Hardy Perennial

"Luxembourg, Luxembourg, where is that on this map?" huffed France's famed statesman Aristide Briand at a diplomatic conference many years ago. "My dear Briand," suggested a young Luxembourger named Joseph Bech, "if you will just lift up your little finger from the map you will find it." Today as huge, shaggy and leonine as Briand was himself, Joseph Bech, 66, is the durable dean of European statesmen. He has been a member of Luxembourg's government since 1921, her Foreign Minister since 1926, her minister for Foreign Commerce, National Defense and Wine Culture almost as long. Last week, following the death of Pierre Dupong, who succeeded him as Premier in 1937, Bech added two more to the list of jobs he already holds in Luxembourg--the Ministry of Agriculture and, once again, the Premiership.

During his years as Luxembourg's perennial spokesman abroad, Joseph Bech has been a familiar, white-maned figure in the councils of the world's great nations. It was not flattering to Europe's great powers, another diplomat once said, "that the most intelligent of her foreign ministers is the representative from Luxembourg." Bech himself, a practical conservative who deplores "plans drawn in the clouds," explains his success with a line from Tacitus, who once described a successful politician as a man neither above nor below the affairs he dealt with, but simply equal to them. "Political bagatelles don't kill me," says Joseph Bech. "In Luxembourg we can allow ourselves the luxury of governmental instability. Here there are fewer ambitions, therefore fewer competitors."

Working in close harmony through the years, Bech and Dupong raised Luxembourg's affairs to a high degree of stability. Their nation has had no strikes since 1919. Her unemployment seldom soars above a paltry 20 (in a population of 300,000). As Minister of Wine Culture, the job he likes the best, Connoisseur Bech himself has worked a revolution in Luxembourg's vineyards, whose products were once considered the poorest in Europe.

Forced now by the death of his old friend to run Luxembourg virtually alone, Bech's only regret is that he will have less time than ever for golf, fishing, gardening and collecting 18th century French art. "The ceremonies," he says mournfully, "the monuments, the inaugurations, the this, the that ..."

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