Diplomacy: Man on the Spot

Only Moscow is likely to present a greater challenge to an American ambassador during the coming years than Paris— where the man representing the U.S. will have to cope with the rapidly evolving community of European nations and the stubborn aspirations of Charles de Gaulle. Last week, as his choice to succeed retiring Ambassador James A. Gavin in Paris, President Kennedy chose a handsome, seasoned career diplomat who has already made his name as a Russian expert: Charles E. (“Chip”) Bohlen, 57, Ambassador to Moscow from 1953 to 1957.

During his 33-year career, Bohlen has shown a tough turn of mind, an eagerness to accept responsibility and a knack for survival. He mastered Russian in his 20s, served as Franklin Roosevelt’s interpreter during the President’s long, private talks with Stalin at Teheran and Yalta, and later performed the same duty for Harry Truman at Potsdam. In 1953, when President Eisenhower nominated him Ambassador to Moscow, Bohlen was attacked by Joe McCarthy, who charged that he had helped shape the controversial Yalta agreements. Although Bohlen insisted that he had acted only as an interpreter at the conference, he doggedly refused to repudiate the agreements. Said he: “I believe that the map of Europe would look very much the same if there had never been a Yalta conference at all.” When the long and loud fight was over, the Senate confirmed him by a vote of 74-13.

“Russia is not a mystery,” Bohlen has often said. “It’s a secret.” To discover the secret, Bohlen kept up a running dialogue with Russian leaders that alternated between breezy quips and heated debates. But a split gradually opened between Bohlen and John Foster Dulles; the Secretary of State paid little heed to his ambassador’s advice about the Russians. In 1957, against Bohlen’s wishes, President Dwight Eisenhower pulled him out of Moscow and made him Ambassador to the Philippines. There, though he started from scratch, Bohlen did a typically professional job, helped maintain U.S. -Philippine ties at a time when the island nation was trying to become less dependent on its old supporter and ally.

In 1959 Bohlen was brought back to Washington as a top adviser to Secretary of State Christian Herter, who had succeeded Dulles. Recently he has been counseling Secretary of State Dean Rusk on U.S.-Soviet affairs. To his new post he takes a knowledge of the language (his French is even better than his Russian; he has studied it since childhood) and a slight acquaintance with De Gaulle (they met during Bohlen’s 1949-51 stint as second man in the Paris embassy). This time his appointment is expected to clear the Senate with no fuss.