The Foreign Service Journal, February 2008

son was stunned to receive a telegram informing him that his brother had died of kidney failure on the very same day that he lay near death on a hospital bed in Narva. In his fevered vision, it had been a dying Roy who was saying goodbye to Loy and not the other way around. Although Henderson and Howell would eventually recover, Blanton and Winfield were not so lucky. For their heroism, which saved thou- sands of Estonian and Russian lives, the Estonian government conferred its highest award — the Cross of Liberty — on all four men, as well as 31 other officers and eight U.S. diplomats. Joining the State Department Convinced by his experience in the Baltics that he needed to find some other way to continue serving the United States overseas, Henderson joined the U.S. Consular Service in 1922. After completing training in Washington, D.C., he was sent first to Dublin and then Queenstown (Cobh), Ireland, where he served as vice consul. He also carried out many administrative duties, for which he showed a natural talent. After the 1924 Rogers Act merged the U.S. Consular and Foreign Services, Henderson transferred to the State Department’s Division of Eastern European Affairs, which managed diplomatic relations with Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Eston- ia, and coordinated reporting on the Soviet Union. It was here that Henderson apprenticed for almost three years under Robert Kelley, the diplomat widely considered to be the spiritual father of the State Depart- ment’s original Russia hands. With Kelley’s recommendation, Henderson was assigned next as third and then second secretary in the U.S. legation in Latvia from 1927 to 1930. Because Washington only assigned consular staff to Tallinn and Kaunas at the time, Henderson was also accred- ited to Estonia and Lithuania and made occasional visits to both states from his home base in Riga. While working there, Hender- son’s skills as an administrator were put to use once again. Although he was assigned to the legation’s Russian unit, it was only during the last half of his tour that he was able to do the political reporting on the Soviet Union he so much wanted to do. He also became George F. Kennan’s mentor. At about the same time, Henderson met and married a Latvian citizen named Elsie Marie Heinrichson. After three years in Latvia, Hend- erson served for three more years with Kelley back at the Division of Eastern European Affairs. There his reputa- tion as a Soviet expert — and skeptic — continued to grow. When the U.S. established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in late 1933, Ambassador William C. Bullitt recruit- ed Henderson to be the first chief of the political-economic section. Because neither Amb. Bullitt nor his counselor (the equivalent of today’s deputy chief of mission), John C. Wiley, was interested in adminis- trative issues, Henderson was once again called on to handle those on top of his already sizable reporting duties. He performed both his assignments with distinction, earning a promotion to first secretary. He also served from time to time as chargé d’affaires dur- ing an extended tour that lasted from March 1934 to July 1938. Henderson’s anti-Soviet senti- ments hardened during his Moscow tour as he observed and reported on Stalin’s purges. He was so skeptical of Soviet anti-German propaganda at that time that he was the first FSO to predict the Soviet-Nazi alliance (the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), sev- eral years before it happened. While in Moscow, Henderson forged close working relationships with his staff members, including George Kennan and Charles Bohlen (two future ambassadors to the Soviet Union), as well as with his direct supervisor, John C. Wiley. On their way back to the U.S. from Moscow, Henderson and his wife Elsie made what would turn out to be a final visit to her home in Latvia, as well as side trips to nearby Estonia and Finland. One Last Gift to the Baltic States By the time Henderson’s tour in Moscow was over, the Department’s Division of Eastern European Affairs had been reorganized as a subunit of the larger Division of European Affairs, and Kelley was posted to Turkey. But throughout Henderson’s next assignment as assistant chief of the Division of European Affairs (1938-1942), he effectively continued to function as chief of the EEA Division. It was from this position that Henderson watched as the Soviet Union occupied Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on June 17, 1940. But with the help of Wiley, who was then serv- ing as the U.S. minister to Estonia and Latvia (1938-1940), Henderson man- aged to perform one final service on behalf of the three countries. 42 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 8 Henderson convinced Under Secretary Sumner Welles to issue his famous non-recognition statement on July 23, 1940.