Praise from the King

‘I was invited to go to Buckingham Palace for Dinner to meet Mrs Roosevelt, the wife of the President of the United States who is over here on a visit. She is the guest of the King and Queen. [. . .] Before dinner when the King and Queen joined the party in the ante-room, the King as he shook hands with me said that he thought the Ministry of Food was doing an excellent job, and said that he and the country were grateful to me.’ This is from the diaries of Frederick James Marquis, 1st Earl of Woolton, who died 60 years ago today. The published diaries cover Woolton’s time during World War II under Churchill, first as Minister for Food and then Minister for Reconstruction. 

Woolton was born in 1883 in Salford, Lancashire, the only surviving child of a saddler. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School and the University of Manchester. He hoped to pursue an academic career in the social sciences but his wish was frustrated by his family’s financial circumstances; instead he became a mathematics teacher at Burnley Grammar School. In 1912 he married Maud Smith, and they had two children. Having been judged unfit for military service, he became a civil servant, first in the War Office, then at the Leather Control Board. At the end of the war, he became secretary of the Boot Manufacturers’ Federation, and joined the John Lewis organisation, becoming director in 1928 and chairman in 1936. 

Woolton was knighted in 1935 and was raised to the peerage in 1939 for his contribution to British industry. His career took a significant turn during World War II when, in April 1940 and despite not being affiliated to any political party, he was appointed Minister of Food. He established the rationing system, the National Food Campaign, and the introduction of free school meals and milk for children. His business acumen and communication skills earned him the affectionate public nickname of ‘Uncle Fred’. 

In 1943, Woolton was appointed Minister of Reconstruction, and then, after the war, from 1946 to 1955, he served as Chairman of the Conservative Party. His efforts in rebuilding and revitalising the party were credited with the Conservative victory in 1951. In 1956, he was further honoured when he became Earl of Woolton with the subsidiary title Viscount Walberton. After the death of his wife in 1961, Woolton married Dr Margaret Thomas, the family doctor who had cared for his first wife. He himself died on 14 December 1964. Further information is available from Wikipedia and Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts.

For two periods in his life - 1940-1945 and 1953-1960 -  Woolton kept a diary. However, there seems to be no clear explanation as to why he started to write a diary, why he stopped, nor why he restarted in 1953. Nevertheless, a selection of extracts (alongside letters, a few official papers and other official materials) were published in 2020 by Oxford University Press for The British Academy as The Diaries and Letters of Lord Woolton 1940-1945 (edited by Michael Kandiah and Judith Rowbotham). OUP says this work ‘showcases a wartime figure who has in prior academic work tended to be relegated to the sidelines, enabling an understanding of the importance of the roles undertaken by Woolton, and a better appreciation of his wartime contribution.’ A review found at The Churchill Project suggests that Diaries and Letters is ’an important and revealing addition to the scholarship of the era.’

Here are several extracts

3 February 1941

‘I took to the cabinet proposals for dealing with the milk trade . . . My proposal, in short, was to remove the minimum price for milk and let free competition have its way with the result that milk would have been cheaper.

The proposal was opposed by Mr Alexander (ex-Co-operative Society) who made a very good capitalist speech, supported bv Mr Bevin, who wanted the country to buy out all the milk people and run a nationalised milk scheme. The Labour people were quite solidly against what would have been tor the benefit of the community, in spite of the fact that they are supposed to be anxious to do something about the milk trade.

The Prime Minister asked if the little milkman would be subject to the ravages of competition. And so I withdrew the Report.

The Prime Minister had previously asked me why I had produced it, and I told him that the politicians had been trying for years to get something done about this trade, but since they now didn’t seem to want anything to be done. I wasn’t interested.’

11 March 1942

‘I made a statement in the House of Lords about the introduction ot the 85 per cent extraction flour. I did not make a long speech - merely a statement ot the whole of the facts, and said that the Government knew that it would not be popular with the people, but as it saved a considerable amount of shipping space in the year they also knew that people would accept it without complaint. The House accepted it all right, and Horder came along and spiked the guns of all the people who would complain on medical grounds, by saying that anybody who could eat bread at all could eat wheat meal with impunity as it suited all digestions. The announcement got a very good press. The country doesn’t mind what is asked of it so long as it feels that there is both reason and control.’

19 March 1942

‘I had a very bad attack of colitis in the night, and went this morning to a Privy Council meeting wondering how I would manage to stand through it. I managed but only just.

After the meeting the King took me to his room: he immediately said that I didn’t look very well, and pulled up an easy chair for me to sit in. He talked very intelligently about the food situation, and very frankly about my colleagues! He spoke of Bevin - and mentioned in passing that when he (Bevin) sat in the chair in which I was sitting he bulged all over the sides.  He said that Bevin has no understanding of the mind of the people, adding ‘Neither has the Prime Minister’ The King has been brought up to do the industrial side of the Royal job and he knows more about working men than the Minister of Labour. The King told Leathers a few days ago that the two of his Ministers of whom he always heard as really being in charge of their departments and getting their jobs done were himself and me.’

12 May 1942

‘I made a speech in the House. Lord Arnold had put down a motion about beer. He’s a bigoted teetotaller of the worst variety and made a speech which was little short of offensive. It was difficult not to adopt the same tone with him, but I tried to make a reasoned statement. I suggested to the House that at a time when we were calling for the maximum physical effort from the working-man it was unfair to deprive him of his glass of beer if he wanted it. The House was with me.’

1 June 1942

‘We had a Cabinet Meeting this evening at which I explained the proposals that we intended to put into force to reduce waste of transport and manpower in the milk industry: it’s a scheme to rationalise distribution. I had had charts prepared which had been put up in the Committee Room. I didn’t observe when I went in that they had been put up over the map of Europe that was hanging on the wall, and as soon as I sat down Winston growled at me ‘So you’re disfiguring the map of Europe now’! He was in his best form, and when I’d explained the scheme, which I did in a series of quick thumbnail sketches - which I think it took most of the Cabinet all their time to follow - if they did - and Winston pronounced it a good scheme and silenced any questioning by remarking that ‘He’d follow Lord Woolton anywhere’! There was method in it all: the Honours List is to be published next week and it was being made clear to the other Ministers that there was a reason for this selection.’

9 June 1942

‘In the afternoon I went to the House to address an All-Party meeting of members on the work of the Ministry. I took charts with me, and did the thumbnail sketch technique on them. They were very impressed and indicated their approval of the way we were doing the job.’

13 July 1942

‘We had a Cabinet meeting in the evening. There has been a secret debate about the shipping position, and the press has been urging that more information about the state of our shipping should should be given. The cabinet decided that an impartial statement should be made. It to be that no information would be given! Doesn’t sound very impartial to me.

We also discussed the probable food situation in Europe after the war, and everybody seemed very concerned about how we should feed the starving nations of Europe. Winston was very downright: he realised that there could be no question of the immediate removal of rationing restrictions on food, but said that he felt the people to be considered first were the people who had sweated and toiled to win the war, and that if we had worked and endured as we should have to, in order to gain the victory over the Nazis, both for ourselves and for the other European countries, he felt that we were the first people to be considered so far as food was concerned. I think he’s right, but we can’t leave the other countries to starve because we’ve won the war. It’s going to be a problem.’

28 July 1942

‘Mabane had his first debate in the House of Commons as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food and I went to listen to it. He did very well, and there was really very little raised that was of any importance. On the whole the House is pleased with the conduct of the Ministry of Food - although one of its late parliamentary secretaries - Boothby, who was sacked from it - did his best to be difficult.’

18 August 1942

‘I had a talk with Kingsley Wood, who told me that he thought I’d done my job as Minister of food, and he wanted me to tell Winston this, and look for fresh worlds to conquer, he told me again how well he considered the food problem had been managed, and told me that he thought I ought to hold very high office in the Government.’

24 October 1942

‘I was invited to go to Buckingham Palace for Dinner to meet Mrs Roosevelt, the wife of the President of the United States who is over here on a visit. She is the guest of the King and Queen.

It was a small party - the King and Queen, and Mrs Roosevelt, Hardinge, the King’s private secretary and his wife, and Lascelles, one of the assistant private secretaries, and his wife, Ernest Bevin and myself.

Before dinner when the King and Queen joined the party in the ante-room, the King as he shook hands with me said that he thought the Ministry of Food was doing an excellent job, and said that he and the country were grateful to me

I sat next to the Queen, whilst Mrs R. sat on the King’s right-hand with Bevin next to her. The Queen was charming - as she always is - and I had a long conversation with her, chiefly about religion. We were agreed that the only thing that is going to bring England - and the other countries - back to real peace is a re-awakening of a spiritual sense. We talked much about this and I felt that I was sermonising, and begged her pardon adding that she might have thought the Archbishop of Canterbury was talking to her, except, of course, that I felt he would have discussed banking, not religion.’

