Foreign News: Ambassador’s Clothes

U.S. plenipotentiaries have had trouble with sartorial protocol since the days of Benjamin Franklin. When Minister Franklin appeared before the King of France in plain brown velvet knee breeches he was called uncouth. When Ambassador Charles Gates Dawes refused to expose his shanks to the Court of St. James’s in knee breeches he stirred comment. When Ambassador Joseph Patrick Kennedy showed up at the same court in a tail coat, someone said he looked like “one of the less important waiters.”

Ambassador John Gilbert Winant is almost as unpressed as Abraham Lincoln. Last week the Ambassador confessed his shortcomings:

“I really have no qualifications as an Ambassador. I remember when I came over here many years ago … we were asked to tea at Buckingham Palace and wanted to be very correct. I remember getting a tall hat—the first I had ever worn—and a tail coat. We presented ourselves. But everybody wore a straw hat and a short coat.

“A few days later we were asked to the races. I told a friend I would not make a fool of myself again. So I wore a short coat and a straw hat. Everyone else had a tall hat and a tail coat. I retired then from the diplomatic scene.”