Second Blooming

The dead ashes of some exciting diplomatic history were stirred last week when President Roosevelt put back into the State Department a wealthy young Philadelphian named William Christian Bullitt. Fourteen years ago the name of Bullitt brought forth resounding Democratic curses. His career as a budding diplomat seemed forever blasted. He was denounced as a betrayer of official secrets, a traitor to Woodrow Wilson, because he dared to criticize that President's high-flown peace plans. He did what he thought was his public duty and for it paid a terrible price in personal abuse.

So far has the world spun since stormy 1919 and its passions of peace that last week found Mr. Bullitt, now bald, slender and 42, comfortably settled in Washington as a special assistant to Secretary of State Hull. He was there to put his wide foreign experiences, his intimate contacts with European statesmen at the Government's disposal for the pre-World Conference conversations at the White House (see p. 9). The Bullitt career seemed on the point of a second and brighter blooming.

Before the Philadelphia City Hall stands a statue of John Christian Bullitt who was Diplomat Bullitt's grandfather. His father made much money in the coal business. "Bill" Bullitt went to Yale where with a good mind and a ready tongue he quickly distinguished himself as a writer and debater. He made Phi Beta Kappa and was graduated in 1912. Back in Philadelphia, he joined the staff of the Public Ledger as a cub, rose to an editorial job, went to Sweden on Henry Ford's peace ship in 1915. Next year he married Ernesta Drinker, daughter of the president of Lehigh University. Their wedding trip was spent behind the French and Russian fronts as guests of German High Command. When the U. S. joined the War, the State Department quickly snapped up the services of "Bill" Bullitt as an expert on German and Austrian affairs and put him in charge of Central European information.

Because of his ability he was picked to accompany President Wilson and the U. S. Peace Commission to Paris as chief of the division of current intelligence. Col. House gave him President Wilson's original draft of the League of Nations covenant, inscribed: "In appreciation of your help in an hour of need."

In February 1919, Diplomat Bullitt, with Journalist Lincoln Steffens, was entrusted with a confidential mission to Russia to make peace overtures to the Soviet Government. Col. House, President Wilson and Prime Minister Lloyd George secretly sponsored this delicate Allied enterprise. Mr. Bullitt spent a week in Moscow and came to terms with Dictator Lenin. On his return to Paris his peace proposal, involving recognition of the Bolshevist regime, was suddenly tossed into the waste basket by Messrs. Wilson and Lloyd George. One explanation for its junking was that General Kolchak's White advance seemed about to upset the Red government of Russia.

Young Bullitt bitterly swallowed his pride until May when he impulsively resigned from the U. S. Peace Commission after President Wilson refused to give him an audience. An admirer of Lenin, he predicted that the Reds would oversweep all Europe. He denounced the Versailles Treaty as a breeder of war hates, flayed the Polish Corridor settlement, warned of an early end to Reparations. Said Bill Bullitt: "I am going to the Riviera, lie on the sand, kick my heels in the air and let the world go to hell."

But in September, 1919, he was back in Washington and before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee speaking his mind on the iniquities of European diplomacy. He shot big round holes in the Versailles Treaty and quoted private conversations in Paris to make them bigger. He released his report on Russia and became a U. S. headline character. Mr. Lloyd George referred to "a journey some boys were reported to have made to Russia" and flayed the Bullitt report as a "tissue of lies." The net result of Diplomat Bullitt's activities was to furnish Republican Senators additional ammunition with which to de feat ratification of the peace treaty. But for speaking his mind he became a diplomatic outcast, with every Wilsonian Democrat ascribing his behavior to personal spite and sore-headedness.

After a Paris divorce in 1923, Bullitt married Anne Moen Louise Bryant Reed, widow of Red John Reed of Greenwich Village who went to Russia and today lies buried in the Kremlin wall. They had one daughter. In 1930 they, too, were divorced. Mr. Bullitt continued to travel in Europe every year, keeping up his personal contacts in London, Paris, Berlin and Vienna. His mind and manner seemed to please foreign statesmen as he told them what the U. S. was thinking and doing. In 1926 he published a novel (It Can't Be Done). Among his unproduced plays is one about the political life of Woodrow Wilson. He has a home at Ashfield, Mass, where he golfs, rides, picks apples. During the War he had an office near that of Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Roosevelt, knew him well. He climbed on the Roosevelt bandwagon early last year, worked hard at Democratic campaign headquarters. Last January he again traveled abroad where some statesmen mistook him for an emissary of the President-elect. In the Senate the cry was raised that he was a Roosevelt "undercover man" peddling the idea of debt cancellation to Europe. Indiana's Robinson even demanded his arrest under the Logan Act of 1799. Such alarms were promptly spiked by Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Bullitt and the State Department. All that Ambassador Mellon could report was that "reliable eyewitnesses have seen Mr. Bullitt leaving No. 10 Downing Street."

Most of Mr. Bullitt's predictions about the world's "going to hell" have materialized. Today he seems a much better prophet than he did in 1919. The Versailles Treaty is in disrepute. Reparations have ceased. Germany is again a world power to be reckoned with. The Russian problem is no nearer solution than it was when he went to Moscow. But Special Assistant Bullitt is too smart to say openly, "I told you so."

Because the political temperature of Cuba is red-hot, President Roosevelt last week picked the coolest man available as Ambassador to that strife-torn republic. Slender & young, Sumner Welles of Maryland is a career diplomat who knows his Latin America. That Santo Domingo is today solvent and free of U. S. Marines is largely due to his able efforts there as President Harding's special commissioner. President Roosevelt first put Mr. Welles into the sub-Cabinet as Assistant Secretary of State, the post he now leaves for the Havana Embassy vacated by young Harry Frank Guggenheim.

Most Cuban factions were pleased by the Welles appointment. Because Cuba's political troubles are largely due to low sugar prices and because President Roosevelt has been pondering plans to help Cuba market her staple in addition to providing inflation (see p. 18), Ambassador Welles was expected to cool murder-hot politics by sweeter prices.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.