Peter Vansittart - Secret Protocols

The apostolic head and fragrant skin minutely shrivelled, his small laugh, apologetic to my Englishness, was almost vulgar. His grievous example, whether or not accurate, made the fringe listeners smile or nod; for me it was a considerable jolt, as if finding jazz in Napoleon’s notebook or hearing a Spanish baby drawl ‘psychosis’. And, once again, in this vivid summer, dead children spoilt the hour. The burnt crop of Europe. M. Bousquet satisfied with his masterpiece, and the desperate screams at sight of St Peter’s.

My spiritual perception might be meagre, but I wanted to dislodge a situation slippery and still watched. A plump hand, however, detached me, two rings glinting like winks. With growing acumen, I knew that Dr Miracle’s concern was not with the Herr General, not with children of any persuasion, very little with myself save with my supposed connection with the Conference. Were the new Soviet rulers allowing their pet author, Ilya Ehrenberg, to attend as reporter? Was Dulles expected? Would the gallant Mr Eden come? What precautions were being prepared against disorder and would troops be involved? He had lost his well-broached suavity, by now that of a croupier, and was questioning me like a police inspector.

Finally, his expression thinning, he desisted, shaking my hand, saying, not in German but in measured English as if to a backward child, ‘Very great pleasure. How very fortunate Wilfrid must be, having you beside him.’ Evocation of two survivors on a stricken battlefield. His handshake like the pourboire to a porter, or the virtuoso slice of lemon curled in a Dutch stilleben. As for sainted Albion, I saw the dome of St Paul’s, calm above the swirling flame and smoke of the Reichsmarschall’s gamble.

The shining evening had tired, and I was glad of Wilfrid’s signal to depart. Chin on hand, he heard my account of the Orphans Affair, looking at me as if preserving knowledge as yet inadvisable to discuss. This was uncharacteristic, for wickedness to children was one of the rare matters that upset him. His reaction to my verdict on Dr Miracle was also unsatisfactory.

‘We must accept, even be diverted by, the variousness of others. You were discerning enough to select a very individual specimen for your inspection. He was a Vichy minister, a leading opponent of the Reynaud–Churchill discussions about Anglo-French union. With Britain apparently defeated, Moscow about to fall, he became vehemently pro-German. You could have had sight of him in the Jünger film, standing with German generals and Laval at a Wehrmacht parade for Hitler’s birthday. He has not changed, has his own courage, not of the showy kind. Recently, he bribed his way free, from a government investigation into financial mischance. He shuns all publicity for using his millions to keep afloat a hospital ill-advised enough to allow me its chairmanship. In England, alas, he is forbidden to set foot. He will certainly, and very graciously, invite us to view his art collection. All in excellent taste and due to a family forced to sell at bargain prices, before deportation.’

A very unsatisfactory reference, I reflected.

Experience of Dr Miracle, renewed and discordant memories of the Herr General and the growing prominence of the September Conférence du Monde , together with sexual famine, was forcing me to keep watch like a fiction detective’s straight-man. I was one of those, like Count Pahlen’s confederates, who slink in shadows, taking notes, overhearing, stalking, but missing the grand climax. There would be evidence in plenty – Dr Miracle’s excellent artistic taste, revolution in Egypt, Adenauer’s visits to London and New York, the French presidential election – though evidence of what I could see little more than a muddle.

Meanwhile, the Conference, six weeks ahead, was inciting a turmoil of publicity quips, vengeful taunts, feuds scarcely unchanged since the Revolution and a morass of shifting allegiances akin to the testing time of Stalin’s death. Issuing a personal communiqué, Charles de Gaulle, without mentioning the Conference, foretold the demolition of what he called the grotesque Soviet System and demanded a general European effort to withstand American global ambitions. Jean-Paul Sartre replied that this was fascist foolery.

I now realized that many of Wilfrid’s associates belonged to another of M. Sartre’s targets, Toute Vie , not a political movement, more, apparently, an intellectual mood, shallow as an oyster, Marc-Henri instructed me, before boasting of his favourite and infuriating topic, progress with his latest girl. Did Wilfrid, I groaned, have any understanding of my real needs? Evidently not.

Toute Vie was further response to the feeble morale, political intellectual and financial corruption responsible for the French defeat in 1940, regarded by too many not as catastrophe but as opportunity for regeneration through suffering and self-purgation, with defeat of the Left and the suppression of anarchy. Anti-fascist, anti-communist, Toute Vie was attacked for alleged mysticism and its insistence on physical fitness indispensable for mental rigour and moral stability. Though it looked back to similar Renaissance cults, its appeal to athleticism and sport could, as Wilfrid rather ruefully admitted, be uncomfortably close to the Nazi ‘Strength Through Joy’ order and its Soviet replicas. Toute Vie was attracting many worker-priests, lately deprecated by the Vatican, together with youngish philosophers, teachers, publishers, physicians, constantly overcrowding our rooms and confirming English notion of jabber. Toute Vie , as conducted by these, was learned, dedicated, persuasive and tedious. At this, Wilfrid nodded without rancour, merely reflecting that the results of exciting rallies were usually deplorable, particularly in Paris, which often mistook excellent theatre for serious politics.

Whatever its deficiencies, the Conference would be no back-room gossip or kitchen-talk slogans, advocating universal hand-outs, Californian diet, deep breathing and the inspired negatives of Tao . Backed by UNESCO, the World Council of Churches, industrial combines, surely the CIA and perhaps the Pentagon, it had been lent the substantial, historically prestigious Pavillon Mazarin. Newspapers daily tabled support, promises, goodwill, from impersonal corporations and individuals whom Wilfrid described as being famous yet unknown.

His gift of Rilke’s poems had been valuable, but their constant exhortation to praise I found superfluous in this hectic atmosphere of big names and rowdy dissent. I could praise nothing, and, by now experienced in his ways, I regarded with rank suspicion his assurance that not only would I be helpful to him but would also have my fill of the ludicrous misunderstandings, heartfelt error and personal oddity unavoidable in any pretentious undertaking.

Wilfrid liked giving small dinner parties at home, usually inviting guests undemanding, friendly, and departing not too late. As refuge from Pavillon preparations, he proposed, ‘should you boys permit’ another dinner, but this time to entertain a personage too eminent to have noticed even the Conference. Lisette, traitor, beamed satisfaction. Marc-Henri was unexpectedly agreeable, though I winced like a flagellant. Only too likely was a Toute Vie enthusiast or, worse, Dr Miracle talking of Titian. It might not be beyond Wilfrid’s temperament, his quiet pleasure in surprising, to produce Dr Miracle’s demi-god, the Herr General, with gun in his pocket. More realistically, there would be a potentate offering me berth on a Brazilian estancia , a desk on an Oslo paper, an interview with Italian bankers or a Papal conclave. Thankfully, Konrad Adenauer, now in London, was unavailable and could not demand my opinion of Bonn’s economic policy, Wilfrid having commended my capacity for zealous research.