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Eugene Carson Blake and Roswell P. Barnes in conversation, side 2.
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- speakerLike you can you may begin.
- speakerI've got a note to return to that or later
- speakeror I can go on and do it right now and then I'll skip it when we get to it
- speakerlater. I think the
- speakercrucial confrontation
- speakerwith Nikolai [Nicholas, Metropolitan of Krutitzy and Kolomna] first, then with the whole group,
- speakerwas over the article of Nikolai
- speakerin the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate accusing us of
- speakergerm warfare and chemical warfare in Korea and of
- speakerbeing the puppets of Wall Street and that whole line.
- speakerAnd, related to it, the World Peace Council and the Stockholm
- speakerpeace proposals.
- speakerRemember that the Federal Council and the
- speakerNational Catholic Welfare Council, which is the council of
- speakerbishops, in effect, at that date and the synagogue Council of America had
- speakergot together and issued a rejoinder to the
- speakerStockholm peace rally proposal, which some American
- speakerchurchmen had signed. And, there had been a few
- speakerleftists or people like J. B. Matthews [Matthews, Joseph Brown, "Doc"] only on the other side, who had
- speakergone to Prague meetings, then Stockholm meetings and that World
- speakerPeace Council. And, they were very sensitive about it. That was one thing that
- speakerwe had to get straightened out. That was a misrepresentation,
- speakerif not a at least a misunderstanding. And, as you
- speakerintroduced that, you
- speakeremphasized the importance of trying to get at the truth
- speakerof the facts on both
- speakersides of our tensions. And, there's no
- speakeruse inbeing sentimental, we've got to get at the truth.
- speakerAnd Nikolai said, "Oh, that is so far
- speakerin the past. And it was war time. And people were excited. Let's forget
- speakerabout it. Forget about the past and press for the future."
- speakerAnd, then Sherrill [Sherrill, Henry Knox] jumped in. "We
- speakercan't forget about it. Because it was dishonest.
- speakerAnd, you're asking us to forget.
- speakerWe can't forget, and we can't forgive unless
- speakeryou're sorry for the error." And,
- speakerthis is one of the times when Henry Sherrill really closed in. And, he thought about it.
- speakerAnd, he said they wanted us to, let's be Christian brothers here together. "Yeah."
- speakerIt was their argument. And Henry said, "But, you're not
- speakerChristian brothers
- speakerso long as there is lying, and he says. "That's my
- speakermemory." His saying, I don't know how many times, that afternoon,
- speakerYou've got to tell the truth!" And that kept on. I may have said it first. [Barnes] You introduced it
- speakeron the basis of the truth.
- speaker[Blake] Yeah. I see. Well, I didn't remember. [Barnes] And, he on this business of forgiveness.
- speakerHe jumped right in. He could not forgive without penitence and
- speakerI have never
- speakerbeen a part of as painful a process as that
- speakerbecause. Now, here is one of the things that need to be added
- speakerto the contents of the archives.
- speakerThe circumstances under which we had our conversations
- speakerwith surveillance and probably
- speakerinfiltration of our group constantly by them. And, we
- speakerproceeded on the assumption that this
- speakerconversation was being recorded and would be reviewed
- speakerin the Kremlin. Now, when
- speakeryou're closing in on somebody in discussion of Christian comrades
- speakertogether. And then you have to
- speakerremember that this is going to be reviewed by the K.G.B.
- speakerand what's going to happen to this man?
- speakerIf he's apologetic for a Soviet policy
- speakeror is seeming to be weak and yielding to
- speakerthese lost streets, agents running
- speakerdogs? You have to hesitate a little
- speakerbit as to what the consequences of
- speakerwhat you're saying are going to be.
- speakerSo we were talking, not only to Nikolai there and to the group the
- speakernext day, we were talking to the
- speakerK.G.B., which had these
- speakerpeople over there. They were the second level.
- speakerHowever we were talking to the people who were in charge of the
- speakerchurch and state relations in the Soviet government. They are the ones. Now, they may
- speakerhave used K.G.B. or did use it, doubtless. But it is that group
- speakerthat I think are, were the important ones and continue to be the important ones.
- speaker[Barnes] Remember. I'm going back now.