28 October 1942

‘I dined with Harriman at his flat. Harriman was in a most pessimistic mood about the provision of shipping: said that we were going to be extremely hard put to it and he thought that British agriculture ought to be altered: that we ought to grow more wheat in this country and less feeding-stuffs for animals, thereby saving shipping, both on the importation of wheat and on the importation of meat, since, if we grow less animal feeding stuffs we should have to slaughter our cattle.

I refused lo be drawn into the conversation saying that I thought the only way in which I could possibly get on with Mr Hudson [Minister of Agriculture] was if we each minded our own business.’

Departed on Air Force One

‘Departed on Air Force One for the northeastern part of England in the Newcastle area, Tyne and Wear County, which was coincidentally the only county that the Labour Party didn’t lose in the elections yesterday. I’m at somewhat of a disadvantage in discussing the finance matters because Callaghan, Fukuda, Giscard, and Schmidt have all been finance ministers and have economics as a background. I’ve already begun to see the need for me to travel more and learn more about other leaders and countries.’ This is from the published diary of Jimmy Carter - 100 years old today - written while serving as president of the United States, 1977-1981. 

James Earl Carter Jr. was born on 1 October 1924, in Plains, Georgia. His father, a segregationist, was a successful peanut farmer and businessman who ran a general store and invested in farmland. His son was educated locally, then at Georgia Southwestern College, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and, from 1943, the Naval Academy, graduating in 1946. Soon after he married Rosalynn Smith, a friend of his sister, with whom he would have four children. In 1948, he began officer training for submarine duty and served aboard USS Pomfret; being promoted to lieutenant junior grade in 1949. He was preparing to become an engineering officer for the submarine Seawolf in 1953 when his father died. He resigned his commission and returned to Georgia to manage the family peanut farm operations.

Carter quickly became a leader of the community, serving on county boards supervising education, the hospital authority, and the library. In 1962, he won election to the Georgia Senate, but failed in 1966 to win election as governor. In 1971, though, he successfully ran again becoming Georgia’s 76th governor. He was the Democratic National Committee campaign chairman for the 1974 congressional and gubernatorial elections. Among the new intake of young southern governors, he attracted attention by emphasising efficiency in government and the removal of racial discrimination.

When Carter announced his candidacy for president in December 1974, he was virtually unknown, but after the national disappointments of Vietnam and Watergate, Democratic voters welcomed a fresh choice. He chose Minnesota senator Walter Mondale as his running mate. In November 1976 the Carter-Mondale ticket won the election, capturing 51% of the popular vote and garnering 297 electoral votes to Gerald Ford’s 240. On his second day in office he pardoned all Vietnam War draft evaders. He went on to create a national energy policy, and to pusue the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, and the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. His administration established the U.S. Department of Energy and the Department of Education.

The end of Carter’s presidency was marked by a series of troubles:  the Iran hostage crisis, an energy crisis, the Three Mile Island accident, the Nicaraguan Revolution, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In response to the latter, Carter ended détente, imposed a grain embargo against the Soviets, and led the multinational boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.That same year he lost the 1980 presidential election in a landslide to Ronald Reagan.

Subsequently, Carter established the Carter Center to promote and expand human rights. In 2002 he received a Nobel Peace Prize. He traveled extensively to conduct peace negotiations, monitor elections, and help eradicate infectious diseases. He has written numerous books, ranging from political memoirs to poetry, while continuing to comment on global affairs, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At 100 years old, he is the longest-lived former U.S. president. Further information is available from Wikipedia, The White House, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and The White House Historical Association.

During his presidency, Carter kept a diary by dictating his thoughts and observations several times each day. It was edited and annotated by Carter himself to be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2010 as White House Diary. This can be previewed online at Googlebooks. The Los Angeles Times judged the book thus: ‘It all makes for a uniquely unfiltered look at what occupying the Oval Office day to day means, as well as a bit of second thinking and score-settling.’

Here is an extract from Carter’s own preface: ‘Readers should remember that I seldom exercised any restraint on what I dictated, because I did not contemplate the more personal entries ever being made public. When my opinions of people changed, for instance, I did not go back and amend the entries. [. . .] Despite a temptation to conceal my errors, misjudgments of people, or lack of foresight, I decided when preparing this book not to revise the original transcript, but just to use the unchanged excerpts from the diaries that I consider to be most revealing and interesting. Admittedly, it was somewhat painful for me to omit about three-fourths of the diary, but for the sake of compression I concentrated on a few general themes that are still pertinent - especially Middle East peace negotiations, nuclear weaponry, US-China relations, energy policy, anti-inflation efforts, health policy, and my relationships with Congress. I also included some elements of my personal life that illustrate how it feels and what it means to be president. [. . .] Throughout this book, I wrote explanatory notes to help the reader understand the context of the entries, bring to life the duties of a president, offer insights into a number of the people I worked with, and point out how many of the important challenges remain the same. At times we presidents have reacted to similar events in much the same way; at other times we’ve responded quite differently. In presenting this annotated diary, my intention is not to defend or excuse my own actions or to criticize others, but simply to provide, based on current knowledge, an objective analysis of differences. Whenever possible, I attempt to articulate what lessons I learned and offer my own frank assessment of what I or others might have done differently.’

And here are several extracts from White House Diary.

17 February 1977
‘Mama returned from India, and I had a brief meeting with her early this morning. 1 think the trip was a superb diplomatic effort, and the State Department later said that we have the best relationship since 1960, to a large degree because of Mother’s visit there and her obvious concern about the Indian people. She got along well with Mrs. Indira Gandhi, by the way, whom she formerly had not liked or admired as a political figure.

Got my first haircut up in Rosalynn’s little beauty parlor next to the dining room. The barber is from Puerto Rico, and he and I spoke Spanish during the haircut. I think he might take over the regular barbershop in the West Wing shortly since the present barber is a strong Nixonite.

Amy and I went swimming for the first time. The temperature was freezing, and the outdoor pool had been slightly heated. We enjoyed it, though, and I’m going to try to do as many things as possible with Amy. I see her at least for supper every night, and quite often, I’d say two or three times a week after supper, we have some time together, either bowling or going to a movie or going swimming; and then the weekends we have always several hours together. She seems to like her school fine, but she still prefers Plains, which she has known all her life.’

6 May 1977
‘Departed on Air Force One for the northeastern part of England in the Newcastle area, Tyne and Wear County, which was coincidentally the only county that the Labour Party didn’t lose in the elections yesterday. I’m at somewhat of a disadvantage in discussing the finance matters because [Jim] Callaghan, [Yasuo] Fukuda [Japan], [Valéry] Giscard [D’Estaing, France], and [Helmut] Schmidt [Germany] have all been finance ministers and have economics as a background. I’ve already begun to see the need for me to travel more and learn more about other leaders and countries. There’s a great desire in the Western world for a restoration of confidence, and I believe that unless that confidence is derived from the strength of our country it won’t be coming from any other source. There doesn’t seem to be any jealousy of the strength of the United States, only an eagerness to see their own nations consulted on matters and an assurance that we won’t make peremptory decisions that might be embarrassing to them at home. Every one of the other leaders is very weak politically, and they recognize that at least for the moment I’m quite strong politically. They also see that to show a friendly relationship with me but to retain their own independence and prerogatives is a good combination for them politically. And, of course, I’m eager to accommodate that desire on their part.

I was surprised at the strength of Pierre Trudeau [prime minister of Canada], who seems to be at ease with all the others, quite uninhibited in his expressions of opinion, and they seemed to listen to him quite closely.

The Germans have some concern about our human rights position because they feel that in a quiet, unpublicized way they’ve extracted many East European citizens into the western European area. 
Callaghan showed us the room at 10 Downing Street where we will be meeting. It’s so small that only twenty-two people can get in it, but it’s been set up in a wonderful way, I think, for free discussions where there will be a disinclination to make speeches. Obviously there’s a tremendous struggle among staff members and others to get inside the room, but I think Callaghan did wisely to hold the room so there’s no way to stretch the limit.’

28 May 1977
‘We went fishing on Blackbeard Island, leaving about 6:00 a.m. and getting over there about 9:00 a.m. We fished for bluegill bream, and Charlie and I caught the largest bream I’ve ever seen. I enjoyed talking with Kirbo about the problems that I face as president, with big business, who are a greedy bunch; or the special interest groups; Congress; some of the foreign leaders. Quite often when I talk to him this in itself is helpful, but in addition he’s sometimes able to solve my problems. He has unique interrelationships both inside and outside of government, and he’s close enough to understand me well, and very discreet. He’s able to separate his law practice from his relationship with me, which is also reassuring.’

See also A boiling cauldron.

I was utterly amazed!

Here is a third sample chapter from the yet-to-be-published London in Diaries, this one about Abul Hassan, a Persian ambassador in the early part of the 19th century. He was the first Persian envoy to England in 200 years, and he became something of a London celebrity. See also The Drama of London in WWI and 34 heads on London Bridge.

