ANCA RELEASED A DOCUMENT REFERRING TO JOHN EVANS’S FIRING
DeFacto Agency, Armenia
May 10 2007
Internal State Department documents, released this week to the
Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), reveal that a senior
State Department official forced the return to the U.S. of former
Ambassador to Armenia, John Marshall Evans, prior to U.S. Senate’s
approval of his replacement, effectively ensuring that this key
foreign post would remain vacant.
The key document released by the Department was an August 8, 2006
"Sensitive-Eyes Only for Amb. Evans" memo from Assistant Secretary of
State Daniel Fried to Ambassador Evans. In the note, the Assistant
Secretary acknowledged Ambassador Evans’s willingness to remain in
Yerevan, until the Senate confirmed Richard Hoagland, the career
Foreign Service officer, who had been nominated by President Bush
to fill the Yerevan ambassadorial post after the Evans firing. Fried
stated he was aware of Evans’s willingness to remain in Yerevan in the
light of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee postponement of its
consideration of Richard Hoagland’s nomination. However, he requested
that Evans " depart post by the end of the first week in September."
The Department’s decision, as communicated in the August 8, 2006 Dan
Fried memo, was taken amid intense opposition by Armenian Americans
and growing scrutiny by members of the U.S. Senate over Hoagland’s
denial of the Armenian Genocide. The Fried memo was sent after the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s August 1st postponement of its
confirmation vote, and prior to the panel’s September 7th consideration
of the Hoagland nomination. Forcing Ambassador Evans’s physical return
to the U.S. prior to this vote afforded State Department lobbyists
the "talking point" that opposing the Hoagland nomination would mean
leaving an ambassadorial vacancy in Yerevan.
The Hoagland nomination, facing bipartisan opposition, was ultimately
blocked by Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Bob Menendez
(D-NJ). The New Jersey legislator placed a hold on his confirmation
by the Senate, arguing that a U.S. ambassador, who denies the Armenian
Genocide, cannot be an effective U.S. representative in Armenia.