Word: sumner
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Scenes. North through this half-frozen Europe moved Sumner Welles and his staff of assistants. To U. S. watchers from afar, uncertain as to the object of his mission (although President Roosevelt had said that it was only to gather information), in doubt as to whom he could see, what he would hear, skeptical of what he could accomplish, the journey of Sumner Welles was less a continued story of diplomatic progress than a series of vivid scenes, puzzling as stills from a movie whose story is not known...
...Alpine Valley fogs, with trim fighting planes, wing-marked with a white cross on a red field, regularly droning overhead, with the Federal Council of seven Swiss elder statesmen quietly upping the army from 150,000 to 500,000 in preparation for good weather. Hearty and well-publicized was Sumner Welles's luncheon with his old diplomatic crony, Leland Harrison, the Minister to Bern. But unpublicized and mysterious was another U. S. Ambassador's visit. Squarejawed, grey-haired John Cudahy, newly appointed U. S. Minister to Belgium, left his embassy, entered Zürich undetected, got past...
...accompanied Ribbentrop to Moscow, a suave German diplomat who once served in Washington. Also, elaborate trays of hors d'oeuvres, dinner of soup, roast chicken, vegetables, stewed fruit, coffee, and stout German protestations that such was the regular fare. In the U. S. party, enigmatic, icy, shiny-domed Sumner Welles; black-haired, jovial Chief of the European Affairs Division and crack career Diplomat Jay Pierrepont Moffat; quiet Lucius Hartwell Johnson, onetime Welles secretary newly recruited for this trip. Lights were bright behind the curtained windows. A stop at Stuttgart, 50 miles from the front-the huge station was ghostly...
...Adlon where he unofficially stayed. A Slovakian propaganda mission, headed by young, black-haired, shouting Slovakian Propaganda Minister Sano Mach, pulled up at the front of the hotel at the same moment Welles's car drew up. Unobtrusive in a dark suit and black soft hat, poker-faced Sumner Welles gave no sign of interest or annoyance as the air-raid siren screamed a false alarm, the Adlon's lobby filled with gesticulating, heel-clicking, heiling Slovakians, obscuring his own arrival...
Hitler. But Berlin soon knew that he was there. Of his 60 hours, Sumner Welles spent nearly three talking with Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop (after which the press popped with inspired stories of Germany's demands before she would discuss peace: a free hand in the Balkans, recognition of her Czecho-Slovakian and Polish conquests). In the remaining 57, he found time to attend the opera (The Marriage of Figaro), be quietly feted by Alexander Kirk, U. S. charge d'affaires in Berlin, call on the Italian Ambassador. He also...