19. General Graves was accused of being a communist sympathizer
Upon his return to the United States, after being compelled to conduct an operation that he felt was both morally and strategically wrong for the United States, General Graves found himself excoriated in the press and by the public as a communist sympathizer who had subverted the American effort in Siberia. The judgment did not stop among the strident anti-communists of the day. President Harding, who privately called the entire American intervention a mistake, publicly agreed that the failure of the American military force to actively seek out and destroy the Red Army units and partisans in Siberia was the cause of the intervention’s failure.
Graves found himself the target of American surveillance by Army intelligence and the FBI. Graves remained in the Army until he retired as a Major General in 1928. He then published a book presenting his views of the American Intervention in Siberia, America’s Siberian Adventure 1918-20. Other historians commented that of all the leaders involved among the Russians, Japanese, and British, and others, Graves was the only one who conducted himself in a manner honorable to his duty and his country during the entire intervention. The American intervention in Russia was soon forgotten to American history, largely because it was a complete failure. American history texts and classes ignore the intervention for the most part, though it did much to create the mutual suspicion between Russians and Americans which prevails after nearly one hundred years.
Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“Intervention and the War”. Richard Ullman. 1961
“Fighting the Bolsheviks”. Neil G. Carey. 1997
“Russian Sideshow: America’s Undeclared War, 1918 – 1920”. Robert L. Willet Jr. 2003
“Polar Bear Expedition History”. Article, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. Online
“The Archangel Expedition”. Article, Mount Holyoke Academy. Online
“Where ignorant armies clashed by night”. E. M. Halliday, American Heritage Magazine. December, 1958
“Allied Intervention in Russia”. Article, The National Archives. Online
“The Siberian Expedition 1918-1920”. Colonel Robert L. Smalser. Naval War College. Pdf, online
“The Siberian Intervention 1918-1919”. George Constantine Guins. 1969
The Unknown War with Russia: Wilson’s Siberian Intervention”. Robert James Maddox. 1977
“Wolfhounds and Polar Bears: The American Expeditionary Force in Siberia”. John M. House. 2016
“Yanks in Siberia”. Richard O’Connor, American Heritage Magazine. August, 1974
“America’s Siberian Adventure”. General William S. Graves. 1931
“When the Red Storm Broke”. William Harlan Hale, American Heritage Magazine. February, 1961