Abul Hassan, Persian ambassador and society favourite 

‘I was utterly amazed! If such a situation had lasted for several days in one of Iran’s cities, 2,000 or more people would have been executed by now.’ This is Abul Hassan, a Persian ambassador writing in his diary about the aftermath of a riot he had witnessed on London streets. Such a reaction is hardly surprising given that most of his family had been murdered only a decade earlier in a bloody power struggle. More surprising, perhaps, is how much of a celebrity he became in London society, still then dominated by the court of King George III. The diary is rich in detail about the city and its people, and often displays a naive, but intriguing, quality in that much of what he saw was so very different from his familiar Persian world.

Mirza Abul Hassan Khan was born in 1776 in Shiraz when it was still the capital of Persia. For a generation his mother’s brother Haji Ibrahim, was the most influential minister in the country, and Abul Hassan married one of his daughters. In 1801, following a power struggle, Haji Ibrahim was murdered (in a vat of boiling water), and most of the rest of the family killed. Abul Hassan was imprisoned and saved from death by a last minute reprieve. He fled abroad, and only returned after receiving a royal decree of forgiveness and favour. 

In 1809, Abul Hassan came to London - the first Persian envoy to do so in 200 years - to secure the ratification of an Anglo-Persian treaty. His mission lasted eight months, longer than he expected, but throughout his stay he was attentively entertained by his official host, Sir Gore Ouseley, a diplomat and linguist. (Later, Ouseley would return with Abul Hassan to Persia to become the British ambassador there, and, in 1814, would help negotiate an important treaty between Russia and Persia.) While in London, Abul Hassan became something of a society favourite, for he was tall, dark and handsome, wore rich silken robes, and had a very long beard. His name regularly appeared in the daily newspapers, and members of the royal family gave parties in his honour.

Some ten years later, in 1819, Abul Hassan returned to London to revitalise Anglo-Persian relations. Following the defeat of Napoleon, the British had concluded an alliance with Russia, and were less interested in the Persian connection. He again attracted much social interest, all the more so this time, for having an alluring young companion, allegedly bought in the Constantinople slave market. He stayed 10 months this time, but his visit was not a diplomatic success. On returning to Tehran he acted as an adviser to the Shah on foreign affairs and, in 1824, became Persia’s first foreign minister. He died in 1846.

While abroad, Abul Hassan kept a diary, hoping it might be of use to future ambassadors. The original manuscript is no longer extant, but copies were made for circulation in the Persian court, and then copies of those were also produced. In the 1980s, Margaret Morris Cloake translated one owned by Abul Hassan’s great-great-great-granddaughter and this was published in 1988 by Barrie & Jenkins as A Persian at the court of King George, 1809-10. It includes a copy of the beautiful portrait of the author (held in the British Library) by Sir William Beechey, who lived in Harley Street, one street west of where Abul Hassan was staying. On visiting Beechey for the first time, Abul Hassan noted his 13 children were all ‘pretty as shining stars’. Another portrait by Beechey of Abul Hassan kneeling in a red cloak sold at auction in 2006 for over £180,000.

The diary text itself, as translated by Cloake, is a wonderfully fresh portrait of London in the year before George III finally lapsed into madness and his son took over as Prince Regent. On the diplomatic side, Abul Hassan records his meetings with government ministers and officials of the East India Company, which had been trading with Persia since the early 17th century. Constantly frustrated by delays in the ratification of the Anglo-Persian Treaty, he nevertheless eventually achieved his diplomatic aims. On the personal side, though, the diary reveals an intelligent, cultured, observant man, but one very unused to European ways. 

Gold and azure, divs and peris
21 December 1809
This morning I went out with my friends in the carriage to see the sights of London. Splendid houses line both sides of the street. They all look alike; the name of the owner is painted on each door. I saw no humble dwellings, only fine houses of four storeys. The first storey is built of stone and the other three of brick and stucco. The ceilings are decorated with gold and azure; and the walls are covered with designs of wild beasts and birds, divs and peris [names in Persian mythology for demons and fairies]. The windows are glazed with matching panes. Stables and carriage-houses are conveniently placed behind each house. 

When we reached the centre of the city, a bridge of massive stones [Westminster Bridge] came into view which spans a river like the one at Baghdad. Words fail to describe it! After crossing the bridge, we came to a street with shops built to the requirements of the various trades. Outside the shops there are signs. If anyone wants to buy something, the shopkeeper opens the door for him; and then the customer, without bargaining, makes his selection, pays for it and returns to his carriage. Because of the cold weather, as well as for fear of thieves, drunkards and madmen, shop doors are kept shut, except to allow customers to enter. Both sides of the market street are closed off by nicely carved balustrades to prevent horse-riders from crossing on to the pedestrian pavement.

Everything is regulated by time
Above the entrance to each house, large round glass lanterns are suspended from iron hooks. One man is responsible for cleaning the glass of the lamps; another looks after the wick and the oil; and at sunset a third comes with a ladder and sparking torch - in the twinkling of an eye the lamps are lit. The owners of the house pay the lamplighters a monthly wage which enables them to live comfortably. It is truly amazing that in winter it is so dark in this city that the sun is invisible and lamps must be lighted day and night. Indeed, the eye is dazzled and no one need carry a hand-lantern even when going out in the evening.

Every man, whether of high or low estate, wears a watch in his waistcoat pocket; and everything he does - eating or drinking, or keeping appointments - is regulated by time. Factories (and bakeries) and livery stables all have fixed hours of work which are strictly adhered to; and each one has a large clock fixed to the wall which strikes the hours.

Servants do not disturb their masters’ privacy until summoned.

These are only a very few of the customs of the inhabitants of London. They are recorded here because it is my hope that this journal will prove to be a useful guide for future ambassadors.

At Hyde Park and the King’s Theatre
28 December 1809
Because I was feeling bilious and sad, Sir George Ouseley took me out to a place called Hyde Park: it is a vast open field, which in spring becomes a flower-garden with green lawns two miles square. Paths surround it, where men and women may walk for pleasure and relaxation. Other paths are reserved for horse-riders and carriages.

It happened that my horse shied and I almost fell to the ground; but my mehmandar [official guide/escort] skilfully managed to control it. He said that tomorrow he would arrange for me to have a gentler mount. They have truly splendid horses in England; but it is a pity they clip short their manes and tails.

30 December 1809
After dinner we went to the Opera, which is a grand theatre like nothing I have seen before; it has seven magnificent tiers, all decorated in gold and azure, and hung with brocade curtains and paintings. [This was the King’s Theatre in Haymarket, the largest theatre in England at the time. It burnt down in 1867, and was replaced with another, which was demolished a few decades later to be replaced by Her Majesty’s Theatre, built in 1897, which is still extant.]

Dancers and sweet-voiced singers appeared one after the other to entertain us, acting and dancing likes Greeks and Russians and Turks. Their music and songs banished sorrow from the hearts of the audience. It is amazing that although 5,000 people may gather in the theatre, they do not make a loud noise - when they enjoy a song they clap their hands together; if they think the singing bad, they say ‘hiss’.

The Bank of England’s ‘notes’
5 January 1810
Accompanied by Sir George Ouseley [. . .] I drove in my carriage to the Bank, which is near the India House in the City of London. The magnificent building was crowded with people, including some 400 soldiers on parade who are employees of the Bank. [. . .]

A most extraordinary thing is the fact that they print thin pieces of paper each one of which is given a particular value from one toman to 1,000 [tomans]. These printed papers are called ‘notes’, and they are just as valuable as gold. Some 200 clerks work from morning till night making these notes, which are printed with certain marks which make it extremely difficult to forge them. Just as it is impossible to create a likeness of the Incomparable Creator - so it is with these notes! [. . .]

I found the bank - with its vast organization of clerks, soldiers and labourers - more impressive than the Court of a powerful Sultan.

Where it is pleasant to walk in all seasons
9 January 1810
Many London houses are built around ‘squares’: these are large, [. . .] enclosed by iron railings as high as a man and set vertically a hand’s breadth apart. The streets between the houses and the square are wide enough for three carriages to drive abreast; and streets for carriages, horse-riders and pedestrians lead out from each corner. Each square belongs to the owners of the houses surrounding it, and only they are allowed to go in. On each side there is an iron gate which the residents - men, women and children - use when they wish to spend some time walking and relaxing within. The squares are pleasant gardens, planted with a variety of trees and beautiful, bright flowers. Most squares also have pools of water and wide, straight paths to walk along. Three gardeners are kept busy in each square repairing paths, plantings trees and flowers and tending the shrubs. At night street lamps are lighted - like those outside each house. The doors and windows of all the houses look out on to the square. It is pleasant to walk there in all seasons.

King Lear and Grimaldi at Covent Garden
12 January 1810
On either side of the lofty stage [Covent Garden theatre, recently rebuilt] are galleries with painted ceilings. Although somewhat smaller than the Opera, the decoration is more elaborate. Musicians banished sorrow from our hearts with their songs. It seemed strange that the audience reacted to some of the tunes with such boisterous applause that it could be heard by the cherubim in heaven, but to others they appeared totally deaf.

