"Pretty Fat Turkey"

With a cigaret holder between his smiling lips, President Roosevelt last week welcomed nearly 200 correspondents who pack-jammed his White House office to hear him announce after 16 long years U. S. recognition of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

In an easy, conversational tone the President said that he had gratifying news from the iron, steel and textile industries about the workings of the NRA. This produced blank stares only until the quicker-witted correspondents started to laugh at the President's little joke. Seriously he then announced the exchange at 11:50 p. m. the night before of five sets of diplomatic notes at the White House between himself and chubby, thick-tongued Maxim Maximovich Litvinoff, Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. Secretary of State Hull's absence from the U. S. left unchanged the fact the President of the U. S. was his own Foreign Minister.

Phrases with which the President opened his letters were: "I am very happy. ... I am glad. ... I thank you. . . . I am happy. . . ." Only one Litvinoff letter opened on so cheerful a note. The exchange covered five points: 1) Recognition; 2) Propaganda; 3) Freedom of worship; 4) Protection of nationals; and 5) Debts and claims.

Horse Trade. "If one wants to estimate the 'horse trade,' I should say M. Litvinoff has got perhaps a shade the worst of it," declared Muscovite Walter Duranty of the New York Times, "but. on the other hand, to vary the metaphor, Mr. Litvinoff is taking home a pretty fat turkey for Thanksgiving."

The "fat turkey" consists in the fact that President Roosevelt extended recognition without obtaining any concession important from the Soviet point of view. He did obtain concessions important from the point of view of the many U. S. citizens who know little about the actual policies and laws of the Soviet Union.

Thus Communist propaganda will continue to be fomented in the U. S. by the U. S. Workers' Party whose avowedly Communist leaders will continue their close liaison with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Comintern, Third International or World Communist Party which is technically superior to both and retains its Moscow headquarters. On the other hand, M. Litvinoff promised that "it will be the fixed policy of the Government" of Russia (he could not promise for the Party headed by Josef Stalin) to "refrain" in the most scrupulous manner from any interference in U. S. affairs; to "restrain" from such interference "all organizations of the Soviet Government or under its direct or indirect control, including organizations in receipt of any financial assistance from it"; to refuse to harbor on Russian soil any group "which makes claim to be the Government of or makes any attempt on the territorial integrity of the United States."

On the issue of freedom of worship the President insisted on a long series of guarantees protecting U. S. citizens and U. S. pastors in Russia, which Comrade Litvinoff informed him are already contained in Soviet law, quoting the pertinent passages (see p. 14).

As to protection of U. S. citizens in Russia, they are guaranteed the right to choose their own counsel when arrested (a right denied to the British engineers in the Metropolitan-Vickers case last spring). In general U. S. citizens in Russia will have legal rights "not less favorable than those enjoyed in the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics by nationals of the nation most favored in this respect."

On the issue of the unpaid Russian debt to the U. S. Government of $187,000,000 contracted by the Kerensky Government and the private claims of U. S. citizens damaged to the extent of about $400,000,000 by the Bolsheviki, President Roosevelt and Comrade Litvinoff made no horse or other trade last week, left that to future negotiation. As a goodwill gesture the Soviet Commissar waived Russia's counter-claims for damage done by the U. S. expeditionary force in Siberia after the War, did not waive Russia's similar and larger claims arising from the damage done by the U. S. expeditionary force in the White Sea-Archangel region northeast of Leningrad.

Bullitt to Moscow, Before President Roosevelt let the correspondents out of his study on their race to spread the news of recognition he broke one more precedent by announcing the name of the future U. S. Ambassador to a Great Power before its Government had had a chance to declare him persona grata. But Mr. Roosevelt well knew he was pleasing Russians when he rolled out the name of Philadelphia's amazing young millionaire-diplomatist-novelist -divorced-husband-of-a-Communist William Christian Bullitt.

