Editing Hamilton Fish Armstrong

{{Short description|American diplomat}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Hamilton Fish Armstrong
| image              = Refugee Advisory Committee reports to President Roosevelt. Washington, D.C., Nov. 16. Members of the Advisory Committee on Refugees leaving the White House today and presenting a report to LCCN2016874363.jpg
| caption            = Refugee Advisory Committee, Left to right: Armstrong, Undersecretary of State [[Sumner Welles]], George I. Warren, [[James Grover McDonald]]
| birth_date         = {{Birth date|1893|04|07}}
| birth_place        = [[New York City, New York]]
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|1973|04|24|1893|04|07}}
| death_place        = [[New York City, New York]]
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| resting_place_coordinates = <!-- {{Coord|LAT|LONG|display=inline,title}} -->
| nationality        = 
| citizenship        = [[United States|American]]
| other_names        = 
| known_for          = ''[[Foreign Affairs]]''
| education          = 
| alma_mater         = [[Princeton University]]
| employer           = [[Council on Foreign Relations]]
| occupation         = [[editor in chief|editor]]
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| spouse             = {{plainlist|
* {{marriage|Helen MacGregor Byrne ({{born in|1897}})|1918|1938}}
* {{marriage|[[Carman Barnes]]|1945|1951}}
* {{marriage|Christa von Tippelskirch|1951|<!-- Omission per Template:Marriage instructions --> }}
}}
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'''Hamilton Fish Armstrong''' (April 7, 1893 &ndash; April 24, 1973) was an American journalist who is known for editing ''[[Foreign Affairs]]'' from 1928 to 1972.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Langer |first=William L. |last2=Kennan |first2=George F. |last3=Schlesinger |first3=Arthur |date=1973-07-01 |title=Hamilton Fish Armstrong 1893-1973 |url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1973-07-01/hamilton-fish-armstrong-1893-1973 |work=Foreign Affairs |language=en-US |volume=51 |issue=4 |issn=0015-7120}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite news |date=1973 |title=Hamilton Fish Armstrong Dies at 80; Foreign Affairs Quarterly Ex‐Editor |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/04/25/archives/hamilton-fish-armstrong-dies-at-80-foreign-affairs-quarterly.html |work=New York Times}}</ref>

==Early life==
Armstrong was a member of the [[Fish family|Fish Family]] of American politicians.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Linke |first=Daniel J. |date=2000 |title=Hamilton Fish Armstrong: The Diplomatic Editor and Anti-Nazism in the 1930s |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.25290/prinunivlibrchro.61.2.0145 |journal=The Princeton University Library Chronicle |volume=61 |issue=2 |pages=145–169 |doi=10.25290/prinunivlibrchro.61.2.0145 |issn=0032-8456|url-access=subscription }}</ref> His father was an artist and [[gentleman farmer]].<ref name=":2" /> Armstrong was named after his great uncle [[Hamilton Fish]] who was Secretary of State in the Ulysses Grant administration. He attended [[Princeton University]], where he was undergraduate reporter for the ''[[The Daily Princetonian|Daily Princetonian]]''.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Lugli |first=Madelyn |date=2024 |title=Hamilton Fish Armstrong and Yugoslavia: How an Internationalist's Idea of a New State Made Interwar-Era Foreign Affairs—and Foreign Affairs |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/modern-american-history/article/hamilton-fish-armstrong-and-yugoslavia-how-an-internationalists-idea-of-a-new-state-made-interwarera-foreign-affairsand-foreign-affairs/26285CD15D4532AB4C1732AB458F2579 |journal=Modern American History |language=en |doi=10.1017/mah.2023.64 |issn=2515-0456|doi-access=free }}</ref> He graduated from Princeton in 1916.<ref name=":2" />

Although he was raised in a Republican family, Armstrong campaigned for the [[Woodrow Wilson]] [[1912 United States presidential election|1912 presidential campaign]].<ref name=":2" />

== Career ==
He began a career in journalism at the business department of ''[[The New Republic]]''.<ref name=":2" /> During the [[First World War]], he was a [[military attaché]] in [[Serbia]], sparking a lifelong interest in American relations with foreign states. Armstrong retained an interest in the Balkans region throughout his career, publishing three books and upwards of ten ''Foreign Affairs'' articles on the Balkans.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /> He was also involved in American–Jugoslav societies.<ref name=":0" /> 

In 1922, at the request of editor [[Archibald Cary Coolidge]], Armstrong became managing editor of ''[[Foreign Affairs]]'', the journal of the newly formed [[Council on Foreign Relations]]. Armstrong changed the name of the magazine from the ''Journal of International Relations'', which he found  “unnecessarily dull” into ''Foreign Affairs''.<ref name=":0" /> Armstrong recruited his sisters, Helen and Margaret, to re-draw the logo.<ref name=":0" /> After Coolidge's death in 1928, Armstrong became editor, retiring from the position only in 1972, the fiftieth year of publication of the journal. 