The manager of the theatre, Mr Kemble [John Philip] acted the part of a King of Britain who divides his kingdom between two of his daughter, leaving the third without a share [this was a much-altered version of King Lear].

Next, several multi-coloured curtains were lowered, and from behind these curtains - in the manner of Iranian acrobats - appeared the fantastic figures of divs and peris, of birds and beasts. No one watching their antics could possibly have retained his composure. Grimaldi, a famous clown, performed an act which I shall never forget: he would leap from a high window and just as easily leap back up again, returning each time as a different character and causing the noble audience to laugh uncontrollably.

Walking around the theatre, my companions and I saw beautiful ladies, beautifully dressed, casting flirtatious glances from their boxes. Then we left the theatre by the King’s door and came home.

The artisans of London excel in every craft 
6 February 1810
I went [. . .] to a glass and mirror manufactory, where we observed stones and other ingredients combined and melted in furnaces to produce clear, jewel-like glass. I enquired about the glass and mirror industry and asked if there were any other, superior, manufacturers of mirrors. The man replied honestly: “English artisans are highly skilled and unrivalled throughout Europe. But the French produce a better-quality mirror because of the different materials they use.” The fairness of the master’s reply pleased me and I ordered two qalians [water pipes] from him. They made two sets for me by hand.

From there we went to a crystal-cutting factory. We looked around and were told the prices of various patterns. English cut-crystal is superior to that of other countries because the English have a greater appreciation of art.

Finally we visited a gunsmith renowned for the manufacture of shotguns and pistols. The perfection of his workmanship is universally recognized - he has no peer in all of Europe.

The artisans of London excel in every craft with the exception of brocade-weaving. But European brocades are rarely used here because their import is prohibited by Royal decree. English leather and metal-work are also of high quality. But prices are high in London. For example: a knife coasts four ‘guineas’. (A ‘guinea’ is the equivalent of one Iranian toman, sometimes more.) Even the drinking water is sold and brings a revenue of 90,000 tomans a year.

Rioting and vandalism in the streets 
6 April 1810
On our way there we saw that lamps were lighted at the door of every house and cottage and that the roads were blocked by a multitude of carriages. I asked the reason for the tumult and I was told that a man called Sir Francis Burdett, who is a member of Parliament for London, had spoken against the Government and the King and caused an uproar in Parliament. He was therefore sentenced to two to three months in prison; if the Council agrees, he will be released after the prorogation of Parliament. This evening his supporters were trying to prevent his arrest: they called for every house to light up and they threw stones at the windows of all those who refused. [Burdett, a very popular politician of the time, had published a letter accusing the House of Commons of excluding the press from debates about the disastrous Walcheren expedition during which thousands of troops sent to the Netherlands to fight the French had died of sickness in the swampy Walcheren region.]

7 April 1810
In the morning it was reported that most of the ministers’ and councillors’ houses were stoned and damaged last night, including those of the Prime Minister [. . .]. The King’s Army was called out to quell the rioting and soldiers of the cavalry and infantry are posted in the city.

I left the house to go riding as usual. I met some English friends and acquaintances who tried to discourage me from going out today. [. . .] I met Mrs Perceval, wife of the Prime Minister, riding in a handsome carriage. She, too, advised me against being out of doors and warned me that today’s rioting was worse than last night’s. [. . .] I did not heed her advice and when I encountered the soldiers they all took off their hats to me as a sign of respect. When I asked why the rioting had not yet been suppressed, they said that the councillors were still deliberating and that without a warrant from the Council they could not remove the criminal from his house to the King’s prison.

I was utterly amazed! If such a situation had lasted for several days in one of Iran’s cities, 2,000 or more people would have been executed by now.

Good business for glaziers
9 April 1810
This morning I heard that Sir Francis Burdett has been arrested and taken to the Tower. Ten to fifteen of his supporters have been killed. His term of imprisonment is three months, after which he will be able to resume his seat in Parliament. In the Tower he is not kept in chains and he may even receive visits from his friends.

Calm was restored to the city and in the evening I went to a party.

10 April 1810
[I was told] the guns destined for Iran have been collected together and are ready for shipping.

We discussed the riots and the fact that the glaziers are doing a flourishing business because of all the broken windows.

Old age in the Chelsea Hospital
16 April 1810
I walked in the Park, enjoying the trees and the flowers. From there we went to a vast three-storey building set in a large wooded park on the river at Chelsea. It is called the Royal Hospital [founded by Charles II in 1691] and it houses retired soldiers over fifty years of age who spend the rest of their lives in peace and comfort. They are provided with clothing and food by the English Government: 500 men sit down together for meals. Most of the men I saw there had suffered wounds in battle and had had an arm or leg amputated.

In addition to these soldiers, 12,000 pensioners live at home with their families: they each receive twelve tomans a year from the Government. Near the Hospital is another large stone building built eight years ago by the second Royal Prince, the Duke of York, for children whose fathers were killed in the wars.

I do not know if the King is a religious man, but God must be pleased with him for building this house and caring for orphans. And his soldiers must be all the more loyal and willing to risk their lives in battle if they can look forward to a comfortable old age in the Chelsea Hospital.

20 April 1810
[Good Friday] Today was an important holy day for the English, the anniversary of the day Jesus (may peace be upon him) was crucified on a gallows with four nails. But there were so many people out in the country that it looked more like the day of the Last Judgement.

A boat launch at East India Docks
21 April 1810
We left Greenwich in a Royal barge and travelled three miles down the River Thames. In many places on the river straight canals have been dug to cut across the meanders and thus shorten the journey. A charge is made to boats for the use of these canals.

The East India Company has constructed its own dock for shipbuilding and for the unloading of merchandise brought from India by ship. When we arrived, some 10,000 people had already gathered to watch the launching of the new ship. [These docks at Blackwall on the north bank had opened a few years earlier.] 

One of the Royal Princes, the Duke of Clarence [and future King Willian IV], who serves in the Royal Navy, was there to launch the ship. He was accompanied by one of his pretty daughters and he introduced me to her.

The Prince struck the bow of the ship with a bottle of wine and she slipped smoothly into the river. There were many guests on board and a young child shouted: “We are off! Goodbye!”.

What they call an ‘exhibition’
27 April 1810
Early in the morning Sir Gore Ouseley and I went to Somerset House, a large and magnificent mansion built of stone, like a small castle, overlooking the river. In one part of the building about 1,000 naval officers and clerks administer the affairs of the Royal Navy.

In another part of the building famous artists show their paintings to the general public, who pay two shillings to look at what they call an ‘exhibition’. The money collected is given to poor painters and their children. By showing their paintings here, artists may gain in reputation and attract sitters to have their portraits painted. The work is well paid.

My portrait by Sir William Beechey was among those in the exhibition.

Gentleman driving in the rain
17 May 1810
I drove my carriage to Cavendish Square, where there was a crowd of some 3,000 people. It was cold and raining heavily. Nonetheless, ten lords and distinguished gentlemen had taken the place of their drivers in splendid and shining four-horse carriages and were preparing to race each other along a road which had been closed to traffic. I was amazed that these gentlemen should choose to dress in livery of carriage-drivers and apparently enjoy driving in pouring rain! My friends assured me that in this season it is the custom for these gentlemen to parade in drivers’ livery and demonstrate how well they can drive their own carriages. Still, I felt sorry for them in the rain.

I thought about this sport and concluded that these young men are trying to impose some kind of discipline on their idle lives: they do nothing all day long but write letters or walk about town twirling their watch-chains; and their evenings are spent at the theatre or at parties, dancing in shoes much too small for them in order to impress the ladies.

There are 900,000 people of low and high estate in this vast city; but it is true that only a small number are dissolute dandies. Compared with other cities, most Londoners are well mannered and sensible; and if there are a few tearaways, they do little harm.

The English are always happy when it rains because it is good for the crops.

The Royal Arsenal at Woolwich
9 June 1810
I went with Sir George Ouseley [. . .] to visit the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich [. . .]. There are not enough pages in this journal to describe its wonders.

We went first to the house of the General commanding the Arsenal. He and several colonels accompanied us to the brass foundry, where they make brass cannon and shot of various sizes. The foundry operates for twenty-four hours a day. We watched as the necessary ingredients were melted in furnaces and then poured into cannon-shaped moulds which are placed near the furnaces. Twelve cannon are cast at one time. The moulds are slightly larger than the size desired: after cooling, the cannon are lifted from the moulds by a six-horsepower crane; a steam-powered metal drill is used to bore the cannon-mouths and to smooth the barrels. There were ten men each working one of these machines: without steam the work would require 100 men.

