Siren Years : A Canadian Diplomat Abroad 1937-1945 (9781551996783)

by Ritchie, Charles

  The French are among the disappointments of this Conference. The Big Power representatives, however undistinguished individually, do represent Power and so carry weight. The French are in the position of having to depend on their tradition, their professionalism and that assurance of tough and violent precision of language which have always been at their command in international gatherings. But it is just this assurance that they lack. The French delegation here reinforce the painful impression that I formed in Paris – they seem to be détraqués. You do not feel that they have France, La grande nation, behind them. They are full of petits soins and handshakes to other delegates. They are full of schemes and combinations and suspicions. But there is no steadiness or clarity in their policy. They have no one who is a connecting link with the past and who still retains faith and vitality. The national continuity has been broken. They seem just a collection of clever, amiable, young Frenchmen – and old Paul-Boncour is too old and too tired – so is André Siegfried. In fact, you can see the effects of fatigue in the drained faces of almost all the European delegates. Europe (I do not count Russia) is not making much of a showing at this Conference.

  In our own delegation Norman Robertson and Hume Wrong are the two most influential senior officials. There could hardly be a greater contrast than that between them. Hume (under whom I worked when he was Counsellor at our Legation in Washington), pale and fine featured, stroking the back of his head with a rapid gesture which suggests mounting impatience. He inspires alarm on first encounter – an alarm which could be justified as he is totally intolerant of muddle, inanity, or sheer brute stupidity. He has style in everything from the way he wears his coat to the prose of his memoranda. He is a realist who understands political forces better, unfortunately, than he does politicians themselves.

  Norman understands them very well and has influence with the Prime Minister, but what does not Norman understand? His mind is as capacious as his great sloping frame. He has displacement, as they say of ocean liners, displacement physical and intellectual and he is wonderful company with his ironic asides, his shafts of wisdom, and his sighs of resignation.

  5 June 1945.

  We are still tormented by the feeling in our dealings with the Russians there may be an element of genuine misunderstanding on their side and that some of their suspicions of some of our motives may not be so very wide of the mark. They on their side seem untroubled by any such scruples. They keep us permanently on the defensive and we wallow about clumsily like some marine monster being plagued by a faster enemy (a whale with several harpoons already in its side). Yet they do not want or mean war.

  The struggle for power plays itself out in the Conference committees. Every question before the committees becomes a test of strength between the Russians and their satellites and the rest of the world. The other Great Powers vote glumly with the Russians and send junior members of their delegations to convey to us their discomfiture and apologies. This situation reproduces itself over matters which in themselves do not seem to have much political content. But to the Russians everything is political, whether it is something to do with the secretariat of the new organization or the changing of a comma in the Declaration of the General Principles.

  Committee 1 of the Commission, on which I sit as adviser, deals with the preamble to the Charter of the United Nations (composed of pious aspirations) and the chapters concerned with the Purposes and Principles of the Organization. It is presided over by a Ukrainian chairman, Manuilsky, said to be the brains of the Communist Party in the Ukraine. My first impression of him was of a humorous and polite old gentleman – an ancien régime landowner perhaps. He speaks good French. But I was wrong in everything except the humour – he is quite ruthlessly rude, exceedingly intelligent, and moves so fast in committee tactics that he leaves a room full of experienced parliamentarians breathless. It cannot be said that he breaks the rules of procedure – rather he interprets them with great cleverness to suit his ends. And his principal end is to hurry these chapters through the committee without further debate.

  6 June 1945.

  We had nearly seven hours on end in our Committee on Purposes and Principles. The Chairman, Manuilsky, gave us a touch of the knout when the Latin Americans were just spreading their wings for flights of oratory. He rapped on the table with his chairman’s gavel and said, “Gentlemen, we must speed up the work of the Committee. I propose that no one shall leave this hall until the preamble and the first chapter of the Charter are voted.” The delegates gazed ruefully at their blotters – this meant cutting all dinner dates. Yet no one dared to falter in the “sacred task.” Paul Gore-Booth, the British delegate, sprang to his feet and said in tones of emotion, “Mr. Chairman I cannot promise that I shall be physically able to remain so long in this hall without leaving it.” Manuilsky looked at him sternly, “I say to the British representative that there are in this hall men older than you are, and if they can stay here you must also.” So we settled down to hour after hour of debate.

