Hugh S. Gibson’s diplomatic service in Poland after the First World War

Abstract

Hugh S. Gibson was a career diplomat who had gained experience from 1908 at several diplomatic posts in Tegucigalpa, London, Havana, and Brussels, as well as at the State Department. He marked himself as a diplomat and humanitarian activist during World War I by being closely associated with Herbert C. Hoover and the Commission for Relief in Belgium. In Paris in 1918–1919 he became acquainted with many European politicians and several leaders from Central Europe. At the end of World War I, because of his plans and expectations, he was firstly considered as the chief of the U.S. diplomatic post in Prague. From the autumn of 1918 he became involved in contacts with Edvard Benes and Emanuel Voska and became more and more involved in the problems of Czechoslovakia. He was also a member of the Coolidge Mission to the countries of the former Austria-Hungarian Empire dealing with the economic and political problems of Central Europe1. According to his correspondence it looks that there were some plans (probably of his mentor and supporter, and later close friend, Hoover) to send him to the newly established U.S. diplomatic post in Prague. On December 14, 1918 in Diary (in the form of “letters to mother”) he mentioned, “It would be most interesting job to our first representative to Bohemia but I don’t imagine it will be done”2. Till mid-March, 1919 Gibson, cooperating with Coolidge Mission, was sent six times to Vienna, three times to Prague and two times to Budapest to study the economic and food situation in the countries of the region. He talked to various