In another place they make gun-carriages and other things out of iron. The iron is melted in a large furnace and buckets are used to pour the molten iron into moulds. There are steam-driven circular saws made of iron or steel capable of cutting timber into 100 pieces in one minute. Other machines perform other jobs; for example, a special attachment makes it possible to taper an iron bar as easily as if it were wood. The machines and tools in this workshop were invented only two years ago.

In another place lead is melted in huge cauldrons which hang over constantly burning fires. The lead is used to make shells and bullets. Children are employed to make bullets for firearms. In still another place workers prepare gunpowder and grenades.

In several open fields, cannon made of iron or brass are arranged according to size. There are also two yards for the storage of shot, arranged so that you can tell at a glance how many there are. [. . .]

There is also a dockyard at Woolwich where one hundred warships of all sizes are built yearly to replace ships lost to the enemy or which have become obsolete. Because of the high cost of armaments and machinery, the Government is usually in debt and forced to borrow from the public.

Work of infinite grandeur

‘For some time past I have been occupied with a work of infinite grandeur. At the moment I do not know whether I shall carry it through. It looks like a mighty dream. But for days and weeks it has possessed me beyond the limits of consciousness; it accompanies me wherever I go, hovers behind my ordinary talk, looks over my shoulder at my comically trivial journalistic work, disturbs me and intoxicates me.’ This is from the extensive diaries kept by Thomas Herzl who died 120 years ago today. An Austro-Hungarian Jewish writer and political activist, he is considered to be the father of modern political Zionism.

Herzl was born of middle-class parents in the Jewish quarter of Pest (now eastern part of Budapest), Hungary. He first studied in a scientific secondary school, but, to escape from its anti-Semitic atmosphere, he transferred in 1875 to a school where most of the students were Jews. In 1878 the family moved to Vienna, where he entered the University of Vienna to study law. He received his license to practice in 1884 but chose to devote himself to the arts.

For a number of years, Herzl worked as a journalist and was also a moderately successful playwright. In 1889 he married Julie Naschauer, daughter of a wealthy Jewish businessman, and they had three children. In 1891, the leading Viennese newspaper, Neue Freie Presse, appointed him its Paris correspondent. But, on arriving in the French capital with his family, he was shocked to find anti-Semitism as rife as in Austria (not least because of the Dreyfus Affair). His understanding of social and political affairs led him to take the view that assimilation was not the answer to anti-semitism, instead he came to believe that Jews should work towards a state of their own. 

In his 1896 pamphlet The Jewish State, Herzl argued that the establishment of a modern, European homeland for Jews would provide a refuge for a persecuted people and prevent competition with non-Jews. Antisemitism would disappear and Jews would be able to ‘live at last as free men on our own soil’. The following year, he convened the first Zionist Congress, in Basle, with the aim of taking practical steps to establish a Jewish state. The Congress launched the World Zionist Organization with Herzl as its president, and he soon established a Zionist weekly newspaper, Die Welt, in Vienna. Negotiations began with Turkey and Britain for a mass Jewish settlement in Palestine or the Sinai Peninsula, but these did not prove successful. Although Herzl was willing to accept an offer from Britain of land in what was then Uganda, other members of the Congress strongly opposed this idea (though it was not actually rejected until after Herzl’s death). 

Herzl died on 3 July 1904, aged only 44. First buried at a Viennese cemetery his remains were brought to Israel in 1949 and buried on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, which was named after him. His coffin was draped in a blue and white pall decorated with a Star of David circumscribing a Lion of Judah and seven gold stars recalling Herzl's original proposal for a flag of the Jewish state. An Israeli national holiday is celebrated annually on the tenth of the Hebrew month of Iyar, to commemorate his life and vision. Further information is readily available online - see Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, or The Herzl Institute. 

The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl edited by Raphael Patai, translated by Harry Zohn, was published in five volumes (inc. an index) by Thomas Yoseloff in 1960. A one-volume compendium - covering 1895-1904 - can be read freely online at Internet Archive - though beware it runs to nearly 2,000 pages! The preface begins: ‘A hundred years after his birth, fifty-six years after his death, and twelve years after the realization of his dream in the State of Israel, Theodor Herzl is universally recognized in Jewish history, and, in fact, in world history, as the founder of political Zionism and the father of the Jewish state. His Diaries, published here in full for the first time, contain the fascinating record of the eight last years of his life during which, practically single-handed and at the sacrifice of his fortune, his career, his family and his very life, he created a world movement among the Jews and made the rulers and governments of his day accept the idea that the Jewish people must have a homeland of its own.’

Herzl’s own text begins as follows: ‘For some time past I have been occupied with a work of infinite grandeur. At the moment I do not know whether I shall carry it through. It looks like a mighty dream. But for days and weeks it has possessed me beyond the limits of consciousness; it accompanies me wherever I go, hovers behind my ordinary talk, looks over my shoulder at my comically trivial journalistic work, disturbs me and intoxicates me. It is still too early to surmise what will come of it. But my experience tells me that even as a dream it is something remarkable, and that I ought to write it down - if not as a reminder to mankind, then at least for my own delight or reflection in later years. And perhaps as something between these two possibilities - that is, as literature. If my conception is not translated into reality, at least out of my activity can come a novel. Title: The Promised Land!’

Here’s a flavour of Herzl’s diaries.

11 June 1895
‘Daudet asked me whether I wanted to carry on my Jewish campaign in a novel. He reminded me of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

I told him then and there that I desired a more manly form of announcement. At that time I was still thinking of the Enquête [treatise] to be entitled The Situation of the Jews.

Today, the more I think about it the more it seems to me that it would really be beneath my dignity to make my plan palatable to the masses through love affairs and little jests, as Bellamy did in his utopian novel.

It would be easy for me, because I am an experienced writer of belles-lettres. Yet I must take care not to let the book become unreadable. After all, it is to make a deep impression on the people, on the nations.

Let it have a bit of literary fascination, then. It consists in the free-flowing sequence of ideas as they moved through my mind during these sunny days of the world dream in serene profusion, with all their accidents [imperfections], as the sculptors put it (“finger marks in the clay”).

This will also prevent leafing through this book in search of chapter headings. Whoever wants to know what is in it will have to read it.’ 

21 November 1895, London
‘Visit to Israel Zangwill, the writer. He lives in Kilburn, N. W. A drive in the fog through endless streets. Arrived a bit out of sorts. The house is rather shabby. In his book-lined study Zangwill sits before an enormous writing table with his back to the fireplace. Also close to the fire, his brother, reading. Both give one the impression of shivering southerners who have been cast up on the shores of Ultima Thule. Israel Zangwill is of the long-nosed Negroid type, with very woolly deep-black hair, parted in the middle; his clean-shaven face displays the steely haughtiness of an honest ambitious man who has made his way after bitter struggles. The disorder in his room and on his desk leads me to infer that he is an internalized person. I have not read any of his writings, but I think I know him. He must bestow all the care that is lacking in his outward appearance on his style.

Our conversation is laborious. We speak in French, his command of which is inadequate. I don’t even know whether he understands me. Still, we agree on major points. He, too, is in favor of our territorial independence.

However, his point of view is a racial one - which I cannot accept if I so much as look at him and at myself. All I am saying is: We are an historical unit, a nation with anthropological diversities. This also suffices for the Jewish State. No nation has uniformity of race.

We soon get down to practical points. He gives me the names of several suitable men: Colonel Goldsmid, the painter Solomon, Rabbi Singer, Mocatta, Abrahams, Montefiore, Lucien Wolf, Joseph Jacobs, N.S. Joseph, and, of course. Chief Rabbi Adler.

I shall meet these men next Sunday at the banquet of the Maccabeans and arrange a conference for Monday at which I shall present my plan.

Colonel Goldsmid - for me the most important - is stationed at Cardiff with his regiment.

Zangwill is asking him by telegram to come here. Otherwise I shall have to go to Cardiff to see him.’

18 February 1896
‘At noon the university lecturer Feilbogen called on me at the office and said he had to talk to me about the pamphlet - “It is the most significant thing that Zionist literature has produced to date,” etc. - paeans of praise.

In the afternoon he came to my house and opened the conversation by asking whether my pamphlet was meant to be taken seriously or whether it was not a satirical presentation of Zionism.

I was quite taken aback and answered: “I am too old for such Alcibiadic jests.”

Then, for hours on end, he split hairs, harping on this, carping on that.

I was so sickened by it all that I was unable to go on writing the letter to Badeni, and, in fact, didn’t feel like doing anything any more.

In the evening, however, I heard at the office that the Deutsche Zeitung (anti-Semitic) is going to publish an editorial on the subject tomorrow. Presumably abuse. But important in any case, because of the attitude the other papers will take in reply. Now I again feel like writing to Badeni.’

12 May 1896
‘Great things need no solid foundation. An apple must be put on a table so that it will not fall. The earth floats in mid-air.

Similarly, I may be able to found and stabilize the Jewish State without any firm support.

