Evening star., 1939-04-30
Ambassador Bullitt Is Serving
= AS Roosevelt Iipster Abroad
From Listening Post in Paris He Keeps Washington
Informed on Inside Information; Peace
Message Based on His Report to Chief
By Joseph II. Baird.
By Joseph II. Baird.

When President Roosevelt sent his
now-famous peace message to Adolf
Hitler and Benito Mussolini earlier this
month, he acted on information more
specific and serious than the generalized
knowledge that war in Europe seemed
likely.
In fact, the President had been told
that unless Poland capitulated to Ger
many's demands the vast armies of the
axis powers-certainly those of Germany
I and perhaps those of Italy-were ready
to swing into action during the week of
April IS. And the man who told him
that according to usually well-informed
diplomatic sources. was William Chris
tian Bullitt, United States Ambassador
to France.
No one person, it is we'll known, ever
fully determines the policies and ac-
tions of Mr. Roosevelt. Usually they
are synthesized products of myriad
sources of information, moulded into
final form by the President himself. But
certainly, during the last eight critical
months, Bill" Bullitt has exercised an
effect on American policy toward Eu-
rope far out of proportion to the limited
scope Of his official job in Paris.
Indeed, the jovial and urbane Phila-
delphian is often referred to around
Washington. nowadays-admiringly or
caustically, depending on the speakers
attitude-as 'the inside United States
foreign service
The title, while eXtravagant, is not
pointless. No American envoy in Eu-
rope can even remotely match Mr.. Bull
litt's sources of inside information
the sort of thing that is whispered
around drawing rooms, but never COM
municated officially by chancellories. 1t
is doubtful that any of his colleagues
of ambassadorial rank match his init
mate knowledge of European history and
9 politics. And certainly none of them
enjoys his intimate relationship with
the President.
Paris Good Listening Post.
Then, too, Paris is the best diplomatic
and journalistic listening post in Eu-
rope. France has the keenest military
and diplomatic intelligence service on
the continent and some of the informa-
ton it gathers is, presumably. available
to an Ambassador who is on good terms
with the Quai dOrsay.
Placed at the crossroads between the
north and south and east and west of
Europe, Paris is the most cosmopolitan
capital on the continent. Travellers re-
turning from Russia, the Balkans.
Scandinavia. Spain and Italy often stop
rF 10 thoir ri
and many of the more important of them
drop in for luncheon or at least chat
with the personable american Ambassa-
dor, who has spent nearly half his life
In Europe and knows people in all parts
of the continent.
It is this combination of factors-his
wealth of inside information and his
intimacy with the President-that have
been responsible for Mr.. Bullitt's eleva-
ton from mere chief of the Paris
Embassy to what might be called "Eu-
ropean adviser to the White House"
During periods of crisis In Europe, Mr..
Bullitt telephones the President almost
daily, giving him distillation of fact
- and rumor which has filtered into Paris
from all over the continent. Persons
close to the White House say that the
President finds this information an in
valuable supplement to the more formal
advices from diplomatic missions in Eu-
rope which are cabled into the State
Department.
This extra-routine activity of the
American Ambassador to Paris has led,
as might be expected, to some annoy
ance among the professional diplomats
in the State Department. So far as is
known, there has never been any open
friction between Bill Bullitt and his
chief, Secretary of State Cordell Hull.
Indeed, the two established friendly,
almost affectionate, relationship in the
dawn of the Roosevelt administration
when the Secretary was chairman and
MIR. Bullitt executive officer of the Amer
lean delegation to the World Monetary
and Economic Conference in London.
But among the career men OF the de-
partment, one occasionally sees lifted
eyebrow when the name of the Paris
envoy is mentioned.
Endowed With Three Gifts.
The main facts about MIR. Bullitts
youthful association with the Wilson ad-
ministration and Mr. Wilson's Assistant
Secretary of the Navy, Franklin d
Roosevelt, have been written SO often of
4 late that it is pointless to enlarge upon
them here: How Mr.. Bullitt worked in
the next Office to Mr.. Roosevelt in the
old State, War and Navy Building; how
he accompanied Mr.. Wilson to Ver-
eailles and broke with him after carry
ing out a secret mission to Russia; how
he helped wreck the Versailles treaty
by his testimony before Senate COM
mittee, and how, after 13 years of politi-
cal exile, he again entered the national
spotlight with Mr.. Roosevelt's election
in 1888. A few facts about the later
career and the colorful personality of
Americas No. l diplomat in the field
may, however, be fresh to readers.
Fortune endowed Bill" Bullitt with
three gifts which the British, who long
have had the best diplomatic service in
the world, have regarded as essential for
a career in diplomacy-a good education,
facile mind and enough wealth to free
q man from financial worries.
Born into an old and monied Phila-
delphia family, Mr.. Bullitt, now 48, was
graduated from Yale in 1912. During his
early years he travelled extensively in