Diplomatic Changes

With the Embassy at Berlin waiting an Ambassador, Secretary of State Kellogg was obliged to scurry around to find other diplomatic officers as well.

To two vacant posts, charges d'affaires trained in the service were promoted: Charles C. Eberhardt of Kansas was made Minister to Nicaragua and George T. Summerlin of Louisiana was appointed Minister to Honduras.

It was then announced that John Wallace Riddle, Ambassador to Argentina, had resigned. The circumstances of his retirement were peculiar. On May 6, 1916, Mr. Riddle was married to Miss Theodate Pope, an architect by profession. Just 365 days earlier, she had been aboard the Lusitania which, when hit by a German torpedo, sank, throwing her unconscious into the water and drowning her two traveling companions. Shortly after her marriage, she went with her husband to Iceland and, en route, a boiler blew up and later the vessel burned at her pier. In 1921, she went with Mr. Riddle to Argentina. Six months later, she was obliged to return to New York on architectural matters and, during the voyage, the vessel's rudder jammed and the ship "nearly turned turtle." Her successive experiences impaired her health and her doctor forbids her to join her husband in Argentina. So he is coming home.

Mr. Riddle, an able diplomat, was onetime Ambassador to Russia.