The secret lies in motion. (I believe that somewhere in this area of thought lies the invention of the dirigible airship. Weight overcome by motion; and not the ship but its motion is to be steered.)’

25 June 1896
‘Sent off the Grand Vizier interview to Vienna today, by a passenger on the Orient Express.

In the evening Newlinski came from the Palace where, it appears, people are already very favorably disposed toward me. They are taking to the Jewish idea.

Right now they seem to be in a very bad fix in regard to money. However, the matter would have to be presented in some other form. Sauver les apparences [Save face]!

Izzet (through whom, of course, the Sultan speaks) or the Sultan (through whom Izzet speaks) would be willing enough to yield Palestine if the proper formula could be found for the transaction. Precisely because things are going badly for them they must not sell any land, Newlinski reports; but he observes that my idea is making good progress.

In a few months’ time, the people in Yildiz Kiosk will perhaps be ripe for it. L'idée les travaille visiblement [it is plain to see that the idea agitates them].

Nuri Bey, too, is very sympathetic toward our cause. Today he said that we should endeavor to win over the Czar.

Bad news again today from Anatolia. New massacres at Van.’

26 June 1896
‘Another selamlik. Exactly the same spectacle as a week ago.

Newlinski says he is convinced that the Turks are willing to give us Palestine. He says it is just like when a man has a hunch that a woman is willing to surrender; in such a situation one may not even be able to say as yet what this hunch is based on.

“I say she’s a whore - I don’t know why; I just feel sure,” he said in his broken Polish-German.’

Out for Chinese chow again

‘Out for Chinese chow again tonight. Tom [Hannah], Joe [Greenwood], and I. Morale in this theater at this point is low. Efficiency is also low and V.D. [venereal disease] rates are going up.’ This is from the diaries of John Hart Caughey, an army colonel who served with General George C. Marshall’s during his posting to China as special envoy after WWII. Caughey, who died 30 years ago today, is said to provide, through hid diaries and letters, ‘a rare behind-the-scenes view of the general’s mediation efforts as well as intimate glimpses of the major Chinese figures involved.’

Caughey was born in 1912 in Bellevue, Pennsylvania. Graduating from West Point in 1935, he was appointed to several posts in the US and in Honolulu. He married Alice Elizabeth “Betty” Bowman, and they had one child. After attending the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, he was appointed to the War Department General Staff in Washington in 1942. He was awarded the Legion of Merit. In 1944 he was sent to India but was transferred to the China theatre shortly thereafter to serve on the staff of Lieutenant General A.C. Wedemeyer, commander of U.S. forces in China. Upon General Marshall’s arrival in Chungking, China in 1945, Caughey was selected by Marshall to serve on his staff. He returned to the US in 1947 and continued his military career attaining the rank of Major General. He died on 2 July 1994. A little further information is available at the George C. Marshall Foundation and Find a Grave.

Caughey is mostly remembered today for a diary he kept and the letters he wrote, all collected and published, firstly, in The Marshall Mission to China, 1945-1947: The Letters and Diary of Colonel John Hart Caughey (Rowman & Littlefield, 2011), and then in The Letters and Diaries of Colonel John Hart Caughey, 1944–1945: With Wedemeyer in World War II China (Lexington Books, 2018), both edited by Roger B. Jeans. The two books can be previewed at Googlebooks (1944-1945 and 1945-1947).

According to the publisher, The Marshall Mission to China, 1945-1947 ‘breaks new ground in our understanding of a pivotal period in the history of American foreign policy, the early Cold War, and the struggle for dominance in China between the Nationalists and Communists’. 

The publisher’s blurb continues: ‘The famous Marshall Mission to China has been the focus of intense scrutiny ever since General George C. Marshall returned home in January 1947 and full-scale civil war consumed China. Yet until recently, there was little new to add to the story of the failure to avert war between the Chinese Nationalists, under Chiang Kai-shek, and the Chinese Communists, led by Mao Zedong. Drawing on a newly discovered insider’s account, Roger B. Jeans makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding of Marshall’s failed mediation effort and the roles played by key Chinese figures. Working from the letters and diary of U.S. Army Colonel John Hart Caughey, Jeans offers a fresh interpretation of the mission. From beginning to end, Caughey served as Marshall’s executive officer, in effect his right-hand man, assisting the general in his contacts with the Chinese and drafting key documents for him. Through his writings, Caughey provides a rare behind-the-scenes view of the general’s mediation efforts as well as intimate glimpses of the major Chinese figures involved, including Chiang Kai-shek, Madame Chiang, and Zhou Enlai. In addition to daily contact with Marshall, Caughey often rubbed shoulders with these major Nationalist and Communist figures. As a meticulous eyewitness to history in the making, Caughey offers crucial insight into a key moment in post-World War II history.’

Of the second book to be published - The Letters and Diaries of Colonel John Hart Caughey, 1944–1945 -the publisher says: ‘[Caughey] chronicled the US military’s role in wartime China, especially his life as an American planner (when he was subject to military censorship). Previous accounts of the China Theater have largely neglected the role of the War Department planners stationed in Chungking, many of whom were Caughey’s colleagues and friends. He also penned colorful descriptions of life in wartime China, which vividly remind the reader how far China has come in a mere seventy-odd years.’

Here’s a page of typical near-daily diary entries from The Marshall Mission to China, 1945-1947.

10 December 1945
‘[Mel] Huston left last week. Hated to see him go but his hind end needs looking after.’

11 December 1945
‘US Frs [Forces] China Theater rapidly deactivating. But I seem to be stuck. TPS [Theater Planning Section] of which I am chief seems to be taking on more and bigger jobs as others close down.’

13 December 1945
‘Marshall has publically accepted blame for Pearl Harbor. Such a statement would ruin a lesser man.’

16 December 1945
‘New directive received.’

17 December 1945
‘Presidents new Policy on China announced. New attitude may not be better but it sure is different. Where do we go from here?’

18 December 1945
‘Pres[ident’s] Policy at least got the Gmo [Chiang Kai-shek] and Chou En Lai [Zhou En-lai] (N 2 Commie) together again. Maybe something can be worked out.’

19 December 1945
‘Marshall due in tomorrow. Hdrs. is flying about trying to get everything all set.’

20 December 1945
‘Marshall arrived. He’s become China’s “White Hope.” Individually the two factions [the Nationalists and Communists] don’t think so though because somebody is going to have to give or else U.S. will quit.’

21 December 1945
‘Gave presentation for General Marshall today. Each staff section chief did the briefing. He seemed impressed and extremely interested.’

22 December 1945
‘Out for Chinese chow again tonight. Tom [Hannah], Joe [Greenwood], and I. Morale in this theater at this point is low. Efficiency is also low and V.D. [venereal disease] rates are going up.’

One vast To-Let sign

‘Discussions of the evening. Carter on the partition of Germany: “Partition her? Why, we’re going to rent her out! This country is going to be one vast To-Let sign! Or maybe, after all the bombings are over, she’ll be a deep enough crater simply to allow the sea to rush in. Then we’ll all take occupation furloughs and go fishing.’ This is from the recently-published diary of Melvin Jonah Lasky, a young American GI on his way to serve in Germany after its defeat in WW2. Lasky, who died 20 years ago today, would remain in Europe, and become a well known anti-communist liberal, particularly noted for editing the influential Encounter magazine.

Lasky was born in 1920 in New York City and schooled at City College (where he wrote for the student newspaper), University of Michigan and Columbia University. He worked for the New Leader in New York becoming editor in 1942. Joining the U.S. Army in 1943, he served as an historian and had the opportunity to visit Nazi concentration camps. After the war, he settled in Berlin, quickly establishing himself as a leading intellectual thinker, editing Der Monat from 1948 to 1958, and recording important political events such as the 1953 uprising in East Germany and the 1956 Hungarian revolution.

Lasky strongly opposed the Communist USSR, and helped found the Congress for Cultural Freedom, which funded magazines and conferences opposed to Communism. He also became an advisor to General Lucius D. Clay, the American governor in post-war Berlin. In 1958, he joined Encounter, an Anglo-American intellectual journal, originally associated with the anti-Stalinist left, and published the works of such writers as Lionel Trilling and Jean-Paul Sartre. In the 1960s, it was revealed that the magazine was partly funded by the CIA, and, though the scandal hurt Lasky’s reputation, he continued to run Encounter until its final issue in 1990. 

Lasky was married twice, to Brigitte Lasky (née Newiger) with whom he had two children, and to German novelist Helga Hegewisch Lasky. He was the author of several books, including Utopia and Revolution (1975), On the Barricades, and Off (1989), and The Language of Journalism (2000). He was awarded the distinguished service medal from Berlin in 1995, and, two years later, was named ‘one of the most important Berliners’ by a commission of German historians. He died on 19 May 2004. Further information is available from Wikipedia, The Guardian, and Encyclopedia.com.