- speakerWe were met by an abbot named Pimen. [Pimen, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia]
- speakerAnd Pimen took us as our host to the Sovietskaia Hotel,
- speakerwhich is the first group other than Eastern or communist
- speakercountries that ever stayed there from the west. That was an interesting thing that they took
- speakerus there. Maybe because they thought they would ruin us by reputation or
- speakersomething. I don't know. In any case, we were there.
- speakerPimen, of course, now is the Patriarch.
- speakerI have seen him relatively recently when I was last in Russia. It was Blake and I
- speakerbecause Blake was here, and I were invited by him to
- speakerluncheon at the Patriarchate in Moscow.
- speakerWith all that background that has gone on since. There is a very
- speakerinteresting thing
- speakerI also remember very well the
- speakerluncheon that he gave for us out at the, Zagorosk, the
- speakerAbbey.
- speakerYou remember that? [Blake] Yes. [Barnes] I was sitting opposite
- speakerthe man, who was the top
- speakerGovernment man in the church office. You remember his name?
- speakerI have it.
- speakerI don't. I can't put my finger on it now. I can't remember his name, but he was he was there
- speakeropposite me just a little bit this way. And I was
- speakervery happy that I was as big as I am, because he tried to greet me under
- speakerthe table.
- speakerThe Russian system, you know, is you drink cognac or vodka
- speakerbottoms up. Little glasses fortunately.
- speakerThis is the reason you have to keep on eating so much caviar. In order to not
- speakerhave it affect you very much. Didn't they have any Scotch for the Presbyterians? No Scotch.
- speakerYou have contact or vodka. And,
- speakerfortunately, I like the Russian cognac very much. It's not as strong as French cognac
- speakereither, which means you can do it. But any case. He he was.
- speakerWe saw how he hit it off personally. And, I never had any
- speakerfeeling that he was my enemy or that he was there purposely. I
- speakerimagine somebody else was there listening to what the Russians did.
- speakerHe knew the situation better than I do.
- speaker[Miller, William B.] Was there any suspicion or uneasiness or all of it in the American team
- speakerthat the State Department or the CIA maybe put a plant
- speakeron our team? [Barnes] They met us at the airport
- speakerand were very discreet. And, I appreciate that very much.
- speakerThe guy, while we were standing outside the airport. He just came up and says we are the
- speakerState Department.
- speakerWe just want you to know we are here we're going to let you alone and good bye. And that, I thought
- speakerwas very discreet. And they
- speakerwere helpful to us. Yeah. Also.
- speakerI had the discussion I think you and I went together over to the embassy, didn't we? and
- speakerworked out the arrangement for a couple of us to go and not require the whole
- speakerdelegation to go over there as we were reporting to the
- speakerembassy and the first secretary of the embassy
- speakerwhen we had the public, official reception to us
- speakerand I talked to him about it. And, I got the programme and there
- speakerwere going to be toasts.
- speakerAnd this man from the Commissariat for religious
- speakeraffairs was going to be presiding or conspicuous there. It was
- speakerchurch and state together putting it on. And, I was
- speakerworried about what we might have to do
- speakerin returning reciprocating toasts. And, the
- speakersecretary of the embassy agreed to come
- speakerand match the representative of the Foreign Office or
- speakerCommissariat. I'd forgotten that. And give the response
- speakerso that a churchman was not giving. Either a toast or. Either
- speakera toast or a salute to the
- speakerSoviet government.
- speakerHe enabled us to evade that. And, incidentally,
- speakerhe was very understanding and very helpful. And, I reported that to Secretary of State [Dulles, John Foster] when he got back.
- speakerAnd, subsequently one day I was walking down the State Department corridors.
- speakerAnd he came up to me with a broad grin. And, I said, "What are you doing here?"
- speakerAnd, he said. "Are you surprised?
- speakerWhy, they told me around here, it is because of you that I was called back to head the Soviet desk."
- speakerThat. That was amusing.
- speaker[Miller] Well. You had no problem getting into Russia
- speakerin sofar as customs or passports? No. that the
- speakernext item on the list there.
- speakerLet me get this on the record here though. I didn't get a clearcut answer to that question. I don' think.I
- speakerthink it's important enough, that, as far as the church people were
- speakerconcerned on our side. They never had any suspicion at all that our
- speakergovernment had planted somebody on the support team that would likely to be
- speakerthe KGB didn't or Russia, right? Although. No. Don't make
- speakerany difference. I think that. I don't know any difference.