Mutual friends brought Bill Bullitt to Woodrow Wilson during the War, when the President needed an inside dopester on what had been going on in Germany. Bill was fresh from Yale and the Philadelphia Public Ledger. In its sedate offices he and a few cronies, including Cartoonist Bill Sykes, used to play "golf" every morning with balls made of paper wads while Golfer Bullitt's huge Russian wolfhound barked. In 1915 the Ledger put Mr. Bullitt aboard the S. S. Oscar II, chartered by Henry Ford "to get the boys out of the trenches by Christmas." His handling of this story earned Reporter Bullitt a name for brilliant satire. Next year he married Socialite Ernesta Drinker. Since the U. S. was not yet at War, there was no reason why they should not spend their honeymoon behind the German lines in France and Russia, and spend it there they did, banqueted by such Kaiserly favorites as German Admiral Count von Spec.

Once the U. S. declared War, Mr. Bullitt was snapped up by the State Department as an expert on the Enemy Powers. At the Peace Conference he thought that President Wilson and Premier Lloyd George had taken him into their confidence and set off in 1919 on a secret mission to Russia, accompanied by Journalist Lincoln Steffens. Together they came to the original conclusion that the Soviet Government was not about to fall, made a tentative recognition deal with Dictator Nikolai Lenin and rushed proudly back to Paris where shocked President Wilson consigned their work to his wastebasket. Too rich to keep his mouth shut and try to save .his career as a diplomat. Bill Bullitt exploded: 'I'm going to the Riviera, lie in the sand and watch the world go to Hell!"

Instead, Mr. Bullitt turned up before the U. S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee to make screaming headlines for days by blurting out his inside opinions of the Paris Peace Conference, Treaty of Versailles and League of Nations. Premier Lloyd George dignified these proceedings by calling Mr. Bullitt a "liar," referred contemptuously to "a journey some boys are reported to have made to Russia." When smug Philadelphia friends called him a "Bolshevik"' and when his first wife divorced him in 1923, Bill Bullitt married the widow of John Reed, the U. S. Communist who went through the Russian Revolution, wrote Ten Days That Shook the World, died of typhus in Moscow and was buried with highest Soviet honors in the Kremlin wall. The new Mrs. Bullitt, an out-and-out Red. appeared in Philadelphia in Russian costumes complete with high boots. Before Mr. Bullitt divorced her in 1930, she encouraged him to expose the foibles of his class in It's Not Done, a slashing novel in which scandalized Philadelphians thought they recognized Financier Stotes-bury. Merchant Wanamaker and Sateve-poster Curtis, all deftly mocked.

Early on the Roosevelt bandwagon, irrepressible Bill Bullitt turned up in London as Executive Officer of the U. S. Delegation to the World Monetary and Economic Conference. Offside he had long conversations with Chief Soviet Delegate Litvinoff. Possibly these talks paved the way for recognition.

In Episcopal Church House, Philadelphia, last week Archdeacon the Rev. James F. Bullitt, uncle of the new Ambassador, flared: "The United States has disgraced itself by establishing relations with a country which is beyond the palea pariah among nations!"

Pariah? Up to last week Uruguay was the only nation in North. Central or South America to have diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. Canadian Prime Minister Richard Bedford Bennett, rich and pious, is a thoroughgoing Soviet-ophobe. Mexico extended recognition only to withdraw it with loud complaints of Communist propaganda. But Soviet Russia-one-sixth of the world-is no pariah. Her government has now been recognized by Afghanistan, Austria, China, Danzig, Denmark. Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain (none of the British dominions has extended recognition), Greece, Iceland, Irak, Italy, Japan, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Norway. Persia, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the U. S. and Uruguay.

Virtually all U. S. newsorgans approved the President's act of recognition last week, or at least did not oppose. Senator Borah, dean of Recognitionists, was so pleased that from Boise, Idaho he telegraphed congratulations to both President Roosevelt and Comrade Litvinoff.

