GENEVA, November 6
Lovely Indian summer here for a month, but, now the snow is creeping down on the Alps and this morning the Juras across the lake were also coated white. Soon we can ski. A month of the worst mental and spiritual depression of my life. I’m still in such a state that I’ve done two crazy things: started a play; and taken up—at my age, thirty-four!—golf. Perhaps they’ll restore sanity. There is a beautiful course at Divonne in the foot-hills of the Juras from which you can look over the lake and see Mont Blanc in all its snowy pink splendour about the time the sun is setting. Arthur Burrows, English, fifty-two, secretary of the International Broadcasting Union, and I fool around over the links, tearing up the turf, soon losing count of the scores, if any, knocking off after the first nine holes to go down to Divonne village, which is on the French side of the frontier, for a magnificent nine-course lunch washed down by two bottles of Burgundy, and return, feeling mellow and good, for the last nine holes. The play is called: “Foreign Correspondent.” It is affording me much relief.
WARSAW, November 11
Broadcast a half-hour program for the twentieth anniversary of the Polish Republic. The show got hopelessly tangled up for some reason. Sitting in the Palace I began by saying: “Ladies and gentlemen, the Polish anthem…” which was to be played by a band in a studio in the other part of town. Instead of the band, President Mosieski started to speak. He had promised to speak in English, but through the earphones I could make out only Polish. I dashed down the Palace corridors to his room to inquire. A tall adjutant stopped me at the door. “The President promised to speak English,” I said. He looked at me curiously, opening the door slightly. “He is speaking English, sir,” he protested. Dashed back to my room to introduce Ambassador Tony Biddle, who was to say a few well-chosen words. He started blabbing and, thinking he had suddenly become a victim of “mike fright,” I moved to cut him off. Then he motioned to his script. It was a mass of hieroglyphics. “Polish!” he whispered. “Phonetic….” He was giving a little message in Polish. When he had finished we laughed so hard the Poles in the Palace became a little uneasy.
Afterwards met Duranty, and it was one of his “Russian nights,” he insisting on talking Russian to the droshky-driver and insisting we be taken to a Russian café. The wind from Duranty’s Russian steppes was whipping the snow in our faces, and after what seemed an age the driver finally pulled his dying nag up before a decrepit old building.
“Café Rusky?” Walter shouted. We could not see the driver through the curtain of snow. No, it was not a Russian café. It was a Polish institution, a disorderly house. Then in the blizzard a long argument in Russian between the Moscow correspondent of the New York Times and the Polish driver of a dilapidated horse and buggy. The snow piled up on us. Long after midnight we found a Russian café. It was full of rather plump girls who spoke Russian and who Walter said were echt Russisch and there was much vodka and balalaika-playing and singing and the girls would warm their backs against a great porcelain stove, getting a little more tired and sleepy each time, a little sadder, I thought.
The Poles a delightful, utterly romantic people, and I have had much good food and drink and music with them. But they are horribly unrealistic. In their trust of Hitler, for instance. Polskie Radio promises to get along with their new short-wave transmitter. I explained to them our experience with the Czechs.
BRUSSELS, November 20
Here as observer for an international radio conference to draw up new wave-lengths. As there is nothing for me to do, have shut myself in my room for a week and finished the play.
BELGRADE, November 26
Here for another “anniversary” broadcast like the one at Warsaw.
LATER. On train to Rome.—Miss Campbell from our London office phoned at six p.m. to tell me the Pope was dying. I caught young Sulzberger of the New York Times at a cocktail party, induced him to do my broadcast Sunday, explained how, and caught this train at nine p.m. for Rome.
