The United States and the Armenian Genocide, Julien Zarifian (softcover)

This is the first book to examine how and why the United States refused to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide until the early 2020s. Although the American government expressed sympathy toward the plight of the Armenians in the 1910s and 1920s, historian Julien Zarifian explores how, starting in the 1960s, a set of geopolitical and institutional factors led the United States to adopt a policy of genocide nonrecognition that it would cling to for over fifty years, through Republican and Democratic administrations. He describes the forces on each side of the issue: Armenian American activists and their allies versus Cold War state leaders worried about alienating NATO ally Turkey and dealing with American reluctance to confront the horrors of the past. Drawing from congressional records, rarely seen newspaper articles, and interviews with lobbyists and decision-makers, Zarifian reveals how genocide recognition became such a complex, politically sensitive issue.