Alexander Comstock Kirk (November 26, 1888 – March 23, 1979) was an American lawyer and diplomat.
Early years
Alexander Comstock Kirk was born in Chicago, Illinois, on November 26, 1888, the son of James Alexander Kirk (1840–1907)Chicago Historical Society, Charter, Constitution, By-laws, Membership List, Annual Report (1903), 286, available online. Retrieved January 25, 2011. James Alexander Kirk was a Chicago Alderman in 1876-7 and influential in the creation of the city's paid Fire Department following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. and Clara Comstock (1851–1936). His family lived in Hartland, Wisconsin. Their wealth derived from one of America's largest soap manufacturing concerns, which was founded by Kirk's grandfather in Utica, New York, in 1839, relocated to Chicago in 1860, and capitalized as James S. Kirk & Co. in 1900. James Alexander Kirk was a director of the company.Chicago Securities (Chicago Directory Company, 1903), 234–5, available online. Retrieved January 25, 2011 Its two national brands were "American Family" for laundry and "Juvenile" for the bath.
Kirk was "fat" and "unhappy" in childhood and enjoyed drawing. At age 9, he attended the Art Institute of Chicago until his family decided he was too young to be drawing nude models. He was then sent to work incognito in a soap factory until his identity was discovered. He was then tutored at home for half the year by Hughell Fosbroke, future head of the General Theological Seminary of New York, spending the other half traveling in Europe with his mother and sister.
Kirk attended the University of Chicago for one year and then Yale University, where he excelled in physics and graduated in 1909.Yale University: Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates of Yale University in New Haven, 1701–1910 (New Haven: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, 1910), 236. Retrieved January 23, 2011 He appeared with the Yale University Dramatic Association in 1908 and 1909.Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The Critic or A Tragedy Rehearsed (New Haven, CT: Yale University Dramatic Association, 1908), xix–xx; The New York Times: "Yale Men Score in Old Comedies", January 5, 1909. Retrieved January 23, 2011 Kirk's father died of a heart attack in 1907.
He next spent two years at the School of Political Sciences in Paris. In order to fulfill his mother's promise to his late father, he earned his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1914.Harvard University: Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates, 1636–1915 (Harvard University Press, 1915), 785. Retrieved January 23, 2011 He was admitted to the Illinois bar. He joined the board of the family business at a salary of $10,000 a year.
Kirk had two sisters, Gertrude 24 years his senior and Margaret his near contemporary. His sister Margaret married Albert Billings Ruddock in New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine in March 1912. The couple left for Berlin following the ceremony. Ruddock was third secretary of the American Embassy in Berlin in 1913, when Mrs. Kirk visited the couple there.The New York Times: "City Social Notes", March 17, 1912. Retrieved January 25, 2011; The New York Times: "American Tourists Still Crowd Berlin", July 27, 1913. Retrieved January 25, 2011, where the relationship is mistaken called daughter-in-law rather than daughter; The New York Times: "Germany Holds American Crowds", August 3, 1913. Retrieved January 25, 2011. On Ruddock see also Frederic William Wile, The Assault: Germany before the Outbreak and England in War-time; A Personal Narrative (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1916), 107, available online. Retrieved January 25, 2011 In 1954 Ruddock became chairman of the board of trustees of California Institute of Technology, where an undergraduate residence hall was named for him in 1960.The California Tech: "Tech trustees pick Ruddock", November 4, 1954. Retrieved January 28, 2011. Ruddock;s State Department service lasted until 1923. He joined the board of trustees in 1938.
Diplomatic career Kirk joined the American Diplomatic Service on March 6, 1915.Foreign Service List, 1939, 65. The Diplomatic Service later became the Foreign Service. In 1916, he was transferred from his post as secretary of the embassy in Berlin to a position in Constantinople.The New York Times: Berlin Post for Harriman", March 2, 1916. Retrieved January 24, 2011 Kirk served as private secretary to the Secretary of State during World War I and accompanied him in that position to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. He then lived in "a commodious old house in Georgetown with his mother to act as hostess on the occasion of his entertainments", until posted to Peking as secretary of the embassy.The New York Times: "Social Notes", April 1, 1920. Retrieved January 24, 2011
He managed the State Department budget for a time in the 1920s, and later said he thought it "an obligation" to spend the entire amount in order to support the argument for additional appropriations. Kirk was counselor of the U.S. Embassy in Rome in 1932. His mother was presented to Queen Elena of Italy on March 9, 1932.The New York Times: "Queen Sees Ten Americans", March 10, 1932. Retrieved January 25, 2011 She lived in Rome during his service there, and Kirk entertained important guests at her home, the Villa Spada on the Janiculum.Henry Rushton Fairclough, Warming Both Hands: The Autobiography of Henry Rushton Fairclough (Stanford University Press, 1941), 506. Kirk was First Secretary at the time of Fairclough's visit. Even in 1930, long before rising to ambassadorial rank, he entertained lavishly. He hosted an opera party for Mrs. William Randolph Hearst on her 1930 tour of Europe.Time: Italy: Publisher's Wife Abroad", March 17, 1930. Retrieved January 23, 2011
Kirk was assigned to Moscow as embassy counselor and consul general effective March 18, 1938,The New York Times: Alexander Kirk Named Counselor at Moscow", March 29, 1938. Retrieved January 23, 2011; Foreign Service List, 1939, 28 where he was the senior official in the nine-month interim between the service of Ambassadors Davies and Steinhardt.George W. Baer, A Question of Trust, The Origins of U.S.-Soviet Diplomatic Relations: The Memoirs of Loy. W, Henderson (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1986), 313. "In my opinion", wrote Loy W. Henderson, "the embassy never functioned better than it did during the nine months that he was in charge of it."
