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Show One Diplomat Knew Better: Scratch One Tyro Diplomat By BAUKIIAGE Newt Analyst and Commentator WASHINGTON. Back 'in the partially-deserted capital after one and before another political convention in these days when Washington's tiger heat drives those who are not too driven otherwise out to the mountains and beaches, I took a short ride with a friendly official who, like most of the press and radio, has to stick out a good share of the summer in the city. , We passed tome of the last few fine old residences and a number of embassies and legations. Shutters were drawn, orange-red paint was smeared in a pattern I never have been able to understand on ironwork of high picket-fences and window bars. Some windows were boarded up. "If it hadn't been for you," I remarked re-marked to my companion sitting betide be-tide me in what he alludes to as 'the taxpayer's limousine "I might not have been in Washington Wash-ington this summer. sum-mer. I might have been loafing loaf-ing at a mountain- lakeside or elsewhere ..." "How so?" he inquired. "Don't you recall," re-call," I asked, "that you were As I walked, I idly speculated on what course I would take if knee-breeches knee-breeches were insisted upon when I was presented at court Meanwhile, I observed the strolling young ladies who, though probably unable to support an ambassador, were nevertheless never-theless qutte as attractive as any of the better-qualified ones at the reception. re-ception. I had just about decided not to make an issue of the knee-breeches thing after all I had been on the stage for a short period in my career and a couple of pairs of long stockings stock-ings underneath Would do for my calves what nature hadn't when I found myself at the club. A tall, black-haired gentleman arose and gave me a dignified greeting. greet-ing. I had thought it best while I was considering my diplomatic career ca-reer to accept a temporary position with the Associated Press a position posi-tion I received after some rather tall talk on the part of David Lawrence Law-rence and a kindly letter from Superintendent Su-perintendent Roberts of the Paris bureau for whom I had worked. The gentleman who greeted me at the club was one of the staff which I was to join, assigned to the state department And he was the man I alluded to the friendly official in the early paragraphs of this column. Right there, or shall we say In the course of an hour or two, there developed the beginning of a beautiful friendship and the beginning be-ginning of the end of any illusions concerning a diplomatic career. I applied for membership in the club, never went to another "at home" in the fine old brick house on Eighteenth street From that time on it has been deadlines instead of receiving lines. Although I didn't realize it at the time I really wasn't properly equipped equip-ped forv a diplomatic career my spats were black. The diplomatic world has not been altogether neglected in the course of meeting deadlines, but when I entered that allegedly romantic demesne as I still do in the course of my job, it is by way of the back door, an entrance which, I have discovered, often provides a much more revealing view of the surroundings. sur-roundings. Perhaps it isn't polite to refer to the chancery entrance that way, but it is certainly not the front door. As it turned out not many weeks after I had given up my dreams of becoming a Machiavelli or a Mctter-rich, Mctter-rich, I found myself a caller at six or eight embassies a day I was put on the diplomatic run because a war had broken out and it was quite rs important for belligerents and nervous neutrals to provide news from their points of view as it was for us to collect it The butlers in mosf of the embassies em-bassies before World War I would as soon admit a reporter as they would a rug-pcddler or a scissors-grinder. scissors-grinder. It required considerable working over to bring them into line. And what a change today! The amount of time, money and energy expended by foreign nations in getting get-ting information to the American radio, press and public is one of the major items on their Washington budgets! Another Jawbone For Samson An old-fashioned dentist thinks the Russians have Hitler's jaw. The dentist, Dr. Plaschke, says he read in a German dentistry magazine that his former assistant, now m Russian custody, had Identified a jaw which the Russians were toying toy-ing with as Hitler's. Dr. Plaschke claims the assistant couldn't positively identify it, but he himself feels it must be Hitler's because the magazine ridicules the work as old-fashioned. Plaschke says he did an old-fashioned old-fashioned job on Hitler when be made a bridge of 12 teeth in 1934. Plaschke also claims to have studied dentistry at the Cniver- ' a newspaperman yourself once and, corollarily speaking, met a lot of interesting people?" I was one of them. That meeting killed what I thought then was to be a brilliant diplomatic career." The story begins right across the street from the office I now occupy on Eighteenth street in fine old brick house which I saw first in the year 1914. The carriage drive in front of it is blocked now by the curbing, probably because tha traf-lic traf-lic officials thought no automobile could safely make the turn which a "spanking pair" negotiated so easily three decades ago. A sign on the lamp-post In front of the house says "no parking at any time." A brass plate over one of tha windows, still barred with the gracefully-curving Ironwork of another century says: "Colum-' "Colum-' bus University." The plate It replaced re-placed used to say "Former Home of Secretary of State Lansing." In 1814 it was some two hours after leaving that red brick house that I began "putting off" (putting things off is a great art and one that has reached a high point of refinement in Washington. I always kave practiced it) If I hadn't put off then, I might have become a diplomat 'As it was, all I got was deadlines the rest of my life. It happened this way. I had just returned from an extended period in Europe where I had been going through the motions of acquiring an education. In the process I acquired the ambition to become a member ot the foreign service of the state department I planned to rise, by easy stages, on pure merit of course, to the position of ambassador to the Court of St James. Beyond that as a cabinet officer says following a change in administration, I had ao plans. I did have four out of five necessary nec-essary qualifications which 1 knew from experience on the Qua! d'Orsay and elsewhere assured a successful diplomatic career. The four which 1 possessed were a top-hat a tailcoat striped pants and a pair of spats. The fifth I was confident I could soon acquire easily since I had an excellent letter to the father-in-law of the secretary of state, who had been a secretary of state himself and an important pillar of Washington Wash-ington society. I was sure that under such auspices I could acquire that sine qua aon a wife rich enough to keep a diplomat in the style to which be is supposed to be accustomed. I recall that afternoon very well. I rang the bell to that door well, it was a different door of course-there course-there are four there aow with brass handles worn shiny by ambitious Columbians but at least the door which that afternoon was to be my portal to a brilliant career was right there in the same frame. K opened, I handed the silk hat and ebony stick to the servant and in a few moments I was being warmly greeted by a gentleman wearing what Sam Blythe once called the most diplomatic whiskers tn Washington, John Watson Foster. 1 saw that my striped pants and tailcoat which had just enough of a continental cut to make a proper lmprcion, as well as the bow-f bow-f rem-the-waist I had learned In Berlin, were doing their work and 1 made mental note of the less unattractive unattached females. So after tossing off a bon mot or two, I left feeling that my career was virtually launched. It was still fairly early, so I decided de-cided to drop in at the National Press club to which my old schoolmate, school-mate, David Lawrence, had given me a guest card. As the weather was fine, I decided I might as well walk and give Connecticut avenue a chance to admire my distinguished stripes and tails, although tailcoats and top-hats, per se, caused very little consternation in those days. sity or Philadelphia in 1908. Their methods have probably advanced since then, but Hitler was old-fashioned old-fashioned about some things. All we can do is hope the bridge pained him. And remember that that jawbone, if it's authentic, slew more men than the one from a similar source that Samson used when he went after the Philistines. One of the features of the Republican Re-publican convention was a mammoth mam-moth scapple breakfast The delegates dele-gates furnished the scrap. |