- speakerof that.
- speaker[Blake] We didn't. But, they were charged with Anderson [Anderson, Paul B.] and Barnes [Barnes, Roswell P.], as being
- speakergovernment influenced people. Weren't they? That what you said?
- speakerWe were charged. And, the Soviet leaders were charged by their government with
- speakercollaborating with somebody that was being watched.
- speakerNow. Here is a kind kind of thing that I wanted to check on when we get back.
- speakerReciprocity is the game with
- speakerregard to the plans and the involvement of government. The government had to
- speakerfirst issue our passports and the other government the
- speakervisas. Then governments had to give permission to
- speakertravel.
- speakerOur travel in the Soviet Union was restricted.
- speakerOur government imposed,
- speakerwhen they came over here, reciprocal
- speakercorresponding, restrictions on their travel here.
- speakerIt's just the game. Reciprocity is the name of the game.
- speakerAnd, this is the kind of thing
- speakerthat I don't know whether I want to leave in.
- speakerI was offered
- speakereagerly secret mikes for
- speakerrecording crucial conversations or any conversations
- speakerthat I would like with an adequate supply of
- speakertapes. And, I declined.
- speakerAnd, said that
- speakereven though they told me that this would be happening on the other side. I said
- speakerI don't care.
- speakerWe've got enough on our hands. And, I don't want to be distracted by
- speakercarrying these gadgets. Wasn't worth it! Around. And, I wanted to
- speakerbe what it appears to be. And, I don't want to do it.
- speakerAll right. It is up to you. And that was from our government?
- speakerThat is from our government. The CIA wanted me
- speakerto do it.
- speakerNow I didn't think it was the communists!
- speakerAnd, they told us what to be on the lookout for. You mentioned
- speakerthe hotel that we stayed at. First group that was there.
- speakerWe assumed that every room in the hotel was bugged. Where
- speakerwe're eating and our sleeping rooms.
- speakerAnd, we'd been told by the CIA
- speakerthat we should be careful about conversations on the sidewalk
- speakernear any truck that might have a parabolic
- speakerreceiver with a mike in the middle of it and to
- speakerwatch for being photographed for lip reading
- speakerwhen we were thinking that we were alone. And,I remember one day you and I were standing out on the
- speakersteps of the hotel and swapping some notes.
- speakerAnd, I caught a little moment flash reflection of a disk in the
- speakerwindow on the second or third story of a vacant
- speakerbuilding across the street. And, I said. "What's that?" He said,
- speaker"You know, is that a lens" I said,
- speakerHectored in sideways." And, we laughed about it.
- speakerAnd, then we we wondered whether when they saw us turned sideways, they knew
- speakerlaughing whether we were on to do it. Whether that would make them suspicious of us that
- speakerwe were wise. But now we were alerted to that and
- speakeroffered the facilities for reciprocal
- speakerregistration. As I remember, our decisions is, check me if I'm wrong.
- speakerWe decided to take it for granted that we were being heard
- speakerand to say nothing except what we wanted them to know.
- speakerI think that's a very good way to travel in this kind of circumstances. And,
- speakerknowing that we would not have an opportunity to confer, being sure that we were alone and could
- speakerbe frank with each other about our report,
- speakerwe scheduled a day stop over in Stockholm to write
- speakerour report. Hied up in a hotel there as the first
- speakertime we could relax and talk to each other without
- speakerbut that, that point.
- speakerAnother item of questionable about report.
- speakerAfter we got home. I don't know whether you knew this.
- speakerI was asked, after a long talk with the Secretary of State or with
- speakerJohn Foster Dulles just personal and official.
- speakerIt's scrambling.
- speakerIf I would be willing to make some observations to
- speakerthe people from the Soviet desk in the State Department and maybe some others. And, I
- speakersaid I would be willing to do it on the understanding
- speakerthat I would not talk about any individuals
- speakerover there by name. I was not going to give them a
- speakerfile of information. And, that I might run
- speakeracross things that I wouldn't want to talk about. But, when I went down there
- speakerfor that reporting, because there's some things I did
- speakerwant to say to them, I found
- speakerthirty or thirty-five people. And, they introduced themselves
- speakeras the Soviet CIA staff,
- speakerpsychological warfare and military intelligence.