ROME, November 29
The Pope has once again fought off death after a severe heart attack on Tuesday. Arranged with Father Delaney, a brilliant and extremely pleasant young Jesuit from New York attached to Vatican Radio, to help us in the elaborate coverage I’ve arranged for the Pope’s death. Conferences yesterday and today with the Vatican authorities on the matter, which of course is extremely delicate since he is still alive. But we all agreed we must make our preparations. The Italians are putting in extra lines for us from St. Peter’s to their studios. Much good talk and spaghetti and Chianti and to Paris by plane tomorrow though an Italian friend of mine who is also a close friend of Ciano’s tipped me off I ought to stay for tomorrow’s meeting of the Fascist Chamber. But an urgent matter of ours with the French government needs straightening out.
PARIS, December 1
My friend was trying to do me a favour. The Fascists in the Chamber yesterday staged a big demonstration against France yelling: “Tunis! Savoy! Nice! Jibouti!” But the Quai d’Orsay here claims Daladier will say no. Munich was enough for the moment. A German refugee and his wife, he a former trades-union official, she a novelist of sorts, came to my hotel an hour after I arrived last evening (my Italian plane had a narrow escape when a strut broke between Rome and Genoa, and I was still a little nervous) and told me they were going to jump off a bridge over the Seine and end their lives. I took them around the corner for a good meal at Le Petit Riche and they calmed down. I hope I’ve persuaded them not to jump into the Seine. They had received an order of expulsion from France effective next week, though he has been doing some work for the French government. Shall try to intervene at the Quai d’Orsay for them.
PARIS, December 6
Bonnet, one of the chief architects of Munich and a sinister figure in French politics, today signed a “good neighbour” declaration with Ribbentrop, another sinister one, at the Quai d’Orsay. Paris, I find, has somewhat recovered from its defeatist panic of the Munich days. When Ribbentrop drove through the streets from the Gare d’Orsay, they were completely deserted. Several Cabinet members and many leading figures here have refused to attend the social functions being accorded him. On the other hand Ribbentrop’s French admirers run high up in political, business, and social circles. Today’s agreement states that the two countries solemnly declare that no territorial or border question now exists and that they will consult in case of future disagreement. What a farce!
PARIS, December 15
Tess and baby back today on the Queen Mary. Off to Geneva for the Christmas holidays.
GSTAAD, SWITZERLAND, December 26
One of the most beautiful mountain spots I’ve ever seen and the snow so grand I’ve taken up skiing again for the first time since my accident six years ago. The wealthy English and French here in force and inanely oblivious of Europe’s state. Last night at the big Christmas ball I found the merry-makers so nauseating that we left early. This has been a year—the baby, the Anschluss, the Czech crisis, and Munich. As usual Tess and I wonder where we’ll be a year from now, and what the year will bring.
ROME, January 11, 1939
Chamberlain and Halifax arrived today to appease the Duce. At the station Chamberlain, looking more birdlike and vain than when I last saw him at Munich, walked, umbrella in hand, up and down the platform nodding to a motley crowd of British local residents whom Mussolini had slyly invited to greet him. Mussolini and Ciano, in black Fascist uniforms, sauntered along behind the two ridiculous-looking Englishmen, Musso displaying a fine smirk on his face the whole time. When he passed me he was joking under his breath with his son-in-law, passing wise-cracks. He looks much older, much more vulgar than he used to, his face having grown fat. My local spies tell me he is much taken with a blonde young lady of nineteen whom he’s installed in a villa across from his residence and that the old vigour and concentration on business is beginning to weaken. Chamberlain, we’re told, much affected by the warmth of the greeting he got at the stations along the way to Rome. Can it be he do
esn’t know how they’re arranged?
GENEVA, January 19
The League in its last death-throes has been a sorry sight the last four days. Bonnet and Halifax here to see that there is no nonsense to delay Franco’s victory. Del Vayo yesterday made a dignified speech before the Council. Halifax, to show his colours, got up in the middle of it and ostentatiously strode out. Had a long talk with Del Vayo tonight. He was depressed, discouraged, and though he did not say so, I gathered it is all up with the Republic. Franco, with his Germans and Italians, is at the gates of Barcelona. Lunch with Edgar [Mowrer], Knick, Harry Masdyck, and Mme. Tabouis. Much talk, but our side has lost.
