Monday, Apr. 30, 1945
The Delegates
Men & women of 46 United Nations made San Francisco an international city.
White-haired Field Marshal and Premier Jan Christian Smuts of South Africa, a veteran of the League of Nations, ventured: "This time we will pull it off." Backstopping French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault was silver-maned, dark-skinned Joseph Paul-Boncour, who called himself "an oldtimer at this sort of thing." En route he met for the first time in years his old friend Carl Hambro, Norwegian President of the League of Nations, who was too polite to pull rank with airlines and got "bumped" from his plane seat in Atlanta.
There were Beneses and a Masaryk--two nephews of Czechoslovakia's President Eduard Benes and Czech Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk, ebullient, democratic son of the late Founder-President Thomas Masaryk.
Carlos Garcia of the Philippine delegation had been hiding in the hills only a few months ago. Egypt's Makram Ebeid Pasha was a political prisoner until last fall. Yugoslavia's Foreign Minister Ivan Subasich had been a war exile in the U.S. Belgium's Socialist Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak brought along an old parliamentary enemy, now a fast friend--Communist Albert Marteaux, Minister of Health.
China sent an old conference hand, Foreign Minister T. V. Soong, and a new one, aging, mustached Communist Tung Pi-wu.
From Saudi Arabia came the only royalty. Prince Faisal, son of King Ibn Saud, wore a snow-white burnoose and golden head cord, maintained Mohammedan sobriety, but was not above spending an evening with his delegation at the circus in New York.
The first Russian delegate in San Francisco was the Red Navy's representative, Admiral Konstantin Rodionov (see cut). The Russians holed up in the St. Francis hotel, reveled in three eggs apiece for breakfast, promptly obtained 18 shoe stamps (for some 60 delegates and consultants). A Russian ship brought quantities of caviar, vodka and champagne to be dispensed in a Pacific Heights house rented for entertainment. For the delegation's head, Foreign Commissar Molotov, the State Department had been asked to supply 1) a bullet-proof car, 2) an armed escort.
The Latin Americans, keeping close to Assistant Secretary of State Nelson Rockefeller, hoped to swing some small changes in Dumbarton Oaks. Big guns were Mexico's suave Foreign Minister, Ezequiel Padilla, Chile's Joaquin Fernandez y Fernandez, and Brazil's Pedro Leao Velloso. who brought along his imposing wife.
Britain's delegation included two women M.P.s: former League Delegate Florence Horsbrugh ("I'm one of those people who think men and women must work together") and tiny Ellen Wilkinson, called the "shelter Queen" because of her labors in behalf of bombed-out Londoners. China also sent a woman: Dr. Wu Yi-fang, President of Ginling College.
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