- speakerSo I was especially careful about what I said. And, I gave them
- speakermostly a lecture on the distinction between communism
- speakerand Russian nationalism as the
- speakerdynamic factors in Soviet behavior
- speakerand some observations about what happens to a revolutionary movement
- speakervis-a-vis nationalism the farther you get away from the slaughter
- speakerand death and division of the families of the revolutionary period and so on.
- speakerAnd, I
- speakerwe got into a very interesting situation because, when I got on this
- speakernationalism versus Marxism as, and the dynamics of the relative
- speakerimportance and Kremlin behavior.
- speakerthey got on the edge of their chairs and began to nod at each other and get in an
- speakerargument. And, I had to become a moderator of a debate there.
- speakerAnd, I thought.
- speakerGee, these folks! I've taken the lid off something
- speakerthere. And, we stayed on there for three hours.
- speakerAnd, I gave them illustrations and I was loaded for them.
- speakerAnd that, a little bit later, Allen Dulles
- speakersent me a reprint.
- speakerEverybody knows what Allen Dulles's job was? He was head of CIA at the time and
- speakerFoster's brother. And, he sent me
- speakera little note, enclosing a reprint from the Yale Law
- speakerReview of an address that he'd given at Yale Law School on Russian
- speakernationalism. And said, I think you'll be interested in this. You probably recognize
- speakera good bit of it as yours.
- speakerThe boys think it was very helpful. Now.
- speakerWell what about the appropriateness of my doing that?
- speakerI tried to justify my reporting that can be
- speakercalled reporting.
- speakerBecause I think I corrected perspective or influenced perspective a little bit
- speakeron the basis of our experience
- speakeras I reported it.
- speakerIs that appropriate church state relations?
- speakerI don't think so. I hope so.
- speakerI even reported to Nixon on the Middle East one time.
- speakerBut I used it to be able to congratulate him for something he had done, I forget what it was first.
- speakerwas first. Then tried to get him to change what he was doing.
- speakerThat was the. You know, I think that. Yeah. You have to be
- speakerwilling to do that. And, you. Your relationships with your own
- speakergovernment are up to the church really. What they will do.
- speakerAnd I keep reminding everybody that there are three things a
- speakerChristian churchman in a totalitarian state, I don't care whether it is Fascist
- speakeror communist or anything else. You have three possibilities.
- speakerHe can emigrate. And,
- speakerthey are the worst source of information as a rule
- speakerbecause they always remember what it was when they decided that they had
- speakerto leave their own country. And, they don't like that any of them. And then, the
- speakernext one is to get into jail or shot
- speakeror whatever. And, the third one is to try to adjust to the
- speakerrealities and
- speakermake your witness. And, I think the third is the hardest and the most important thing to
- speakertry to do if you can.
- speakerWas there any
- speakerattempt to influence one way or another one when the whole trip was being planned?
- speakerDid our State Department try to discourage
- speakerit in any way or did they just stay back?
- speakerIt's hard to answer. State Department there were people in the State Department that
- speakerthought we messed things up, that were opposed to it.
- speakerAnd, it was
- speakerDulles that overrode it. And, it was interesting that
- speakerAllen Dulles or Foster Dulles? Foster Dulles. Favored the trip? Or at
- speakerleast? He supported. He supported it. He agreed to it.
- speakerAnd partly, because politically. And, they were
- speakerunder a lot of pressure. Remember, it's McCarthyism period.
- speakerAnd, the State Department had
- speakeryielded on firing
- speakersome of the people that McCarthy had targeted, and were
- speakercriticized, very substantially. And,
- speakerDulles told me one day. He said, "Well, it's fortunate
- speakerthat you had good relations with the State Department under Roosevelt and Truman.
- speakerYou're on a very select list of reliable counselors."
- speakerHe said.
- speaker"Otherwise, we'd be liable to
- speakerpolitical pressures if we yielded to something that you were identified with.
- speakerThere's a continuity here and I reviewed my experiences with it before.
- speakerWell I think that
- speakerit ought to be added to
- speakerwhat appears in the records, that there was not only the Zeit-
- speakerGeist of McCarthyism.
