A diplomatic reception is planned and executed with a precision that is as
ritualistic and circumscribed as a meeting of a Masonic Lodge. What may appear
as a relaxed spontaneous social gathering is actually a carefully orchestrated
event.
For embassy officers and their wives an engraved invitation requesting the
pleasure of their company is in reality a summons to appear at the ambassador's
residence fifteen minutes before the announced hour. They are expected to be on
hand to assist in the final arrangements and attend to the invited guests as
they arrive. I knew that I would have to make excuses for Marsha's absence.
During these few minutes before the drama commences, when there is only
"family" present, last minute instructions are given by the Administrative and
General Services Officers to the waiters, cooks and barmen. Substantive officers
get their final briefing from the ambassador, and wives secretly compare their
dresses and hairdos while checking to see that candy and nut dishes are full,
and ashtrays empty.
For the invited guests the first few seconds after leaving the receiving
line are as lonely as birth itself, so junior officers are placed
inconspicuously nearby this strategic area to take the guests into the
mainstream of the party where the guests are given a drink and placed in a
conversation cluster with one of the senior officers or wives.
Once this priming operation is completed the affair picks up its own
momentum as the alcohol takes effect. The guests then circulate from one cluster
to another paying their respects to the ranking members of the local government
and other diplomatic missions. Conversation is light and gossipy, controversial
subjects are avoided, and I hoped that I would not run into Andre Dubois, since
what I had to tell him was not what Andre wanted to hear.
The receptions at the American Ambassador's residence in Madrid were
especially pleasant and relaxed, however. Ambassador Robert Walker was a
distinguished career Foreign Service officer, and very much a gentleman. His
wife, a Bryn Mawr graduate, was petite, gracious, unassuming and lacking in
pretense. She had an amazing ability to make people feel welcome in her home,
and once she heard a name she never forgot it.
The ambassador and his wife had been married for many years and Mrs.
Walker had accompanied him on several overseas assignments from the time that he
was a junior officer in Latin America up through his tenure as the Assistant
Secretary of State for Inter American Affairs, and now as the ambassador to
Spain. She had worked her way through the chairs, so to speak, and knew first
hand the strains that Foreign Service life places on families and marriages. She
made as few demands as possible on officers and their wives, took a genuine
interest in the well being of families, and showed an interest in the work that
the officers did.
The invited guests had not yet arrived. I was standing alone waiting for the
party to commence, and the ambassador's wife approached me.
"Pete, how nice to see you, but I don't see Marsha here tonight."
"Good evening, Mrs. Walker," I said. "No, Marsha wasn't feeling well, and
she asked me to give you her regrets."
"I hope it's nothing serious," she said. "I think Marsha is a lovely woman
and we're fortunate to have the two of you join our little family. Tell her to
call me if she needs anything." She reached out, touched my arm and whispered to
me. "Please, Pete, call me Virginia. Mrs. Walker makes me sound so old. I want
to look over my shoulder to see if you're talking to Bob's mother." She looked
over her shoulder and laughed.
I laughed along with her. "Thank you, Virginia, I will, and I'll tell Marsha
what you said, but I hope she'll be fine by tomorrow. I think she just has a
touch of flu."
"I hope so," she said. "Pete, you're looking after the food program aren't
you?"
"Yes,"I replied.
"I don't want to impose on you, but sometime if you're going out to a
distribution place nearby Madrid I'd like to go along with you. Would that be
possible?"
"Yes, of course,"I replied. "If you'd like I'll set something up with Andre
Dubois. When would you like to go?" "Oh I don't want you to make it anything
special. I just want to tag along on a regular visit. I don't want to make a big
deal. Anytime is fine with me"
"All right, I'll set something up for next week. There's a distribution on
Friday morning out at Ciudad Los Angeles. How would that be?"
"Wonderful," she said. "What time will you pick me up or shall I meet you at
the chancery?"
"I'll pick you up here at nine,"I said.
"Oh thank you, Pete, you're a dear. I better get out to the receiving line.
It's almost time. I'll see you later, and next Friday at nine. Bye, bye." She
turned to slip across the room to the foyer.
I had been to only a few receptions at the residence, where the Americans
were the hosts, and I was still learning my diplomatic skills. Experience and a
little coaching by Tom Blacka, had taught me, though, that the idea was to work
your way through the protocol list and chat with the Papal Nuncio, the British
Ambassador and the Minister of Foreign Affairs in such a way that each felt that
he was the most important person present.
As the party got under way I fulfilled my junior officer responsibilities
then circulated away from the entrance, through the guests, when the pace of new
arrivals had slowed.
Mixed in with the official and diplomatic communities were the cream of
Madrid society. Handsome, well bred business executives, bankers, artists and
ranch owners stood possessively near their carefully groomed women dressed in
the finest of Madrid and Paris fashions, and talked of Spain's planned entry
into the EEC, raising fighting bulls, or the cards for the up-coming bullfight
season.
The women exchanged gossip and anecdotes about vacation experiences. They
talked of their plans for trips to the Feria de Sevilla, the Sanfermines in
Pamplona, or the last social season in San Sebastian where, during the hot month
of August, General Franco moved the seat of Government from Madrid.
San Sebastian is an elegant old resort area on the north coast of Spain just
west of the French resort of Biaritz, and Franco, who was officially the regent
of the exiled King, had preserved this old custom left over by the monarchy from
before the pre Republican and civil war days.
I could not help but contrast the affluent glitter in which we were all
emersed in Madrid with my recollection of Manuela la Carbrera and the people
dressed in ragged clothes, standing in lines waiting for a ration of cheese,
cooking oil and powdered milk. Every once in a while I thought of Angela.
