The Squire of Grosvenor Square

IN the cool, punctilious world of international diplomacy, style is a key element, and nowhere more so than at the protocol-conscious Court of St. James's. When he served as U.S. Ambassador to Britain from 1961 to 1969, David K.E. Bruce was the very model of a professional diplomat: suave, brilliant and unusually well qualified. His successor in the Grosvenor Square embassy, the wealthy Philadelphia publisher and Nixon crony Walter H. Annenberg, is not.

Harddriving, conservative and blunt, Annenberg, 61, suffers from periodic attacks of foot-in-mouth disease. In London, where verbal agility is an almost indispensable social grace, Annenberg's bloopers stand out like Mao badges in Moscow. A British magazine recently described Annenberg's manner as "that authentic transatlantic style which one might call folk-baroque, with the native bonhomie and verbal felicity of W. C. Fields." His phrases have an engraved quality. Asked how he liked London, for example, he replied: "I consider it a stronghold of dignified living." On his diplomatic role: "I am here to be the instrument of American policy abroad." His most famous line burbled up during a BBC documentary on the Royal Family. When the Queen asked about his housing arrangements, Annenberg answered: "We are in the ambassadorial residence, subject of course to some of the discomfiture as a result of the need for elements of refurbishing and rehabilitation." (That redecoration is now finished, at a personal cost to Annenberg of about $1,000,000, and he and his wife Lee are snugly installed; daughter Wallis does not live in London.) Friends say that Annenberg's awkward circumlocutions are the product of a lifelong speech impediment that has driven him to talk in polysyllables as a disciplinary exercise; twice a day, he sets aside time to practice elocution in private sessions.

Annenberg got off to a poor start by choosing his first speech in London as the occasion for a blistering attack on student radicals back home. Since ambassadors do not normally attack fellow countrymen before foreign audiences, the British press sarcastically labeled the speech a "surprising public debut." To this sort of criticism, Annenberg has replied: "I'm used to swimming upstream." More recently, at a gathering held by the English-Speaking Union, he shook hands stiffly in the reception line but neglected to give a talk or mix with guests.

In Philadelphia, Annenberg was widely feared as a man not to cross. In London, kept waiting for ten minutes by a British Cabinet Minister, he fumed: "I won't trust that man again." But he has displayed an ability to bow to the wishes of others. When his threat to remove the huge American eagle that adorns the embassy's fac,ade stirred protests from his staff, he relented. "I won't bother him," he said, "if he doesn't bother me."

Uncomfortable in public, Annenberg also has problems on less formal occasions. At a private luncheon with Members of Parliament, Annenberg asked the waitress to leave the room. The guests leaned forward, expecting an important confidence about matters of state. Instead, Annenberg began: "You fellows ever hear the one . , .?"

Lately, however, there have been signs that Annenberg's early gaucheries are being corrected. Press criticism is ebbing. Recently, he loaned his excellent collection of French Impressionist paintings to the Tate Gallery for an exhibition. During Prime Minister Harold Wilson's visit to Washington last week, Annenberg stayed very much in the background, in proper ambassadorial style. His grasp of foreign policy issues still seems shaky, but his staffers acknowledge his executive abilities. "He runs the embassy like a chairman of the board," says one official. "He's one of the best organizational ambassadors I've ever served under." Insists Lady Keith, the U.S.-born wife of a British merchant banker: "Given the least acceptance, Walter and Lee will be very popular."

There is little question of his strong influence with Nixon, for whom he raised sizable sums during the 1968 presidential campaign and with whom he golfs on occasion. When the Department of Justice threatened to block a planned merger of the British Petroleum Co., Ltd. and Standard Oil (Ohio) several months ago, Annenberg helped to persuade the trustbusters to drop their objections. The merger went through, to the delight of a grateful British government. But worries persist. "We know Annenberg can get through to Nixon," said a top-ranking British diplomat. "But can you persuade him to say the right thing?"

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