- speakerBut the opposition of a group in the Russian Orthodox Church and their
- speakerfriends in this country didn't want us to go
- speakerbecause there was litigation with regard to the control of their Cathedral in New York.
- speakerAnd, for us by implication
- speakerto recognize the patriarchate and Nikolai
- speakerhad implications in the trial for
- speakertheir legitimacy. Whereas those that were trying to get the control of the cathedral
- speakerand other church properties in their hands in this country had to
- speakerprove that the church was not a church anymore and was not
- speakerentitled to the continued control of the property in New York.
- speakerSo there was there was opposition from some of the Russian. And,
- speakerthere are other people, even in our own staff in the National Council. I remember when
- speakerthey came over here two men came in to me one day. And, they said,
- speaker"We're just letting you know we will not be reporting tomorrow."
- speakerBecause the Russian deputation was coming to visit our offices.
- speakerAnd, one of them spoke up. And said to me. "So far as I'm concerned, the
- speakeronly good Russian is a dead Russian." A fine Christian statement
- speakerAnd, that was
- speakerin, in the staff. And this fellow tell
- speakerme. I want to call your attention the Secret Service men that will be surrounding the building
- speakertomorrow.
- speakerWe had not only Carmike and Dyer. But there are a
- speakerlot of other people and there was the
- speakermatter of doubt, if not hostility, to the enterprise. [Blake] May I interrupt us a
- speakersecond here. I think that that is true.
- speakerThat we had these attackers. Stupid I mean
- speakerbut they really backfired on themselves. The real thing that was difficulty in
- speakermy experience here in Philadelphia where I was at that time when I came back
- speakerand had to write a letter for an article for the Inquirer.
- speakerNobody believed that there were any Russians
- speakerchurchmen in Russia. And, you couldn't get it across to them they had any chance
- speakerto say anything. And that still is part of our problem. Right.
- speakerAnd he still is. Was there
- speakerany opportunity in the planning stages either to discuss personally or to communicate with
- speakerFoster Dulles about the trip and to
- speakersolicit his wisdom?
- speaker[Barnes] You'll find in the, in the files the
- speakerreports of the conferences that
- speakerthree or four people had with Dulles [Dulles, John Foster] and
- speakerthe deputy secretary of state for Eastern Europe
- speakerand the man they sent up for briefing
- speakerGene [Blake, Eugene Carson] has referred to. And,
- speakerI was having
- speakermeetings with him, conferences with him.
- speakerThis is where the person and official gets scrambled
- speakerbecause we were quite close.
- speakerAnd I would
- speakeroccasionally get a call before a major
- speakeraddress and ask me to get down to
- speakerWashington to meet him at the White House with the President
- speakerto go over something and come into the executive office building
- speakerand go in the underground passage over so the press wouldn't see me going in,
- speakerthat kind of thing.
- speakerYou've got to understand the long
- speakerstanding relationship, which was pastoral and
- speakerpersonal, your other word, isn't it? Pastoral and personal, I mean. Yeah.
- speakersome more things that I could put in. Now,
- speakerthis I may want to be erase. You can understand. I am uncertain now.
- speakerI remember well I've already talked about his arrival of
- speakerAmsterdam for his speech there. Most interesting thing. And
- speakerhe said. It isn't on tape, though, I remember.
- speakerIt isn't on it? It is not on it. That was what you talked about before we turned on the tape
- speakerrecorder.
- speakerSo the, we are on tape again. All right this is a signal that's to be alert to this.
- speakerAnd I'm getting the varieties of the relationship.
- speakerAnd I'll probably want to scratch some of this. but I want to get your
- speakerreaction to help me to decide what to leave on.
- speakerHe said. "Roswell, I didn't sleep very well last night.
- speakerCan you help me with this?
- speaker'All things work together for good to those who
- speakerare called according to his purpose.' All things work together for good.
- speakerNow, what bearing has that on my speech
- speakertoday?"
- speakerShould I not be worried? And, we went on and had quite a lot of talk about this and
- speakerexegesis. And, another time, he
- speakercalled me and said, "Are you in a hurry to get home?"
- speakerI said, "Is it important?"
- speakerHe said, "Well, I think it is. I can leave a little bit early. I'd
- speakerlike to stop off and talk with you.
- speakerI've got to talk with you about whether I should run for the Senate."