ROME, February 12
Friday morning about six fifteen Cortesi phoned me at Geneva from Rome to say the Pope had died. There was a train for Milan at seven two a.m. I aroused Tess and she helped me catch it. Today, Sunday, broadcast from the piazza in front of St. Peter’s, stopping people who were filing out of the church after viewing Pius XI’s remains as they lay in state, and interviewing them. As I am not a Catholic and there is much about the church and the Vatican that I do not know—though I’ve been studying countless books for a year—I am getting churchmen to do most of the broadcasts.
ROME, February (undated)
Pius XI was buried today, the service beautiful, but St. Peter’s very cold, and there was a long hitch, due, it seems, to the fact that the mechanics who were to seal the casket before it was lowered to the vault below ran out of solder. An SOS call was sent out for some, but as most of the workshops in Rome had closed for the day, it was some time before a sufficient quantity could be found. Father Delaney, broadcasting the service for us from atop one of the pillars, did a magnificent job, filling in beautifully the hour or so that elapsed while they were hunting the solder.
ROME, March 3
Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli is the new Pope, elected yesterday, and a very popular choice all around except perhaps in Germany. We had great luck with broadcasting the news a few moments after the election, though earlier in the day it looked disastrous for us. Suffering from the flu when I left Lausanne the day before, I had such a violent attack of it by the time I reached Milan that I had to go to a hotel there and take to bed. I managed to get to the train somehow, but was completely out when I arrived in Rome yesterday morning. Tom Grandin, our Paris correspondent, intelligent, but green at radio, having just been hired, arrived from Paris about noon, but he tells me I was completely out of my head and that in my delirium my instructions on what to do made no sense. He did gather that I had arranged a broadcast from the balustrade around St. Peter’s during the afternoon. He got there, found Father Delaney, who was talking for us, and just as they were signing off, they got a message through their earphones from inside the Vatican to stand by, passed it on to New York, who understood. In a moment they were announcing the name of the new pontiff.
ROME, March 9
A storm brewing in what is left of poor Czechoslovakia. Dr. Hacha, the weak little President—successor to the great Masaryk and the able Beneš—has proclaimed martial law in Slovakia and dismissed Father Tiso and the Slovak Cabinet. But Tiso, I know, is Berlin’s man. Strange—maybe not?—that Germany and Italy have never given rump Czecho the guarantee they promised at Munich. The Italian Foreign Office people admit London and Paris have been pressing Hitler for the guarantee, but they say Hitler considers Prague still too “Jewish and Bolshevik and democratic.” I don’t recall any reservations about that at Munich.
Still in bed with flu and must wait here for the Pope’s coronation Sunday.
GENEVA, March 14
The radio reports Slovakia has declared its “independence.” There goes the remains of Czechoslovakia. Should go to Prague, but I haven’t the heart. Am I growing too soft-hearted, too sentimental to be a good reporter? I don’t mind so much the killings, bloodshed—I’ve seen and got over quite a little of that in the last fourteen years—but Prague now—I can’t face it. The radio says [Czech President] Hacha and [Foreign Minister] Chvalkovsky arrived in Berlin tonight. To save the pieces?
PARIS, March 15
The German army has occupied Bohemia and Moravia on this blizzardy day of spring, and Hitler in a cheap theatrical gesture from the Hradshin castle above the Moldau in Prague has proclaimed their annexation to the Third Reich. It is almost banal to record his breaking another solemn treaty. But since I was personally present at Munich, I cannot help recalling how Chamberlain said it not only had saved the peace but had really saved Czechoslovakia.
Complete apathy in Paris tonight about Hitler’s latest coup. France will not move a finger. Indeed, Bonnet told the Chamber’s Foreign Affairs Committee today that the Munich guarantee had “not yet become effective” and therefore France had no obligation to do anything. Ed Murrow telephones that the reaction in London is the same—that Chamberlain in Commons this afternoon even went so far as to say that he refused to associate himself with any charges of a breach of faith by Hitler. Good God!
