Six Angels & One Rabbit

Now that the U.S., Russia and Britain no longer had a common enemy, they clearly could not continue at the high level of teamwork that had sped the military disintegration of Germany. As a mattr of fact, working out the problem of a certain flight of stairs at Potsdam--where British bombers had blasted a way for Russian foot soldiers--proved harder than the most complicated of joint military operations.

The stairs were in the Hohenzollerns' last architectural effort--the Cecilienhof, a Tudor manor constructed in 1913-17 for the Crown Prince. In a graceful sweep, the stairs descended from Churchill's quarters into the 50-foot-high meeting room. These stairs were meant for a grand entrance, complete with aigrettes and sequins. Obviously (to finicky protocol experts), Churchill could not be allowed to come down the stairs while Truman and Stalin gawked at him from below.

So Churchill had to leave the building by a side door, come in another door to a little anteroom. Truman and Stalin were in other anterooms. Complicated signals set them all in coordinated motion. Stalin would roll in with his bearish gait; Churchill plodded; Clement Attlee walked sedately ; Truman almost skipped in (which was all right because his anteroom was just a little farther away).

The protocol was no more depressing than the furnishings. The meeting room itself with its round table was not so bad, but the twin angels on the backs of each of the Big Three's gilt chairs were hard to bear. So was the decor of Truman's living quarters. Items: liver-colored wallpaper in the living room; still lifes in the dining room--a very dead rabbit, a half cantaloupe and a very red lobster.

Songs & Stories. When they were not too busy the U.S. staff gathered in the evening to hear Balkan Specialist Cavendish Cannon play the piano. He and James W. Riddleberger, the department's German specialist, and Charles Eustis Bohlen, Russian-speaking specialist on the U.S.S.R., had the most work to do. Their boss, Assistant Secretary of State James C. Dunn, looked cheerful although he had not been in favor of a hard peace for Germany. U.S. delegates who knew no Russian learned two words from daily dealing with the Russian Security guards who stood by every Potsdam door. The words: pozhaluista (please) and spasibo (thank you).

Conference business went smoothly in spite of language difficulties and diarrhea (from bad water). Twelve subordinates, including three official interpreters, sat at the table with the Big Three. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes and Russia's good friend Joseph E. Davies were Truman's mainstays at the big table. Thirty or more experts sat at little tables around the room. Churchill, while he was there, often consulted Attlee. When he returned from London, Attlee had less to say than Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin. Truman, a brisk and affable chairman, did not wander from the point as Roosevelt used to do. Some correspondents said that Stalin looked old and tired. But returning U.S. delegates said that Uncle Joe never looked better.

At the final session, Stalin had a number of points to make. Bohlen translated. English and Russian buzzed easily around the table. At the finish, Harry Truman said he hoped the Big Three would meet next time in Washington. Stalin, between his gilt angels, agreed and smilingly added a qualification out of his seminary days. "God willing," said godless Uncle Joe.

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