  We were after all discussing the principles of the New World Order. The room was full of professional orators who were ravening to speak and speak again. Latin American Foreign Ministers hoped to slide in an oblique reference to some of their local vendettas disguised in terms of the Rights of Nations. The Egyptian representative was hoping to see his way clear to take a crack at the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty under some phrase about the necessity for “flexibility in the interpretation of international obligations.” The Syrian delegate saw an opportunity to embarrass the French. The representatives of the Colonial Powers were junior delegates (their chiefs were dining) who were frightened that any reference to “justice” or “human rights” might conceal a veiled attack on the colonial system. All afternoon and all evening until twelve o’clock at night we argued about the principles that must guide the conduct of men and nations. By eleven o’clock there were many haggard faces around the table. The room had got very hot and smelly – dozens of stout politicians sweating profusely in a confined space – outside the streetcars (and San Francisco is a great place for streetcars) rattled noisily and still the speeches went on. The Egyptian delegate was indefatigable in interpolations. He seemed to bounce to his feet on india-rubber buttocks, “A point of order, Mr. Chairman” and he would fix his monocle and survey his helpless victims. The Peruvian was another inexhaustible plague; he was a professional lecturer who kept remarking, “The Peruvian delegation regard this aspect of the question as very grave indeed, in fact fundamental.” Then he would remove his reading spectacles, put on his talking spectacles, brush the forelock back from his forehead, and get into his stride. But it was the Norwegian who moved me to homicide by making lengthy interventions in an obstinate, bleating voice. However, thanks to the knout, thanks to the ruthless, surgical operations of the Chairman, we finished our task in time. The committee was littered with punctured egos, and snubbed statesmen glowered at each other across the tables. The eminent political figures and distinguished jurists of half the world had been rated by the Chairman like schoolboys; but we had finished on time.

  12 June 1945.

  Lunch in the country with rich, friendly easy-going Californians – a cool, roomy house – none of the stiff, interior-decorated look of so many expensive houses in the East. Californians do not seem to treat their houses very seriously. They are places to sleep and refuges from the heat of the sun. These people seem to swim through life, carried along effortlessly by their good nature and good health. One can hardly believe that they have ever been scared or snubbed or “put in their place” or that anyone has ever exposed them to irony. There were three children bathing in the pool – perfect little physical specimens with nice, rich, easy-going, good-looking, sensible parents – what a way to grow up!

  15 June 1945.

  Last week I saw an advertisement in one of the San Francisco newspapers which described the attractions of “a historic old ranch home now transformed into a luxury hotel situated in a beautiful valley in easy reach
of San Francisco.” What a delightful escape, I thought, from the pressures of the Conference! Why not spend the weekend there? I succeeded in talking my colleagues, Norman and Hume and Jean Désy, the Canadian Adviser on Latin American Affairs, into this project, and our party was joined by a friend of Jean Désy, a French Ambassador, a senior and distinguished diplomat attached to the French Delegation. Last Saturday we all set forth by car in a holiday spirit to savour the delights of old-style ranch life in California as advertised to include “gourmet meals, horseback riding, and music in an exclusive atmosphere.” It seemed an eminently suitable setting for this little group of overworked and fastidious conferenciers. As we approached in the late afternoon up the long avenue, we saw the ranch house set amidst a bower of trees, but when we debouched at the entrance instead of the subdued welcome of a luxury hotel we were brusquely but cheerily propelled by a stout and thug-like individual towards a swaying tollgate which opened to admit us one by one on payment in advance for the period of our stay. Once in the entrance hall we found ourselves in the midst of an animated crowd, but what was unexpected was that all the men were sailors, and young sailors at that, while the women were equally young and some strikingly luscious. This throng, exchanging jokes, playful slaps on bottoms, and swigs out of beer cans, filtered off from time to time in pairs to mount the noble staircase leading to the rooms above. Our diplomatic quintet stood together waiting for guidance among the jostling throng and were soon the objects of remarks. “Who the hell are those old guys?” Finally, seeing that no one was coming to our rescue we set off up the stairs, luggage in hand, to inspect our rooms. Mounting floor by floor we found all the bedrooms in a state of active and noisy occupation, until we reached the top floor where we encountered a large female of the squaw variety. As she appeared to be in charge of operations, we enquired for our rooms to find that only three rooms were available for the five of us.

  It was decided among us that the French Ambassador should have a room to himself, while Jean Désy and Hume shared one and Norman and I the other. In our room we found an exhausted maid slapping at some dirty-looking pillows as she replaced them in position. “This is the fifth time I have made up this bed today,” she observed. “Are you two men sharing this room?” With a look beyond surprise she withdrew. Norman seemingly not in the least disconcerted sank with a sigh into the only available chair and addressed himself to the evening paper. The other members of our party were less philosophical. Hume and Jean appearing in the doorway rounded sharply on me. “Why had I lured them into this brothel? Was this my idea of a joke?” I suggested that we should all be better for food and drink and we descended to the dining-room, a vast, panelled interior already packed with couples dancing to a blaring radio. After a lengthy wait we were squeezed into a corner table where we were attended by a motherly-looking waitress. “Who are all these girls?” I asked her. “And why all these sailors?” “Well, I guess you might call it a kind of meeting place for the boys off the ships and the girls who work near here in an aircraft factory.” Meanwhile the French Ambassador was beginning to show signs of controlled irritation as he studied the menu that had been handed to him. Adjusting his spectacles he read out, “Tomato soup, hamburger delights, cheeseburgers, Hawaiian-style ham with pineapple.”“For me,” he announced, “I shall have a plain omelette.” At this Jean Désy, in an attempt to lighten the gloom which was settling over our little party, clapped his hands together and in an almost boisterous tone called out to the waitress, “The wine list at once – we shall have champagne.” “Wine list,” she said, “I do not know about any list but we have some lovely pink wine – it is sparkling, too.” “Bring it,” said Jean, “and lots of it.” It was not bad – both sweet and tinny, but it helped. For a few moments our spirits improved and we began to laugh at our predicament. Then came the omelette. The Ambassador just touched it with the prong of his fork and leaned back in his chair with an air of incredulity. “This an omelette!” He raised his shoulders with a shrug to end all shrugs.