Armstrong was an internationalist and proponent of open markets.<ref name=":2" /> During the Great Depression, he criticized isolationists and argued for America's engagement with the world.<ref name=":2" /> In the 1930s, Armstrong persistently warned about the rise of dictatorships in Europe, in particular Nazism.<ref name=":2" /> He authored six books condemning dictatorship, including the 1937 bestseller ''We or They''.<ref name=":2" /> He argued against neutrality in the years leading up to World War II.<ref name=":2" /> Armstrong was a prominent supporter of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1936 presidential campaign.<ref name=":2" /> 

In 1933, Armstrong interviewed Adolf Hitler shortly after he was named Chancellor of Germany. It was one of Hitler's first interviews with a foreign journalist. During his interview, Armstrong injected multiple times when Hitler was answering. After the interview, Armstrong expressed dissatisfaction about Hitler and concern about what Hitler boded for world politics.<ref name=":2" /> Armstrong wrote early of the repression of political opposition underway in Germany, as well as the persecution of Jews.<ref name=":2" /> 

Armstrong was executive director of the Council on Foreign Relations.<ref name=":0" />

Armstrong wrote many books, including the early ''Hitler's Reich: The First Phase'' (published in July, 1933, by The Macmillan Company).

He died after a long illness on April 24, 1973, at the age of 80.

==Personal life==
Armstrong married three times. Helen MacGregor Byrne became his wife in 1918; their only child, Helen MacGregor (later Mrs. Edwin Gamble), was born on September 3, 1923. Armstrong and Byrne divorced in 1938. Later that year, she married [[Walter Lippmann]], ending the friendship between the two men.<ref name=":2" />

He was born at 58 [[West 10th Street (Manhattan)|West 10th Street]] in New York City, and died at the same location.<ref name=":1" />

Armstrong married author [[Carman Barnes]] in 1945, a marriage which ended in a 1951 divorce. In that same year, Armstrong married Christa von Tippelskirch.

==Awards and honors==
Hamilton Fish Armstrong was decorated by [[Serbia]], [[Romania]], [[Czechoslovakia]], [[France]], and the [[United Kingdom]]: 
* Order of the Serbian Red Cross (1918)
* Order of St. Sava Fifth Class (1918)
* Chevalier of Order of the White Eagle with Swords (1919)
* Order of the Crown (Rumania) (1924)
* Order of the White Lion of Czechoslovakia (1937)
* Officer of the Legion of Honor of France (1937; commander, 1947)
* Commander of the Order of the British Empire (1972)

He received honorary degrees from Brown (1942), Yale (1957), Basel (1960), Princeton (1961), Columbia (1963), and Harvard (1963) universities. He was elected a member of the [[American Philosophical Society]] in 1940.<ref>{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Hamilton+F.+Armstrong&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2023-05-04 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref>

==Publications==
===Books===
* ''The New Balkans'' (1926)
* ''Where the East Begins'' (1929)
* ''Hitler's Reich: The First Phase'' (1933)
* ''Europe Between Wars?'' (1934)
* ''Can We Be Neutral?'' (with [[Allen W. Dulles]]) (1936)
* [https://fau.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/fau%3A4617/datastream/OBJ/view/_We_or_they___two_worlds_in_conflict.pdf ''"We or They": Two Worlds in Conflict''] (1936)<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/20028777 "Some Recent Books on International Relations."] Review of ''"We or They": Two Worlds in Conflict'' by Hamilton Fish Armstrong. ''[[Foreign Affairs]]'', vol. 15, no. 2 (Jan. 1937), p. 386. Archived from [https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/1937-01-01/we-or-they-two-worlds-conflict the original.] {{JSTOR|20028777}}.
::"The author describes the abyss both in ideology and practice existing between the democratic governments and the dictatorships, alike of the right and of the left; discusses the current foreign policies of the leading Powers as a result of this division, which he considers irreconcilable; and states the conditions in which he believes the democracies can defend themselves successfully."</ref>
* [[iarchive:whenthereisnopla0000hami|''When There Is No Peace'']]. New York: [[Macmillan Publishers|Macmillan]] (1939)
* ''Can America Stay Neutral?'' (with [[Allen W. Dulles]]) (1939)
* [https://archive.org/download/dli.ernet.61641/61641-Crronology%20Of%20Failure.pdf ''Chronology of Failure: The Last Days of the French Republic''.] New York: [[Macmillan Publishers|Macmillan]] (1940)
* ''The Calculated Risk'' (1947)
* ''Tito and Goliath'' (1951)
* ''Those Days'' (1963)
* [[iarchive:peacecounterpeac00arms|''Peace and Counterpeace: From Wilson to Hitler: Memoirs of Hamilton Armstrong Fish''.]] New York: [[Harper & Row]] (1971)

===Contributions===
* [[iarchive:refugeesanarchyo00thom/page/n15|Introduction]] to [[iarchive:refugeesanarchyo00thom|''Refugees: Anarchy or Organization?'']] by [[Dorothy Thompson]]. New York: [[Random House]] (1938), [[iarchive:refugeesanarchyo00thom/page/n15|pp. ix-xi]].

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* [[Jeremi Suri|Suri, Jeremi]] (Spring 2002). [https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.25290/prinunivlibrchro.63.3.0438 "Hamilton Fish Armstrong, the 'American Establishment,' and Cosmopolitan Nationalism."] ''[[Princeton University Library Chronicle]]'', vol. 63, no. 3, pp. 438–65. {{doi|10.25290/prinunivlibrchro.63.3.0438}}. {{JSTOR|10.25290/prinunivlibrchro.63.3.0438}}.

==External links==
* [http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/4b29b5977 Hamilton Fish Armstrong Papers] at the [[Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library]], [[Princeton University]]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Armstrong, Hamilton Fish}}
[[Category:1893 births]]
[[Category:1973 deaths]]
[[Category:Princeton University alumni]]
[[Category:Fish family]]
[[Category:United States military attachés]]
[[Category:Expatriates in the Kingdom of Serbia]]
[[Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society]]