohlen should be the Ambassador.

Bohlen, critized by some of the American Congress hawks, paid more attention to liberal public opinion, since he believed domestic influence in a democracy was inevitable (Ruddy 1986). When George C. Marshall became Secretary of State in 1947, Bohlen and Dean Acheson became also key advisers to American President Harry Truman .

In April 1953 President, since 20 January 1953, General Dwight D. Eisenhower named Bohlen ambassador to the Soviet Union; he was confirmed by a vote of 74–13 despite the criticisms made by Senator Joe McCarthy, who had been involved also accusing his brother in law, a worker in the American Embassy in Moscow, Charles Wheeler Thayer.

Bohlen did not enjoy a good relationship with Soviet leaders, or with John Foster Dulles, (25 February 1888 – 24 May 1959).^{[citation needed]}.

He was demoted on 18th April 1957 by David Dwight Eisenhower in spite of another reelection of Eisenhower by the American people as from 20 January 1957 till 20 January 1961.

During his 4 years spell serving time as Ambassador in the Soviet Union, he had to deal, between others with 2 Soviet Ministers of Defense promoted by Premier of the Soviet Union Georgi Malenkov:

1)Nikolai Bulganin, (1895 - 1975), (April 1953 to 8 February 1955 when he became Premier of the Soviet Union till 27 March 1958 when he was substituted by Ukrainian born Nikita Kruschov).

2)Marshal Georgy Zhukov,(1896 - 1974), appointed as successor to the Ministry of Defense Bulganin, himself now a Premier of the Soviet Union, put in charge of the Warsaw Pact Intervention in Hungary, in what is widely known as The Hungarian Revolution of 1956, (Hungarian: 1956-os forradalom), a revolt against Hungarian President Imre Nagy, (1896 - executed in Romania, 1962), described sometimes in some places as "counter-revolutionary", lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956, replaced by German-Croatian origins Janos Kadar, (1912 - 1989), "peaceful" implementer of East European Joint Policies for 32 years, from 1956 to 1988.

He would have to move in murky waters when Georgian born strong Stalinist Lavrenti Beria was executed around X-mas time of 1953.

It was also, just at about the same time, than the Suez Crisis, confronting French and British with Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, reached one of the peaks:

Foreign Affairs Soviet minister Dmitri Shepilov, had been one of the negotiators with the Egyptians on Russian support to built the Aswan Dam once money was denied by aligned western Powers, U. S. A., Great Britain and France keen on listening to the containment of Communism ideas dear to John Foster Dulles as commented above, while Nasser had recognized China Communist regime. Moreover, Shepilov had been accused of being involved with a plot to oust the ever growing political career of Ukrainian born Nikita Kruschov.

It is then clear there was no room either for casual Russian Foreign Affairs minister Dmitri Shepilov and/or rather easy going American Ambassador in Moscow Charles Eustis Bohlen to hinder the International Politics of the time. Both, of course, would be demoted by the first half of the year 1957, Shepilov at the beginnings of February 1957 by Andrei Gromyko, to inherit Shepilov´s job.

Some hysteria went also a little later, through the U. S. A. when on 4 October 1957, 80 Kilogramms satellite Sputnik, was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome , Kazajastan, making people wondering about nuclear menaces coming from the Soviet ICBM´s . All this would open the way to the later famous dis encounters between American President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the Cuban Missile Crisis and Nikita Kruschov.

Willy-nilly, Soviet Foreign Affairs ministry would be hold for the next 28 years (1957 - 1985) by Andrei Gromyko, not so by the Americans.

Charles E. Bohlen would thus become ambassador to the Philippines (4th June 1957–15th October 1959). He was ambassador to France (1963–1968), under assassinated President John F. Kennedy and its successor Lyndon B. Johnson .

During his time at Moscow there, the serious allegations on the medical doctors of the "apparatchick" were somehow dropped down and the Jewish wives of Vyacheslav Molotov, Jemchiujnaia, Polina Zhemchuzhina, ostracized since 1948 as a suspected spy and a friend of Israel Ambassadress Golda Meir, and the wife of Ukrainian Marshal Kliment Voroshilov, who were allowed to return to Moscow from Siberian Omsk to their respective husbands.

In his 1973 memoirs, Witness to History, he reveals that on the morning of August 24, 1939, he visited the Third Reich diplomat Hans von Herwarth and received the full content of the secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed the day before (Bohlen 1973). The secret protocol contained an understanding between Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin to split Central Europe, the Baltic region, and Finland between their nations. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was urgently informed. The United States did not convey this information to any of the concerned governments in Europe.^{[citation needed]} A week later the plan was realized with the German invasion of Poland, and World War II, the Great Patriotic War as described by Russians, was commenced.

In 2006, Bohlen was featured on a United States postage stamp, one of a block of six featuring prominent diplomats.^[1]

[edit] References

• Bohlen, Charles E. Witness to History: 1929-1969 (1973), Norton Eds. 576 pages, memoirs ISBN 0393074765

• Harper, John L. "Friends, Not Allies: George F. Kennan and Charles E. Bohlen." World Policy Journal 1995 12(2): 77-88. Issn: 0740-2775 Fulltext: in Ebsco

• Isaacson, Walter. The Wise Men: Six friends and the world they made: Acheson, Bohlen, Harriman, Kennan, Lovett, McCloy (1986)

• Ruddy, T. Michael. The Cautious Diplomat: Charles E. Bohlen and the Soviet Union, 1929-1969, (Kent State University Press, Ohio), (31 October 1986). 210 pages, ISBN: 0873383311

• Ruddy, T. Michael, "Charles E. Bohlen: Political Realist," in Perspectives in American Diplomacy, ed. Jules Davids (New York: Arno Press, 1976).

Prof. T. M. Ruddy works at Saint Louis University, a Professor Director of Graduate Students, College of Arts.

• Encyclopedia of World Biography on Charles (Chip) Bohlen.

• Charles E. Bohlen, NNDB.

• Ilario Fiore. Lavrenti Il Terribile, Italian, Torino, 1973. Spanish Translation by Juan Moreno: "Laurenti El Terrible", 1974, Ed. Plaza y Janés, Esplugas de Llobregat, Barcelona, 509 pages, ISBN 84-01-41049-5

Ilario Fiore worked as a Journalist and TV news for many years in Italy, Spain, the U.S.A., Russia and China.

• http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch00461. Subject: Bohlen, Avis Howard Thayer, 1912-1981. Papers, 1929-1981: A Finding Aid, Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Call No.: 82-M28, Repository: Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute

[edit] Notes

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