  At this Jean Désy, perhaps stimulated by the wine or pricked by embarrassment at having exposed his French colleague to such an experience, seized the plate with the omelette upon it and said, “I shall complain to the chef myself about this outrage.” With this he hurled himself into the mob of dancers and made for a swinging door leading to the kitchen. Some uneasy moments passed at our table, then the swinging door swung open. Jean, still holding the plate with the omelette upon it, was backing away before an enormous Negro who was bellowing above the music, “Get out of my kitchen. Who the hell do you think you are? Bugger off! Bugger off! Bugger off!” Jean returned to our table. “I shall report him,” he said – but it was difficult to know to whom. Soon afterwards we repaired to our rooms. As I left the dining-room I heard a girl say to her sailor companion, “Those are a bunch of old fairies sleeping together – the maid told me.” The sailor spat, not actually at us, but on the floor, quite audibly.

  The night was an uneasy one for me. I was kept restlessly awake by the beery hoots of laughter and the moans and murmurs of passion from the next room. Norman settled into his bed and slept peaceably with his deaf ear uppermost.

  When I looked out of the window in the early morning the sun was shining, and a troop of sailors and their girls mounted on miscellaneous horses were riding by towards the adjoining fields, thus proving that horseback riding was as advertised one of the facilities of the ranch. Two small figures, Jean Désy and the French Ambassador, the latter sealed into a tight-looking overcoat, were proceeding side by side down the avenue. I later learned that they were on their way to Mass at a neighbouring church.

  By mutual agreement for which no words were needed our party left the ranch before luncheon and returned to San Francisco.

  On the way back in the car the French Ambassador raised the possibility that one of the assiduous gossip writers of the San Francisco press might learn where we had spent the weekend and he asked what effect this would be likely to have on the prestige of our respective delegations and indeed on our own reputations. My own colleagues reassured him by saying that in the event of publicity the episode could be attributed to my misleading them owing to my innate folly and vicious proclivities. This seemed to satisfy him.

  18 June 1945.

  The Conference is on its last lap. The delegates – many of them – are quite punch-drunk with fatigue. Meetings start every day at 9 a.m. and go on until midnight. In addition, we are having a heat wave. The committee rooms are uncomfortably hot and the commission meetings in the Opera House are an inferno. The heat generated by the enormous klieg lights adds to this and the glare drives your eyes back into your head.

  We are in a feverish scramble to get through the work – an unhealthy atmosphere in which we are liable to push things through for the sake of getting them finished. The Russians are taking advantage of this state of affairs to reopen all sorts of questions in the hope that out of mere weakness we shall give in to them. Their tone and manner seem daily to become more openly truculent and antagonistic.

  Once the labours of the committees are finished, the Articles they have drafted and the reports they have approved are put before the Co-ordinating Committee, who plunge into an orgy of revision. There is no pleasanter sport for a group of highly intelligent and critical men than to have delivered into their hands a collection of botched-up, badly-drafted documents and be asked to pull them to pieces and to point out the faults of substance and form. This could go on forever.

  However hot, tired and bad-tempered the other delegates may become, Halifax remains cool and Olympian and makes benevolent, cloudy speeches which soothe but do not satisfy. Senator Connally of the U.S. delegation roars at his opponent, waving his arms and sweating. It is somehow reassuring to come out from the committee meetings into the streets and see the people in whose name we are arguing so fiercely and who do not give a damn how the Charter reads. Sailors hand in hand with their girls – (this is a great town for walking hand in hand)
on their way to a movie or a dance hall.

  If the people were let into the committee meetings they would have broken up this Conference long ago.

  Alice was sitting across the table from me today at the committee meeting, in glowing looks from her weekend in the country and wearing an exceptionally low-cut flowered dress. I was not the only one to be distracted from the dissertation of our pedantic El Salvadorean rapporteur.

  Every day going to and from the Conference we pass a Picasso picture in an art shop window – two elongated and distorted forms are in silent communion. They gaze at each other in trance-like stillness. I find that by looking for a few minutes at this picture I can get into a sort of dope dream.

  19 June 1945.

  The Soviet delegates have got very little good-will out of this Conference. They use aggressive tactics about every question large or small. They remind people of Nazi diplomatic methods and create, sometimes needlessly, suspicions and resentment. They enjoy equally making fools of their opponents and their supporters. Slyness, bullying, and bad manners are the other features of their Conference behaviour.

  Their system has some unfortunate results from their point of view. They have no elbow-room in committee tactics – they cannot vary their method to allow for a change in mood and tempo of the Conference. They are paralyzed by the unexpected. They always have to stall and cable home for instructions. It is unfortunate from our point of view as well as theirs that they should have made such a bad showing, for I think they are proposing to make a serious effort to use the organization and are not out to wreck it.