"A Few Seconds of Silence"

Ex-Secretary of State Cordell Hull last week laid his mellowed memoirs on the tomb of the New Deal. Although the wreath was appropriately floral, there were (also appropriately) some thorns among the roses. Excerpts from his good, grey story, written* at Bethesda Naval Hospital and soon to be published in two volumes by Macmillan, began appearing last week in the good, grey New York Times.

No Errand Boy. Gravely, 76-year-old Cordell Hull sought to correct the impression that he was little more than an errand boy in a State Department actually bossed by Franklin Roosevelt. Between Roosevelt and him there was never an "unfriendly word," although "a few emphatic differences rose between us which we thrashed out bluntly but in a friendly spirit." Hull had to make his own decisions "in the majority of cases." He recommended the moral embargo against Italy during the Ethiopian war. He worked out the details with the British on the overage destroyer deal.

Neither Roosevelt nor he knew a great deal about diplomatic technicalities at first. But they learned fast.

Too Fast, Too Far. The only basic differences between Hull and Roosevelt cropped up in domestic matters. Hull remembered those differences with a wince. "I was frankly glad not to be invited into the White House groups where so often the 'liberal' game was played on an extreme basis." He once said to Roosevelt: "I can't help but feel that you're going too fast and too far with certain of your domestic reforms."

With the same alacrity shown by ex-Treasury Secretary Morgenthau, Hull hastened to divorce himself from any part in the Roosevelt spending program: "[I] stood for a fixed policy of balanced budgets."

He recalled: "The President always heard me through with entire respect. Then he continued eating or smoking, without saying anything. After a few seconds of silence he cr I mentioned something else and the conversation veered in another direction."

When the going got too tough, the Secretary stole away for a game of croquet. He liked occasionally to putt around a golf green but croquet was his favorite relaxation. "[It] may seem namby-pamby but it is really a very scientific game," he wrote. He became very expert and once beat the champion "of a certain section of the United States." But in his last years at State, he had to give up the game. "My doctor required me to taper off, which probably proves that it is more strenuous than most people think."

* In collaboration with Andrue Berding, former Associated Press correspondent at the State Department.

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