- speakerHe'd been appointed to fill an unexpired term. Was this John Foster Dulles? Dulles, I'd
- speakerforgotten that. What year was that? I don't remember. Oh, never mind. I'd have to
- speakerspot it. And he came up to my office. He says, "I
- speakerhave got to have somebody that I can talk with." He
- speakersaid some of my partners and friends say, by all means, you must
- speakerrun.
- speakerThere are others that say you're not made for politics. You
- speakercan't stand getting your feet muddy campaigning,
- speakerand you don't belong there. You're a diplomat. You're not a politician.
- speakerAnd, you're going to downgrade yourself, getting into this kind of a race.
- speakerAnd he said that. "What, what am I to do?"
- speakerWhat are the questions I ought to be asking myself? And, he stopped off for a couple
- speakerhours. And, then he
- speakersaid, after he decided to run.
- speakerGot to have your your warning, as I trust you, when I'm getting off base.
- speakerHe made a fool of himself on some things, but
- speakerafter he became Secretary of State, that's the kind of thing that was in the
- speakerbackground when I used to have dinner with him and Tom Dewey in their
- speakerapartment when they were getting ready for him to be Secretary of State to Tom Dewey, when Tom Dewey was going to
- speakerbe president.
- speakerAnd, when he became Secretary of State, I
- speakerwrote a couple of prayers for him to keep in a desk
- speakerdrawer. And,
- speakerFor himself you mean,
- speakerfor his own guidance? For his own guidance. They were personal. That's all. They were personal
- speakerand
- speakerhe said that one day
- speakerYou know, it'll interest you that
- speakerRomley Oxen is the only pastor I have in Washington. That's interesting.
- speakerBetween the two of you that wonderful. But, he said, you understand my
- speakerjob you know the temptations.
- speakerAnd those prayers of yours have just given me your view of relaxation. Great
- speakerand then we'd fight over something
- speakerand he and Allen would fight
- speakerand when he asked me to. When I called you in emergency to ask
- speakeryour help. When he asked me if I would stand by him when he knew he had cancer and
- speakerwas dying.
- speakerAnd I spoke to Henry Sherrill [Sherrill, Henry Knox] and to you.
- speakerHenry Sherrill was my boss of mine
- speakeras the first president of the National Council
- speakerand.
- speakerWorld Council president at the time, so he was my boss
- speakerthere. And, you were my boss at the Presbyterian. Yeah. You were Stated Clerk.
- speakerAnd, you stopped off to see me at a Sunday dinner and had
- speakersupper in our apartment on your way down to Philadelphia.
- speakerAnd, I asked you whether I could do that, when he had
- speakerother people that were formally
- speakerpastors. And, he told me
- speaker"I've argued with you more than anybody else than Allen. And, I
- speakercan trust you. I don't want somebody that's going to tell me what he thinks I
- speakerwant to hear.
- speakerWill you please stand by me?" You said, "Go ahead." and Henry Sherrill said,
- speaker"Go ahead."
- speakerAnd I had that relationship. That's right. with him.
- speakerNow. When you asked, Gerry [Gillette, Gerald]. about
- speakerwhether we discussed it with Dulles. I discussed all sorts of
- speakerthings, and I can't unscramble
- speakerthe personal and pastoral from the
- speakerofficial.
- speakerThat's why I was so jittery about these tapes. What to do. Only thing I would have to add is that
- speakeras Secretary of State he, at least, supported you. He didn't
- speakerdiscourage the whole concept of the trip and the reality of it.
- speakerHe supported us. And asked Allen [Dulles, Allen] in
- speakerto
- speakergive me the warnings and the cautions and any help he could give me.
- speakerLet me just say here I miss the
- speakerNew York Times of that day as compared to now. I think it
- speakerdropped off a great deal. I was taught to read what
- speakerpeople said. And they used to quote directly in the back
- speakerpages of the Times much more than they do now. I
- speakerlearned in those days to read Foster Dulles what he said. And,
- speakerthen I'd read the front page and half the time it was a perfect distortion of what he had
- speakersaid. And that is the kind of thing that I think that all of us ought to
- speakerknow. I mean he was better than his
- speakerpress particularly the late press.
