THE CONFERENCE: Cast of Characters

Sawing away at each other’s proposals, nailing up their compromises, the San Francisco conferees worked hard & long. Among them were heroes and shysters, gentlemen and revolutionaries, statesmen and clowns. For good or ill, the world would remember what they did. It would even remember who some of them were.

The Americans. Secretary of State Stettinius was the conference’s energetic general manager. His delegation was surprisingly harmonious, although Senators Vandenberg and Connolly never let anyone forget that the U.S. Senate would have the last word. Tom Connally took a back seat. Arthur Vandenberg worked hard and influentially ; even State Department career men who do not like him admitted that he was “ceasing to be unhelpful.”

Harold Stassen was the most effective public figure, the most “world-minded” of the U.S. delegates. He received the most mail (about 1,500 letters a day). Mindful of his Presidential chances, the Republican Party helped him answer it. Ailing Representative Charles Aubrey Eaton contributed the strongest anti-Russian feeling, and Dean Virginia Gildersleeve brought the best of intentions. Neither of these commodities was scarce at San Francisco. Representative Sol Bloom was also present.

The delegation’s principal advisers were John Foster Dulles and Hamilton Fish Armstrong. Dulles, who would have been Secretary of State if Tom Dewey had been elected President, worked well and loyally for Stettinius. Armstrong’s vast knowledge of foreign affairs was immensely useful to the delegation’s amateurs. The State Department’s Leo Pasvolsky, with the eyes of a tired owl, knew more about the Dumbarton Oaks plan than any one else. Archibald MacLeish shepherded a restless horde of consultants, and Nelson Rockefeller Avas able scoutmaster for the Latin Americans. Rockefeller gave the Europeans an unpleasant impression of a party whip swinging his votes.

The Latins. Scholarly, sincere Foreign Minister Jose Serrato of Uruguay delivered one of the finest speeches of the conference. Mexico’s bright, aggressive Ezequiel Paditta worked well with Rockefeller, as did Cuba’s Guillermo Belt Ramirez, whose ancestors came from Beltsville, Md.

Last to arrive, the unwelcome Argentines were apparently under strict orders to lie low, do nothing to increase the unpopularity of the U.S. -Latin bloc. Argentina’s Rodolfo Garcia Arias moved quietly, his shoulders heavy with dignity and dandruff.

The British. During his 18 days at the conference, Anthony Eden impressed many as the ablest delegation head in San Francisco. Before he left, Eden went through a two-minute pantomime for photographers, and ended his smiling silence with: “That’s the best speech I’ll ever make.” In Eden’s absence his Ambassador to the U.S., Lord Halifax, took charge of the skillful, constructive British delegation. A gentleman to the marrow, Halifax reaches his seat at the Opera House by spotting an empty row and swinging his long legs over seat backs rather than disturb others in his row. During the trusteeships controversy he told a story: “I don’t like all this dividing of dependent areas into separate classes. Why do we need to be so specific? It reminds me that when the wife of my predecessor as Viceroy of India visited Turkey the Turkish Government was kind enough to give her a decoration. It was the Order of Chastity, Second Class.” Backstopping Halifax was Britain’s Dominions Secretary, Viscount Cranborne, “the man who reads Eden’s mind.”

The Dominions. Mackenzie King had gone back to Canada, leaving his bright, quiet young foreign office men to steer an able delegation. South Africa’s Jan Christian Smuts worried about the exodus of foreign ministers, hoped the conference would by-pass issues raised by men with “a passion for reforming the world in general.” Peter Fraser of New Zealand, a Socialist in the tough, idealistic Clydeside tradition, fought with bull stubbornness for genuine collective security. Boisterous Herbert Vere Evatt of Australia fought the same fight less ably, was tagged as the “wild man” of the conference.

The Continentals. Cello-voiced Georges Bidaidt, who looks more like a haberdasher than a resistance leader, had left the conference. The French delegation, like their homeland, was dejected and divided. They had failed to heal the breach with the British, who felt that Bidault did not stand up like a man to Molotov. Czechoslovakia’s Jan Masaryk was the bridge between the baffling Russians, with whom he worked closely, and the diplomats of the West. Belgium’s Paul Henri Spaak, who looks like a charmed piglet in a fairy tale, was one of the most effective conciliators until he returned to Belgium.

The Russians. Viacheslav Molotov’s memory lingered.

To newspapermen the Colonial Room at the St. Francis, with its mural of white-wigged ladies & gentlemen in a Virginia garden, was still “the Molotov room.” The Foreign Commissar had held three impressive conferences there. Furtive-eyed Ambassador Andrei Gromyko, technically in charge, actually deferred to Dmitry Z. Manuilsky, head of the newly “sovereign” Ukraine’s delegation and member of the potent Politburo. Another important Russian was Vassili Kuznetzov, head of the new World Labor Congress being formed in Oakland, across the bay. Kuznetzov spent much of his time with U.S. laborites, swapping stories about the Ford and Jones & Laughlin plants, where he used to work.

The Chinese. Proud of being among the Big Four, Chungking’s delegation did not make the mistake of trying to throw around more weight than their unhappy land possesses. When he departed. Acting Premier T. V. Soong left the delegation in the hands of wise old Wellington

Koo. The tame Chinese Communist Tung Pi-wu made neither sense nor trouble.

The Secretary. In a class by himself was young, handsome Alger Hiss, a U.S. State Department career man functioning as international secretary general. Relaxed and alert amid innumerable annoyances, Hiss was master of the incredibly complicated conference machinery. The wheels turned. A charter of world organization was taking shape.