I was talking to a Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs when I spotted Andre
Dubois, the Director of the Catholic Charity Services Mission, leaving the
receiving line with his wife.
Portly, gracious, self-assured and dressed in a fine Italian suit, Andre
moved with confidence out of the line into the party. With his wife on his arm
he projected the image of a university professor, and family man, and I recalled
how in the Club Marfil he had presented himself to his lady "friend,"
Margarita, as an industrialist from Paris. But, Andre was not the only person at
the party who was not what he appeared. There was the CIA Station Chief who in
so far as the public knew was an embassy political officer.
I waited while Andre had paid his protocol prescribed respects to the Papal
Nuncio, and had made the rest of his round of greetings, then when the couple
with whom he was speaking moved on, I joined Andre.
"Good evening, Mr. Director," I said with mock formality. "How are you this
evening?"
"I'm fine, Pete. Nice to see you," he said and offered his hand. "How was
your trip to Andalucia?"
"It was fine, Andre, but how did you know I had been down to Andalucia?" I
asked. I had purposely not told Andre in advance of my trip.
"Oh, we knew where you were on a day to day basis. In fact, we plotted your
travels on a map, and speculated where you might turn up next," Andre said with
a self-satisfied expression on his face.
"Sounds like you have a pretty good intelligence network in the field," I
said.
"You had no more than left a village than the priest was on the phone to the
Diocesan headquarters, and they called me to ask about your visit. I was
surprised that you hadn't given me advance notice. I was a little embarrassed
when I found that you had gone without telling me," he said.
"I wanted to see the field operations on a spontaneous basis without any
special preparations in the villages for a visit by an officer of the American
Embassy. I wanted to see the way things worked normally," I said.
"Your predecessor, Bill Shannon, always gave me advance notice when he went
into the field," he said. "Either my assistant, Carmen or I went with him."
Andre made it clear that he did not like my way of operating.
"I don't think Bill Shannon spoke Spanish, did he?" I asked.
"No, not too well," Andre said, and squirmed when I refused to cede to him.
"Well, I speak Spanish, and it seems rather a waste of manpower for two or
three if us to all go out together to watch the people who are doing the real
work. I'm sure you have more important things to take care of. You don't want to
play nursemaid to me," I said and smiled.
"I don't mind going out with you anytime you want," he said. "How did you
find things in Andalucia?"
"I was impressed," I answered.
"Good," Andre said and smiled.
"I was impressed by how widespread the practice of charging for the food
is," I said.
"Charging for the food?" Andre asked. The smile disappeared.
"Yes," I said. Charging. We have to get together and talk about it. I think
your office in New York needs to take up getting the legislation changed with
Congress. The ambassador is very concerned that the press could pick this up and
distort things. Make it appear that the embassy condones the practice."
"That's a good idea, Pete. I'll put together a message to New York and show
it to you," he said, anxious to please.
"Good. Let's get together for lunch next week and talk about it. I'll draft
a cable to Washington, and show it to you."
"Let's do that," he said.
I thought about telling him about my plans to take Virginia Walker out to
Ciudad Los Angeles, but decided not to mention it. Taking the ambassador's wife
into the field without telling Andre in advance would clearly establish in
Andre's mind that I intended to operate more independently than Bill Shannon,
and in the back of my mind I remembered that Shannon had been fired. I was about
to move on when Andre reached out and took my arm and drew me close to him.
"Pete," he looked from side to side to make certain that no one was near by.
"I was a little surprised, too, when I heard that you toured Sevilla with a
woman."
"Really," I said casually. I met her in a shop," I said and smiled, but I
was shocked to learn how closely I had been watched.
"I suppose some people might be surprised to know about your membership in
the Club Marfil in Barcelona, too." I smiled again. "I'll call you or you
call me."
"Fine," Andre said, and moved on to join another group of people.
I let my thoughts linger on Angela for a few moments then turned them back
to the food program. Diplomacy, I was learning required one to walk a tightrope
between belligerent and antagonistic forces, and there was always pressure to
reach an immediate conclusion. There was never enough time to think things
through so as to know what your own feelings were.
Everyone worked feverishly to satisfy U.S. interests, and I didn't yet have
a clear definition of just exactly what U.S. interests were or ought to be. Too
often it seemed to me that U.S. interests were to maintain the status quo, and I
liked to shake things up.
I liked the things that Father Dino Garibaldi was doing in Tarifa, but I
could see the potential for abuse and misrepresentation of the facts by the
press. I walked out of the living room onto the terrace overlooking the garden
at the back of the house. I stood for a few minutes thinking about Angela,
Marsha, Andre's intelligence network, and Father Dino. My mind was in a swirl.
Reentering the house I found that Ambassador and Mrs. Walker had moved into
the living room and were chatting with the staff after having said good¬night to
the last of the invited guests. The party was over.
On my way out of the residence I joined a group of couples who were on their
way out to dinner at Casa Paco's, a steak house on La Puerta Cerada that
was a favorite among the Americans in Madrid. In the course of the evening I
noticed that despite their superficial sophistication the wives had a homespun
provincial quality about them. They seemed almost oblivious to being in Spain or
Madrid. They could have been anywhere in the world and their conversation would
have been the same. They seemed mostly concerned with the quality of their
servants, the difficulties they had in communicating with them and the
availability (or lack thereof) of certain American products in the Air Force
Commissary. They seemed to care very little about the woof, the warp and texture
of Spanish life. I decided that I very much preferred the people, especially the
women, whom I met on my trips.
