Honor Sullied, Puissance Mocked

A diplomat of the old, punctilious school is M. Jean Herbette, Ambassador of the French Republic to the Soviet Union, dean of the Moscow diplomatic corps, veteran of a thousand manicures, husband of a onetime danseuse of the Paris opera. One morning, fortnight ago, his valet patted him into diplomatic uniform, adjusted the cross of the Legion of Honor on his chest, sprayed just the merest squeeze of perfume. His secretary handed him a crisp official envelope blazoned with the eagles of Rumania. His military chauffeur, his gold-frogged footman, his glistening, beak-nosed Renault limousine completed the splendiferous translation of M. Jean Herbette from the French Embassy to the Soviet Foreign Office. There he was angrily awaited by a plump, loosely-clad Russian, genial among friends but well able to growl and play the bear.

Comrade Maxim Maximovitch Litvinov, Acting Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union, is tired of having Ambassador Herbette walk in with diplomatic notes from powers who do not recognize Soviet Russia. He was tired the first time it happened. When Secretary of State Henry Lewis Stimson sent a reminder of Russia's obligation under the Kellogg Pact not to encroach upon China (TIME, Dec. 16), Bear Litvinov received it courteously enough from Ambassador Herbette, but figuratively growled at Statesman Stimson: "Mind your own business!" This time he was in an even nastier mood. For this time the French envoy was acting for Rumania, and Rumania is anathema to all Red Russians, who consider that she stole Bessarabia from them while they were fighting the White Russians and the Allies in 1918. Worse still, the Rumanian note was an echo (by request) of Statesman Stimson's reminder that Russia must not steal anything from anybody. Mr. Stimson had managed to get less than a half dozen of the 57 Kellogg Pact nations to send such reminders, but in Moscow the joke was wearing very thin.

"Bon jour, Votre Excellence," beamed M. Herbette, "On behalf of His Majesty King Mihai of Rumania, I have the honor. . . ."

"Pardon, Your Excellency! I cannot undertake to receive such a note from a third-class power."

"I am sorry--but Excellency, you must realize that my Government's instructions to deliver this note are definite."

"I am equally sorry. But unlike Your Excellency I am not bound by instructions from Paris," and the bearman shambled back to his desk.

Poised like a puzzled poodle with a bon-bon on his nose, M. Herbette wondered what on earth to do with Rumania's note. He tried laying it on Comrade Litvinov's desk. With an impatient gesture the Russian flicked it away. The Frenchman flushed a dark red, stung to the quick of honor, but kept his temper by an effort really superhuman for a diplomat.

"Very well, Your Excellency," said poor Herbette in tones which he could not keep from becoming shrill, "it seems that in order to follow my instructions I must read the note."

"STOP!" shouted Comrade Litvinov, blazing-eyed. Rather than prolong a scene which in 1914 might easily have led to war, M. Herbette stopped, then frigidly withdrew.

Within a few hours Paris scare-sheets screamed that France, grossly insulted in the person of Ambassador Herbette, would break off diplomatic relations with Russia. By next morning, however, cooler counsels prevailed, and Le Temps, semi-official organ of the French Foreign Office said: "If there was an insult, it was not to France, but to Rumania. . . . With a government like that at Moscow it is a singularly delicate and always ungrateful task to attempt to perform good offices."

Isvestia, official news organ of the Soviet Government, saw the note as "adding insult to Stimson's meddling injury," denounced the "cynical insolence of the Rumanian Government, whose troops and gendarmes still occupy our Province of Bessarabia." Happily for Rumanians, they were prevented by strict censorship from hearing that they are "third-class," from knowing that their eight-year-old King Mihai has been grossly insulted, his honor sullied, his puissance mocked.

Good-hearted Russians grinned when Secretary Wilbur of the U. S. Department of the Interior, skirting Statesman Stimson's official position of not recognizing Moscow, appealed personally, unofficially to the Soviet Government for help for U. S. Flyer Carl Ben Eielson, lost along the coast of Siberia, spurred Alaska's acting Governor Karl Theile to send frantic appeals to two Soviet ships in Siberian waters. Russians were aware that already blunt Senator Borah had cabled for aid directly to Soviet Acting Foreign Minister Litvinov (see p. 53).

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