He served as chargé d'affaires in Berlin beginning in May 1939 and became the senior officer when the American ambassador, Hugh R. Wilson, was recalled to protest the anti-Jewish attacks of . The appointment was effective April 13, 1939, Foreign Service List, 1940, 75; Baer, 313 Though his status was too low to allow access to important officials in the German government, he communicated with them by staging conversations close to a device the Germans used to eavesdrop on his conversations. Time called him "adroit" in his "uncomfortable post".Time: "Foreign Relations: Leg-Men", July 1, 1940. Retrieved January 23, 2011 The recall of Wilson as a way of protesting greatly offended the Nazi regime, and senior German officials generally snubbed Kirk to show their disapproval.Asher, Abraham Was Hitler A Riddle?, p.194 The American historian Abraham Asher described Kirk's dispatches from Berlin as generally accurate, though his lack of high-level contacts limited his sources of information.
In August 1939, the journalist Louis P. Lochner showed Kirk the text of the Obersalzberg speech, asking him to transmit back to Washington, but Kirk was not interested, leading Louchner to turn next to the British diplomat George Ogilvie-Forbes who did indeed transmit it to London.von Klemperer, Klemens The German Resistance Against Hitler: The Search for Allies Abroad, 1938-1945, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993 p.133. During the Danzig crisis, Kirk found playing himself a bit role. On August 24, 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent telegrams to both Adolf Hitler and President Ignacy Mościcki appealing to them to find a compromise to end the crisis. Hitler chose not to reply, but Mościcki wrote back that his nation was not the one "formulating demands and demanding concessions", but stated he willing to open negotiations with the on the status of the Free City of Danzig (modern Gdańsk, Poland). As Hitler continued to refuse to answer Roosevelt's telegrams, Kirk was sent to see der Fűhrer in the Reich Chancellery with a copy of Mościcki's reply. As Hitler refused to see him, he instead met on the evening of August 26 with the state secretary of the , Baron Ernst von Weizsäcker. Kirk argued to Weizsäcker that since for the first time, the Poles were willing to open talks on changing the status of Danzig, which might allow Danzig to "go home to the ", that this represented a potential breakthrough on finding a peaceful solution to the crisis. Weizsäcker replied he would pass on Kirk's note for "the consideration of the Foreign Minister", and was otherwise evasive about what his government was planning to do in response.
He developed contacts with Germans who opposed the Nazi regime and became convinced, in spite of Germany's early victories, that the war would end badly for Germany. Discussing with noted dissident Helmuth James von Moltke the need for Germany to suffer complete defeat with no one to blame but its Nazi leaders, he said: "Do you want to know my solution? It's a flood without an ark."Helmuth James von Moltke, Letters to Freya (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), 14–5, 70, 82, 111, 115n. Moltke was a civilian legal aide to the German general staff. During the war, in 1943, Moltke twice tried without success to contact Kirk, whom he trusted as an intermediary between the German opposition and the Allies.Motlke, 317n, 372n
Kirk served briefly as embassy counselor in Rome before becoming minister to Egypt in 1941,The New York Times: "Nelson and Landis Reach Cairo by Air", October 6, 1943. Retrieved January 23, 2011; Foreign Service List, 1942, 10 when Time magazine described him as "smooth, spare".Time: "Foreign Relations: Winant to London", February 17, 1941. Retrieved January 23, 2011 From March 29, 1941, to March 29, 1944, Kirk served as Ambassador to Egypt, first as head of the U.S. Legation and then of the embassy. King Farouk of Egypt had a strong dislike of homosexuals, and Kirk's relations with the king were distant.Stadiem, William Too Rich, p.216 By contrast, Kirk was close to Farouk's archenemy, the British ambassador, Sir Miles Lampson, which made for further difficulties as Kirk tended to back Lampson in his dealings with the king. Kirk took the view that it was crucial that the British 8th Army stop the advance of the German , and given Farouk's pro-Axis sympathies, Lampson's high-handed treatment of the king was necessary.