- speakerWas he? Had he been on the Commission for a Just and Durable Peace right up to the time he
- speakerbecame Secretary of State? He'd been chairman of. OK. That
- speakerended only with his becoming Secretary of State? He was right up that late? In that kind of
- speakerinvolvement? He took a leave of absence when he became the part foreign
- speakerpolicy advisor to the Republicans
- speakerand then came back again.
- speakerThat was a gesture, I think, important, but not really a solution to
- speakerthe ambiguity.
- speakerWell when we got over
- speakerthere in the context of our confrontation
- speakerthere were these factors of opposition.
- speakerThe archives says nothing about, I think nothing
- speakerabout, the security considerations.
- speakerWe probably would not have gone to the Waldorf to put them up when they came
- speakerover here
- speakerif it hadn't been for consideration for the police of
- speakerNew York City, making it easier for them to provide security. And, we were concerned
- speakerabout security too.
- speakerAnd when they arrived
- speakerthey came to me out at LaGuardia right away wherever
- speakerit was they arrived and
- speakerthe security people said, now, these pickets are out front,
- speakerand there is a rear exit. We can bring the limousine
- speakerout of the back and avoid those pickets.
- speakerAnd, I said. "No. Let's face
- speakerthem. They might as well know what the facts are.
- speakerThe hostility they are going to face here, and let them realize it
- speakernow. The pickers are carrying placards. And, security said
- speakerI think you better not go out there.
- speakerBetter go out the back way. And, I said,
- speaker"Well if that's your decision OK."
- speakerWell," he said. "It isn't so hard for you to say you want to face them, but we are responsible for
- speakersecurity. And, a couple of our men
- speakersay that it is gut poison. And, you can't defend against that."
- speakerSo
- speakerin setting up thing of that kind,
- speakerthe government has a responsibility. And, you've got
- speakerto acknowledge that. And, you don't dare make their job
- speakerimpossible or even more difficult is my reasoning.
- speakerAnd so we went out the back way.
- speakerI didn't know that there was any poison. and I don't hold MacIntire [McIntire, Carl]
- speakerresponsible for the poison, but they had infiltrated his crowd. And, he said. There's some that
- speakerhad poison. What do you mean poison? Just there on people's faces.
- speakerTo mar theirs faces. Blind them and destroy skin.
- speakerHow did they find out there was?
- speakerThey had their men that had infiltrated. I mean how did they
- speakerfind out somebody's got poison? It had like this ?
- speakerI didn't ask them. What they knew about it. They wouldn't
- speakertrust him quite as far as you could. They told me how they found it
- speakerAt least, they were making the accusation.
- speakerYeah and they were giving that as a reason.
- speakerWhich I think we needed to take into consideration lest
- speakerwe be vulnerable.
- speakerI remember Philadelphia at that same trip. They were
- speakercoming to the Statue of Liberty, I think. I mean not Statue of Liberty. Liberty Bell. And
- speakerthe Philadelphia police I had never had as much respect for them as I did after that. That was
- speakerbeautiful. They kept them on the other side of the street. And just as we came to get
- speakerout of the cars, the street car
- speakercame up and stopped. Yep. They couldn't even see it. There was a street car barricade that
- speakerkept us, kept the crowd at the other side. They do that sort of thing.
- speakerWell.
- speakerWe're we changed our plans considerably out of
- speakerregard for security considerations, and the government was responsible for
- speakerenforcing those.
- speakerAre you sure or not whether Bill Coffin [Coffin, William Sloan] was at that time our
- speakertranslator? He went to work for us later. He was one of them. Yes, he went along with
- speakerthe Armenian issue. Yeah, but he accommodated us.
- speakerWhere now there. Again we had to cover that up.
- speakerYes because he had a big price on his head
- speakerYou see Bill Coffin, now the present, the minister of Riverside Church
- speakerhad studied Russian during the war become a
- speakercounter spy for the Office of Strategic Services in Russia
- speakerand Russia had a big reward for his
- speakerapprehension.
- speakerAnd we wanted a team of good interpreters and
- speakerhis Russian was good enough to pass in Russia.
- speakerSpy. So good enough for us.
- speakerHe accompanied us when they were over here. He got along wonderfully with
- speakerthe Armenian bishop too. Oh, yes. They were up in New Haven
- speakerand went by a jail.
- speakerBill said to the bishop. That's our jail.
- speakerLot of the Armenians in there.