Harris Ayers Houghton

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Harris Ayers Houghton was a professional physician and military officer of the United State during and shortly after World War I. But his fame derives primarily in the role he played in bringing about the translation and publication in the English language of the infamous plagiarism, in the United States in 1920 known by the brief title as the Protocols of Zion.

On or about February 1, 1918, his personal assistant, Miss Natalie de Bogory, brought him an exceedingly rare book, a 1917 edition of Serge Nilus's book on the anti-Christ which incorporated into itself as an ending chapter the notorious plagiarism subsequently known briefly as the infamous Protocols of Zion. This rare edition had allegedly been brought to the United States by an unidentified Russian army officer who obtained it in Petrograd, Russia.

At the time of obtaining the text from Miss de Bogorty, Dr. Houghton was a military intelligence officer of the United States Department of War attached to the Eastern Department offices located on Governor's Island in the City of New York.

He was the son of a Methodist minister. In 1901 he graduated from the Syracuse University School of Medicine. He thereafter pursued advanced study in Berlin. In 1911 he received his commission as first lieutenant in the Medical Reserve Corps, achieving the position of Post Surgeon at Fort Totten, New York, and a few month later was appointed Post Intelligence Office at this installation. And in December of 1917 he was transferred and assigned to his position on Governor's Island.

Noted bibliographer of Judaica, Robert Singerman, describes Houghton as a "zealous counter-subversive, obsessed by the [alleged] Jewish threat to America's war effort ...". Singerman further informs us that this obsessiveness led Houghton to engage Miss de Bogory, his personal assistant, for 9 months, and he paid for her time and work out of his own personal funds. Essentially, he retained her, and another former Russian military officer, former General G. J. Sosnowsky, to translate the Protocols of Zion into English.