Hidden in a pile of documents given to the Turkish writer Murat Bardakçi by the widow of Talat Pasha, one of the architects of the Armenian genocide in 1915, is a piece of paper whose stark human accounting should lay to rest the debate over the destruction of the Ottoman Armenian community.

Armenian historians and activists, and a few brave Turkish academics such as Taner Akçam, author of A Shameful Act, have already set out a convincing case that a premeditated genocide took place. Turkish officials argue that the deaths were regrettable, but were the inevitable result of war and