Should have gone to Prague or Berlin today, I suppose, but talked it over with Murrow from Geneva early this morning and we decided the Nazi censorship in both places would be complete and that, with what inside stuff I could pick up here and knowing the background, I could tell a better story from Paris. I was relieved. My Paris plane, after getting iced up and lost in a snowstorm near the Bellegarde Pass shortly after we left Geneva, turned round and finally got us back to the airport. I took the noon train. Bonnet has laid down a radio censorship and I fought with his hirelings until long after midnight tonight over my script.
PARIS, March 22
Someone—I think it was Pertinax, who is just back from London—told me yesterday a weird tale of how Chamberlain suddenly reversed his whole position last Friday in his Birmingham speech. Two days before, he had told Commons that he would not charge Hitler with bad faith. In Birmingham he severely denounced Hitler for “treaty-breaking.” Pertinax says that Sir Horace Wilson, the dark little man behind the scenes at Godesberg and Munich had actually drafted the Birmingham speech for the Prime Minister along the appeasement lines of his remarks in the House, but that half the Cabinet and most of the leading London newspaper editors were so up in arms when they heard of it that Chamberlain suddenly felt forced to reverse his whole policy and actually wrote most of his new speech on the train en route to Birmingham.
How shoddy Paris has become in the last ten years! Some Frenchmen point to the neon signs, the gaudy movie palaces, the automobile sales windows, the cheap bars which now dominate the once beautiful Champs-Elysées, and say: “That is what America has done to us.” Perhaps so, but I think it is what France has done to herself. France has lost something she had when I arrived here fourteen years ago: her taste, part of her soul, the sense of her historical mission. Corruption everywhere, class selfishness partout and political confusion complete. My decent friends have about given up. They say: “Je m’en fous (To hell with it).” This leads to the sort of defeatist, anarchistic je m’en fousism which a writer like Céline is spreading.
GENEVA, March 29
Madrid surrendered yesterday, the rest of republican Spain today. There are no words to express what I feel tonight. Franco’s butchery will be terrible.
BERLIN, April 1
Just as Hitler began his broadcast at Wilhelmshaven this afternoon, an order came through to the RRG control room where I was standing by, to stop the broadcast from getting abroad. For a moment there was great confusion in the control room. I protested vehemently to the Germans about cutting us off, once Hitler had started to speak. But orders from Wilhelmshaven were explicit. They came from Hitler himself, just before he started speaking. The speech was also not being broadcast directly in Germany, but only from recordings later. This and our being cut off meant Hitler wanted to reflect on what he said in the heat of the moment before giving his words wider circulation. You can always edit recordings. I suggested to Dr. Ratke, head of the short-wave department, he should announce to our network in
America that the speech of Hitler had been shut off owing to a misunderstanding and that the Führer was actually talking at this moment. A very excitable man, he refused. Instead he ordered some silly music records played. Just what I expected happened. Within fifteen minutes, Paul White was urgently on the line from New York. Why was Hitler cut off? Reports in New York he has been assassinated. He hasn’t been killed? How do you know? Because I can hear him this moment on the telephone circuit to Wilhelmshaven. The Germans are recording the speech.
I could not go on the air afterwards until the Germans had received the approved version of Hitler’s speech, which, as a matter of fact, differed not at all from the original. Hitler very bellicose today, obviously in a rage against Chamberlain, who in the House yesterday enunciated at last a complete change in British foreign policy and announced that Britain would go to the aid of Poland if Polish independence were threatened. Off to Warsaw tomorrow to see when the German attack is expected.
WARSAW, April 2
Attended a pitiful air-show this Sunday afternoon, my Polish friends apologizing for the cumbersome slow bombers and the double-decker fighters—all obsolete. They showed a half-dozen modern fighters that looked fast enough, but that was all. How can Poland fight Germany with such an air force?
Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941 Page 14