"Whether we accept defeat gracefully or not," bristled National Commander Edward A. Hayes of the American Legion, "we will never approve the admitted tenets that are opposed in principle and in practice to our belief in the Deity and our belief in American institutions and government.

"We hope recognition will not permit an easier dissemination of those tenets, nor their encouragement in the United States. If it does, then the American Legion will continue to oppose them in every legal way possible."

Irreconcilably opposed remained President William Green of the American Federation of Labor. "There are a great many people in America," said he darkly, "who are pleased and satisfied because the American Federation of Labor has refused to compromise and stands -now as it always has. a foe to Communism and to the acceptance of the Communistic philosophy."

Abroad, Tokyo was the only capital-except Moscow (see p. 14)--in which U. S.-Russian recognition created any stir. Tokyo papers printed screaming extras. Japanese, who mortally fear any aid the U. S. may give to Russia, their traditional foe, read the extras with pounding pulses. Everything, realists realize, now depends upon the size of credits which the U. S. proceeds to extend to Russia, notorious for her reluctance to pay in cash, her insistence on long rather than short-term credits. As the President went off to Warm Springs (see p. 7), Comrade Litvinoff stayed in Washington to talk credits with the Treasury, the R. F. C. and certain financiers.

When her Five-Year Plan was at its highest tempo, the Soviet Union bought $114,000,000 from the U. S. in 1930, tapered off last year to $12,000,000, partly because the German Government offered easier credit terms. Last week Administration officials spoke of Soviet purchases from the U. S. to total $350,000,000 within the next twelvemonth, but several Republican Senators plaintively urged caution. "I have no objection to recognition," said Pennsylvania's Reed, "if it does not call for the lending of money to the Soviet Union by any [U. S.] Government agency."

Rallying to the President, most Democratic Senators echoed North Carolina's Reynolds: "My impression of Russia is extremely favorable. I think recognition will be a great benefit to American farmers and manufacturers."

Sayre for Payer

Last week President Roosevelt, once a member of Woodrow Wilson's sub-Cabinet, appointed to his sub-Cabinet a Wilson son-in-law. Francis Bowes Sayre, 48, Harvard Law School professor and Commissioner of Correction for Massachusetts, was made Assistant Secretary of State.

The Senate presented her with a silver service, the House with a diamond necklace when in 1913 Jessie Woodrow Wilson, the President's second daughter, was married in the White House East Room to Francis Sayre, who had just resigned as a deputy assistant district attorney in New York City. Soon he was made assistant to the president of Williams College, whence he was graduated in 1909. He went to teach at Harvard Law in 1917. Last January Mrs. Sayre, who had long served on the executive committee of the Massachusetts Democracy, died after a gall bladder operation (TIME, Jan. 23).

Assistant Secretary Sayre took a leave of absence from Harvard in 1923, journeyed to Bangkok to be international law adviser to King Rama VI. His experience in negotiating commercial treaties between Siam and nine European nations seemed to qualify him for last week's new job, which will be chiefly concerned with the commercial aspects of treaties. Mr. Sayre got news of his appointment just before he saw his alma mater beat its traditional rival, Amherst, 14-to-0 at football at Williamstown.

The man Assistant Secretary Sayre replaces was the most picturesque and eloquent protege Professor Raymond Moley brought into the State Department with him. Harry Franklin Payer delighted Washington with his old-fashioned collars, his apple cheeks, his Pickwickian tufts of frizzy hair, with his office fitted out with paintings and rich carpets like a salon, with his gold-plated Packard roadster in which he drove to work each morning. With the customary "regrets" Assistant Secretary Payer, last of the Moleymen. was shifted over to Reconstruction Finance Corp. where he will function as special counsel on foreign trade. His friends regarded this change as something of a promotion. "I'm thrilled," cried Special Counsel Payer. "I don't know why they chose such a bum lawyer as me. I haven't done very much since I came to the State Department except loaf."

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