Word: barthou
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...angry Poland, an expectant Russia, a wailing China and an Irish Free State brimming with cussedness were on the capable hands of French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou at Geneva last week, and he is 72. Never once did the verve, élan and practical wisdom of this Gascon grandfather falter. He is the grand practitioner of the Old Diplomacy. He knows what his country wants and is not ashamed to live like a discriminating prince while getting it. Last week his immediate purpose was to wangle Soviet Russia into the League of Nations but he was preparing other, greater moves...
From crowned Romanovs to cap-wearing Bolsheviks, M. Barthou has known his Russians for nearly two generations. In 1896 he was Minister of Interior and as such responsible for the safety in France of newly-crowned Tsar Nicholas II who came to throw a magnificent bridge across the Seine in memory of his father Tsar Alexander III. Today le Pont Alexandre-Trois is still the most magnificent in Paris and across it in his long-snouted Renault limousine M. Barthou has ridden in animated conversation with Comrade Maxim Maximovitch Litvinoff, the roly-poly one time traveling salesman...
Comrade Litvinoff was hovering last week just beyond the Swiss frontier in the tiny French village of Douvaine, waiting for M. Barthou to send the word that would mean for Bolshevik Russia a grand entry with appropriate nourish into the League of Nations. In one of their frequent talks by telephone last week. Comrade Litvinoff grew so impatient that he hung up on M. Barthou in vexation, but the Gascon grandfather only chuckled, "Tiens, tiens! Ces enfants! They must learn patience...
...Irish made trouble first. Soon after the League Council and Assembly convened fortnight ago, the diplomacy of M. Barthou had seemed to remove all obstacles likely to block Russia from being received into the League with a permanent seat on the Council (TIME, Sept. 17). Poland, having first held out for a permanent seat for herself if Russia got one, finally backed down. The scruples of Argentina and Portugal had been overcome. All that remained was to get quietly on paper an invitation to Russia and a Russian acceptance in exact legal forms which would be mutually acceptable to both...
...oppose the entry of Russia. He endorsed it but rose to champion the idea that the few small nations still opposed should be invited to air their views in open assembly. Shaking a bony finger at his pet aversion, British Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon, and at M. Barthou, the Free State's de Valera cried: "The whole question of procedure should be properly considered, instead of in hotel rooms. . . . What is it reasonable for Russia to expect? She naturally wants to assure herself before applying for membership that she is not going to have the humiliation of having...