Word: commissars
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...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...
Meanwhile buxom English-born Mrs. Ivy Low Litvinoff, cheery wife of the Foreign Commissar, left their four-room apartment in a converted garage with her grave, acutely class-conscious 16-year-old son Mischa. Together they hurried to the Soviet Commissariat of Communications. Proud as punch. Soviet technicians placed before them a Russian-made telephone, bade them talk by short wave radio to Comrade Litvinoff, seated in the Oval Room of the White House. "Millions of Americans will listen to you on their radio networks!" cried the chief Red technician proudly. "Say whatever you wish...
...Commissar Litvinoff: Hello...
...Washington, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, wearing a business suit out of deference to the Commissar's proletarianism, emerged through a cordon of vigilant police with a warm greeting. Also present was Ahmet Muhtar, Turkish Ambassador, who two days later made up for the parties Comrade Litvinoff had missed when he deferred his trip to Angora (TIME, Nov. 6) by a sumptuous banquet in his honor. Footmen in red livery and gold buttons served caviar and champagne, there were crimson roses on the dinner table to honor the Soviet visitors, the turkey was called "Dindoneau a la Moskva...
...week wore on, as State Department conferences followed one another, Commissar Litvinoff came to realize that the trip was not to be entirely a bed of Red roses. He wanted to sign first and talk about details later. The State Department wanted to talk first, for an inquisitive Senate would have many a ticklish question to ask before it passed a recognition treaty, and sign later. When Secretary Hull sailed away to the Pan-American Congress, President Roosevelt took formal charge of the negotiations...