INTERNATIONAL: Missions in Moscow

The conference of U.S., British and Soviet Union foreign ministers was going on. “Substantial progress” was reported. The atmosphere was “cheerful.” The delegates were “satisfied.” The talks probably would continue “until next weekend [Oct. 30].” And that was the news from Moscow. The rest was chitchat and guesswork.

Arrival I. U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull beat Britain’s Anthony Eden to the Moscow airport by an hour, landing in a Douglas four-engined transport. The Russians, esteeming ceremony as a proud proletarian power should, outdid themselves in welcome. Fast fighter planes escorted Hull’s plane during the last hour of flight. Viacheslav Molotov, People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, was at the field to meet him. A Russian band played The Star-Spangled Banner and the Internationale. Cordell Hull stood at attention, hat in hand, a spare, white-haired figure in the sunlight of a rare October afternoon. Then the senior lieutenant of the Moscow garrison, sword in hand, presented his guard of honor, and Hull watched the smart slow-march of the troops, steel-helmeted, clad in their country’s dark khaki, carrying their long-barreled rifles with the short, businesslike bayonets.

Arrival II. An hour later, after the U.S. party had been whisked off to the U.S. Embassy, the airport and Molotov did it all over again for Eden. He clambered, hatless and jaunty, from a converted Liberator bomber. Correspondents on the scene were impressed by the British envoy’s well-weathered luggage and dispatch boxes, marked with such evocative labels as “Poland,” “Yugoslavia,” “Greece.”

Men in Step. Newsmen scrabbled for what they could get. The New York Times emerged with this oddment of conversation:

Molotov: “We diplomats must learn from the soldiers, who are so harmoniously keeping in step. We must also keep in step.”

Eden: “Yes, we must keep in step.”

News-hungry correspondents also reported an informal quote from Michael J. McDermott, Secretary Hull’s press-relations man. He cut off a correspondent’s reference to the raucous Moscow newspaper Pravda with a brisk: “We have not come here to talk to Pravda.”

Men at Work. Understandably weary after completing his first air journey (15,000 miles), Secretary Hull slept soundly in the Embassy, Spasso House. On his first Moscow morning, he polished off his favorite breakfast food: oatmeal, made with rolled oats hastily scouted out by officials of an American supply mission. That night the delegates held a preliminary session to discuss procedure. Host Molotov suggested a rotating chairmanship for the talks; Eden and Hull politely insisted that the Soviet minister do all the presiding. The ministers agreed to meet once daily. In deference to Secretary Hull’s 72 years the Russians abandoned their cherished custom of starting diplomatic conferences around midnight and working through the quiet hours, agreed instead to begin the sessions at 4 p.m.

By the second day the routine was established. Mornings, the three principals conferred with their respective staffs. After lunch (often a ceremonial affair, with official Russian hosts) they completed their plans for the afternoon session, then drove to the handsome, Gothic, somewhat overpowering Spiridonovka House, where all the talks are being held.* The three ministers conferred through interpreters, called in the various experts of the staffs as they needed them. To the first full-length session Hull and Eden took their military advisers, respectively Major General John R. Deane and Lieut. General Sir Hastings Ismay, thereby leading correspondents to the solemn, if obvious, conclusion that matters of military consequence stood high on the agenda. After some delay the Russians disclosed that Molotov was being advised by no lesser personages than Marshal Klimenti Voroshilov and onetime Foreign Minister and Ambassador to the U.S. Maxim Litvinoff.

Twenty Toasts. Molotov himself set the social ball rolling with a lavish luncheon which moved on, course by relentless course, until 20 toasts had been offered and the clock stood at 3:30 p.m. By week’s end Cordell Hull stood thoroughly in awe of Russian hospitality, reportedly groaned to a colleague: “I wish to preserve my strength for this highly important work we have come here to do with our Russian and British friends.”

On the fourth night Premier Joseph Stalin, dressed in the uniform of a Red Army Marshal, received Eden and British Ambassador Sir Archibald Clark Kerr. There was a mild flurry back in the U.S.: could it be a snub? But Mountaineer Hull, ever sensitive about his honor and dignity, was unruffled; he knew of the meeting in advance, four nights later had his own audience with Stalin.

* Originally built by a textile millionaire, Spiridonovka House was taken over during the 1917 Revolution, later housed a U.S. relief mission for a time. Moscow legend insists that after the incurious Americans moved out, a Soviet bureau moved in, searched the cellar, found $5,000,000 in hidden treasure, mostly diamonds.