Lasky kept a diary for a single year - 1945 - while serving in one of the first American divisions that entered Germany after the country’s surrender. He began the diary on 22 January 1945 in Fort Totten, New York, while waiting to be shipped to Europe with the US Army, and concluded it in Frankfurt, Germany, in December. However, the diary was largely forgotten about until it surfaced after Lasky’s death: his assistant Marc Svetov, sorting through papers, found it contained in three neatly stacked ring binders. In time, the diary was duly edited by Charlotte A. Lerg, and published by Berghahn Books in 2022 as The Diary of Lt. Melvin J. Lasky: Into Germany at the End of World War II. Some pages can be sampled at Googlebooks.

According to Berghahn: ‘Lasky’s diary provides a captivating eye-witness account colored by ongoing socio-political debates and his personal background studying Trotskyism. [The book] reproduces the diary’s vivid language as Lasky describes the ideological tensions between the East and West, as well as including critical essays on subjects ranging from Lasky’s life as a transatlantic intellectual, the role of war historians, and the diary as a literary genre.’

‘Written on the verge of the most politically active phase of his life,’ Berg and Maren Roth say in their introduction, ‘Lasky’s 1945 diary illustrates formative moments and reveals personal insights into the mindset of a young man who was convinced of his own intellectual potential, but not quite sure yet how best to put it to use. The diary gives a first glimpse of the political and cultural views he would go on to assert. They emerge from his prewar youth and education, his social milieu, and his political conditioning, mostly in New York City, complemented by the experiences he gathered while serving with the US Army.’

Here are several extracts.

22 January 1945, Fort Totten, New York
‘What do I know? What have I learned? So many volumes, so much carefully contrived experience (even rash exposure to events and “life”), and here I remain, desperately unable to live with myself, incapable of ordering my memories and responses, and shaping my ambitions. I spent the day nervously in the reading room of the library here, I must have fingered with a hopeless and frantic hunger a hundred volumes. But there was nothing for me, not a page I could read, not a sentence I really wanted. There was a Walter Pater miscellany, and I glanced at some phrases on Pascal - “the spectacle of the religious history of the human soul.”. . . No, that is what I do not understand! I looked at McGiffert’s study on Christian theology, but “Love” and “God” were empty, without meaning. Oh, if I could only comprehend them, take all the great words seriously, patiently, how deeply convenient it would be! - there would be an end to weakness, faltering heart and mind. “Spirituality,” and all the supporting strength of classic historic traditions, could be my sanctuary. I could be strong again . . . I turned to a volume on history - “the critical consciousness of civilization about its own past.” Yes, yes! But what does all my once precise and finicky awareness of Sumer and Akkad and the Gracchi and Innocent and Peter Waldo and Cromwell mean for me now? Paltry, vague, irrelevant memories. . . I picked up Gide’s Travels, Cohen’s Logic, some things of Maugham, a novel by Wolfe, Melville’s Billy Budd, a tale by Edna Ferber. . . I must be mad, or ill. Why am I torturing myself? I am lost and despairing. Is there nowhere a page for me - a paragraph, a word, to teach me to live with myself, with my boredom, with my alienation, with my mediocrity? For the first time in my life, I think, I am alone and bereft. My old formulas are gone and useless. I do now know how to be happy.’

13 February 1945, Lunéville
‘If the confusion and incompetence of the history-recorders reflects the actual situation of the history-makers then the chaos of the battlefield is reaching new depths. I can’t seem to be able to find anybody who knows what he is doing. Policies are unclarified, procedures are botched, and the method and theory of the historical section absurd. The Colonel took a morning recently to restate functions and objectives. After an hour or so, Mooney asked permission to make a comment. “Sir, that’s all very well and good, but - ” and he hesitated only a moment, “but frankly - I don’t know whether to shit or go blind!” 

Which just about sums it up. As someone remarked today, the historian-in-chief is “an insurance salesman. . . And the only trouble is, we’re not selling insurance!” A few minutes later the Colonel came through. He tossed a few hasty glances at the oddly occupied office. “I think some of you people ought to find out the unit of measure around here,” he said. “It’s hours, not days! Every goddammed thing takes days, days!” And he left. Some time later: “How many pages have you done today?” The number was apparently negligible and inadequate, and he stormed. “Let’s get the output up! For Christ’s sake, if research takes up seventy-five percent of your time, cut research out! Just write, and then everything will be speeding along!” Mooney, Eggers, and Gottlieb (the current “bird-dog” staff) all tell me they were introduced to their units with - “I don’t know anything about this son-of-a-bitch. I don’t know who he is, what he can do. But I’m leaving him here, and see that he’s kept busy. I don’t want him laying around, fucking off!” The poor fate of a combat historian! There they were out in the cold of winter, sleeping with the men in holes and dugouts, worried about the Rundstedt offensive. And then a call would come through. It was the Colonel. “Eggers? Is that you? Come on in! I’ve been searching all over for you. Come on in. . . I want to send you out again.” Notes are accumulating. Nobody has time to prepare any manuscripts. A bird-dog’s life indeed!

“Have you read much of eighteenth-century literature?” Dyer asked this afternoon, turning aside from his records and maps. “Then you know Gibbon, of course. You know the more I go on with all this, the more I find myself writing like Gibbon. I read my own prose, and there it all is, the Ciceronian periods, the great Latin eloquence. Why, this page here - the Sixth Corps assault on Montélimar - why, mutatis mutandis, it might be a brilliant purple passage on the vices of some Roman emperor. . .” He shook his own head in acquiescence and went back to his records and maps.’

14 February 1945, Lunéville
‘A fine sunny afternoon. On the ground the pools of mud have dried into damp soft earth. In the street little pink-cheeked French children are playing, clomping along the cobblestones in their wooden shoes, singing and shouting un, deux, trois, quatre. . . Above, the air is busy with the ceaseless drone of planes. The sun has shown itself, and the land and the people look fair again, and somewhere not far away bombs are tearing apart an enemy.’

20 April 1945
‘Friday. Some fragmentary details of the push across the Rhine from Ludwigshafen seemed to me especially interesting, and at least a momentary flight from the routine fantasies of military gossip and political prejudice. Mannheim was in ruins, and the roads to Heidelberg from the river area and south from Karlsruhe were frantic refugee escape-lines. The city of Heidelberg itself was almost bulging. Peace-time population of eighty-six thousand; and now it held more than one hundred ten thousand. Heidelberg had become the sanctuary of the Rhine. (There were only about two thousand displaced persons, mostly French.) The people, according to all early observers, appeared to be well-fed, and the town was in all respects normal. The shops and the banks were open, the university was intact (guarded now to protect against looters), and except for the railroad yards the whole city with its historic buildings was undamaged. The Neckar was quiet, and some communications had been established, for little rowboats were coming over and back from shore to shore. Several hundred bodies were still lying around, soldiers and civilians killed in the streetfighting of several days before. The burgomaster, and this was a point I had missed in my own rather hasty “reconnaissance,” had been in office since 1929. He was a Nazi party member. His explanation was, of course, that it had been required of him in order to continue in office. And the Army accepted him as such. In the by now terribly familiar pattern the basic intention was to remove him, but he would be of service temporarily, for he was “not sufficiently prominent in the Nazi hierarchy to warrant his immediate displacement!” To be sure, he had refused to submit lists of prominent Nazis and locations of Nazi property. But he could help keep “order” and “administration” for the time being. On these hollow and lazy phrases all purpose is lost. The removal of the Nazis, summarily, unconditionally, could have become the consistent symbol of the end of the old order. In each town, village, county, everything but the memory of Party power could have been eradicated. Instead, spurious reasons of military and official expediency dictate compromises, blurring and distorting the clean break which would have proved constructive and vivifying. Once again victors and victims alike are prisoners of the machinery of evil. And our real deep helplessness suggests itself at least to me in every detail of the conquest and the occupation. Each report is a conspicuous unwitting exercise in the tragic ironies and paradoxes of the War. “All churches were required, under the Nazi regime, to submit copies of sermons to be delivered. Pastors and priests are continuing this practice.” “The local prison was almost destroyed. However, one cell block, containing about eighty cells, has been cleaned up. It is considerably damaged and without windowglass, but it will serve to accommodate about 150 persons.” “Concentration-camp situation reports were made out and the individual inmates’ questionnaires were left to be filled out by the inmates. The camp was being administered by three of the inmates who had imprisoned the German guards and taken over the management when the camp fell into Allied hands. The three were an Englishman, a Frenchman, and a Belgian. The prison was running so smoothly that it was determined not to make any changes. . .’’ The Imitation of Art by Life is no idle intellectual fancy, but is literal and terrifying: the whole war begins to unfold as an ingenious adaptation of Franz Kafka!

