Scotch and Oil

Lord Beaverbrook, Britain's titanic imp and Lord Privy Seal, arrived in Washington, D.C. by plane, ostensibly to talk about oil. He immediately disappeared behind a screen of refrigerated secretaries and impersonal telephone voices. Once hidden, however, he ordered up a Scotch & soda and the first of a series of huge and marvelous meals. Then the vigorous Beaver, whose interests as Winston Churchill's confidant are worldwide, and whose professional curiosity as a newspaper publisher is insatiable, nimbly called on Harry Hopkins and other top U.S. officials.

Except at a preliminary conference with Secretary of State Cordell Hull, he talked about everything but oil (actually British-American oil policy was as good as settled before he left London).

By week's end he had jiggled a half-dozen irons in a half-dozen fires, had informally discussed postwar aviation with Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle, had fired scores of questions about the U.S. domestic scene, had played poker into the small hours, and baffled the Mayflower Hotel staff by leaving his suite one morning with a box of cold hotcakes under his arm, too rushed to eat first.

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