Discussions of the evening. Carter on the partition of Germany: “Partition her? Why, we’re going to rent her out! This country is going to be one vast To-Let sign! Or maybe, after all the bombings are over, she’ll be a deep enough crater simply to allow the sea to rush in. Then we’ll all take occupation furloughs and go fishing. Every now and then something’ll bite and up we come with a Heidelberger, nice and fat and Aryan, or a Frankfurter. . . Looks as if we’re in for one good deal after another! Imagine! Nothing to do but fish and swim in Mare Nostrum. . .” And Mooney, once again, on Bates Fabrics, bedroom furnishings, and problems of advertising and merchandising ladies-ready-to-wear.’

A city in handcuffs

‘There was a drama involving two alleged Chinese dissidents who can’t be kept in Hong Kong but have been denied entry to the UK. This had all the makings of a nasty political incident. I hoped the Canadians might be prepared to take the two women. What was absolutely clear was that we can’t send them back to mainland China.’ This is from the diaries that Chris Patten - turning 80 today - kept for five years while Governor of Hong Kong. In his foreword to the diaries, published only recently, he talks of ‘the brutal and authoritarian communist regime which now holds a city I love in its handcuffs’.

Patten was born on 12 May 1944, in Cleveleys, Lancashire, the only son of Charles Patten, a jazz drummer, and Joan, a teacher. He was raised in London, where he attended primary school before securing a scholarship to St. Benedict’s School, Ealing, a Catholic independent school. He went on to study history at Balliol College, Oxford. He joined the Conservative Research Department in 1966, and was seconded to the Cabinet Office in 1970 where he worked as personal assistant and political secretary to Lord Carrington and Lord Whitelaw during their terms as Chairmen of the Conservative Party. In 1974 he was appointed the youngest ever Director of the Conservative Research Department. That same year, he married Lavender Thornton, a barrister, with whom he would have three daughters.

Patten was elected as Member of Parliament for Bath in 1979, a seat he held until 1992. He rose quickly, holding many and various different offices: Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office in 1983; Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science in 1985; Minister for Overseas Development at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in 1986; and Secretary of State for the Environment in 1989. Having been appointed to the Privy Council in 1989, he became a Companion of Honour in 1998. Also, from 1990, under Prime Minister John Major, he was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Chairman of the Conservative Party. He guided the Party to an unexpected electoral victory in 1992, but lost his own seat.

Patten then accepted an appointment as Governor of Hong Kong, from 1992 to 1997, overseeing the return of Hong Kong to China. Thereafter, he was Chairman of the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland set up under the Good Friday Peace Agreement, which reported in 1999. From 1999 to 2004, he served as European Commissioner for External Relations, and in January 2005 he entered the House of Lords. In 2003, he was elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford, but is due to retire this year. Other posts include: Co-Chair of the UK-India Round Table in 2006; and Chairman of the BBC Trust from 2011 to 2014. He was appointed Knight Companion of the Order of the Garter in April 2023 by King Charles III. Further information is readily available at Wikipedia, Oxford University, or the BBC. 

Patten has published a few books, at irregular intervals, mostly on world affairs, but also of an autobiographical nature including, most recently, The Hong Kong Diaries (Allen Lane, 2022). In his foreword (see below), he explains how and why he decided to publish the diaries; he also mentions his wife’s ‘meticulously kept diaries’ and their plans to leave their diaries to the Bodleian Library to be made publicly available ‘warts and all’.

In the last paragraph of the foreword, Patten says: ‘I have not used any material from government archives, neither those kept at Kew nor those which reside separately with other colonial papers. Nor have I used any private correspondence. I have from time to time borrowed the description of events from the meticulously kept diary of my wife, Lavender, and occasionally have cross-checked dates and events with her accounts. We both intend to give our original diaries - in my own case principally the transcription of tape recordings and the large exercise books in which I wrote down every evening what was happening during the last part of my governorship - to the Bodleian Library in Oxford and ask that they should be made available, warts and all, to scholars who wish to read them. In some places the text has been reformulated for publication and to cope with the reduction of the total day-by-day diary by several hundred thousand words. I have not excised passages where occasionally my frustration may, with hindsight, have got the better of me, since they are a true reflection of the tensions that from time to time surfaced as we navigated an unprecedented series of events. But looking back now there is nothing material that I would have done differently. My only self-censorship has been to avoid the use of names from time to time, particularly those of people who are still in Hong Kong and might suffer because of the brutal and authoritarian communist regime which now holds a city I love in its handcuffs.’

Here are several extracts from The Hong Kong Diaries.

14 April 1992
‘News of the possibility of my going to Hong Kong has leaked, I suspect because one or two of my friends have been so noisily advocating my remaining in British politics. The story has rapidly turned into the suggestion that a short break that Lavender and I are planning to take with Alice in France over the Easter weekend is intended to be my time to reflect on whether or not to head east. Truth to tell, Lavender and I have pretty well made up our minds already.’

10 September 1992
‘There was a drama involving two alleged Chinese dissidents who can’t be kept in Hong Kong but have been denied entry to the UK. This had all the makings of a nasty political incident. I hoped the Canadians might be prepared to take the two women. What was absolutely clear was that we can’t send them back to mainland China. But we seemed to be making progress on the issue of the new terminal, thanks to some very neat footwork by the senior civil servant involved, Anson Chan. She found an ingenious formula which met some of my requirements about openness and competition while guarding against any lack of competitiveness in the running of the terminal and port as a whole. She has many of the things that I like about civil servants - she’s decisive, smart, talks straight to me and is prepared to take on tough assignments. My team think she is terrific, together with Michael Sze, that she’s the best of the local civil servants - and since most of them are very good that is high praise.’

17 September 1992
‘Day after day we go round and round the wretched airport with the Chinese side buggering us about in increasingly imaginative ways. We put forward some new proposals reducing the amount of borrowing that is required and increasing the equity injection by using the money made from the sale of land along the new rail route to invest in the whole project. It’s a perfectly reasonable approach - it builds on China’s own proposals; it cuts the overall cost of the airport; it means that we will not have to channel resources from other public-spending programmes. But it didn’t get a very good public reception, partly because some of the British press suggested that it is a kowtow and the pro-Beijing papers attacked us because it isn’t exactly what the Chinese side have pressed for, whatever they may have been saying this morning. So much for the understanding which Li Peng signed with John Major.’

19 February 1997
‘Rumours again that Deng is dead. Bob has phoned our embassy in Beijing, who report that there are no signs of an imminent Deng-Mao celestial meeting - no extra police on the streets, no solemn music on the radio. One of our senior officials, whom I invested with the CBE a few months ago, has suggested that, since a message for the disabled in our lifts is not yet available in Cantonese, we should stop the English message. We also had a good district visit to Sham Shui Po in Kowloon. It’s an old working-class area with a host of economic, housing and environmental problems. I’d been here last on an unpublicized visit to look at some black spots and I returned to the same block of really bad private housing that I looked at before. It’s been tidied up a bit and the tenants are disarmingly grateful. But the conditions are still pretty awful. I climb up onto the roof and look across rooftops of similar buildings, covered in illegal shacks as though a raggle-taggle army had camped out on Kowloon’s skyline. This is a long way from the marbled halls in mid-levels. Hardly surprisingly this district is a hotbed of political activism. The social problems find their safety valve in politics, petitioning, demonstrating, arguing - all pretty peacefully. When I see the problems in a place like this, it makes me realize how much Hong Kong needs another blast of social progress. I’d like to be building on what I started in 1992, which in some areas has only touched the surface of peoples’ lives. I ran into a good-natured demo on the way into a shopping mall and I disarmed them by handing out the traditional New Year lai see packets. There is a mad scramble to get one of the little red envelopes, banners dropping as hands reach out for the packets. Edward heard a photographer on his mobile phone talking to his newsdesk. ‘Did you get good photos of the demo?’ he was asked. ‘No - he started handing out bloody presents.’ 

23 June 1997
‘It’s a ‘lasts of everything’ week. And planning and organization for the farewell, the departure and the launching of the SAR government are becoming ever more demanding and even more frenetic. Chinese secretiveness and bureaucratic incompetence risk throwing everything into chaos. The Chinese are still producing lists of guests whom they want invited to events. Their plans for the arrival of senior leaders change by the day, but they seem to have given up on the idea of the vast yacht. What a mess. Our team of officials is working literally around the clock and are all dog-tired. The weather is awful, leaden skies, rolls of thunder and swampy heat. At Exco, the main issue was about de-registering a company called Rex, which is involved in weapons proliferation, especially chemical weapons. It’s plainly a front for the main Chinese arms dealer and manufacture, Noninco. The papers have all come through for this decision to be taken this week, and I’m also being pressed to close down an Iranian bank which has been funding the proliferation exercise along with the Bank of China. I’m prepared to act against the company even though it is so late in the day. But to hit the bank, which has local creditors, risks provoking an nth-hour bank run that would look to the Chinese like a final British ‘petty trick’. We can fire a shot across their bows, setting the government on course to close them down later if they don’t give satisfactory answers to our questions. It will be an interesting test of the new SAR government’s resolve to protect Hong Kong’s reputation as a reliable partner in the strategic trade field.’