Peter Vansittart - Secret Protocols

The chairman was at last urging us to guarantee the rehabilitation of Europe, the simple hand clasp, he ventured to believe against any opposition, was the only authentic passport. On this, a resolution was accepted, not quite unanimously, to dispatch a message of friendship to the Kremlin.

The high, scarlet-pelmeted windows could have been permanently glued, against Jacobins, Communards, Paris in bad temper, the warmth thickened by smokers. Already resisting drowsiness, I saw Wilfrid far away, his studied sympathetic assent to a rigmarole of platitudes.

From the floor – no one ascended the dais – a German gentleman in beige, all correct lines and smart half-seen handkerchief, had risen, Trilling leaning back in slightly incredulous distaste.

Despite his opulent suit, the speaker was nervous, apprehensive, plaintive, his face like frayed rubber, drooping sideways, his hands as if confused by gloves slipped on to the wrong fingers, while he began in low, somewhat clammy French, the accent correct but as though he did not wholly understand the meaning of the words.

‘Yes. In war, we Germans submitted to pressure but were determined, adamant, that, if we must bend, we would not break. In the spirit of the martyred Gandhi, we submitted but refused inner allegiance.’

He hesitated at a flutter of unease, during which Trilling, not lowering his voice, informed me that Herr Doktor Otto Flake was a Bavarian novelist, blatant supporter of the Hitler–Stalin Pact as the triumph of generosity, who had published substantially, profitably, throughout the regime and who had, in murky circumstances, been acquitted by a de-Nazification court.

‘Yes, we maintained our dignity and what our people call honour, by refusing to beg for the prizes offered in safe centres, in neutral lands. We were forced to join the barbarous Party House of Culture, but…’ he held the word like a dangerous grenade, ‘we held our souls tight, the true culture represented in this hall today. The inner freedom instanced by Kepler, by Hölderlin. We owed it to Germany to survive at any cost, independent of politics. The only true politics is in the spirit. Our true Führer was Goethe. Some of us called our beliefs Internal Emigration.’

The silence, that of subdued tensions, enabled us to hear, more clearly, the seething menace on the streets, ominous as swords clashing on shields, dreaded by emperors. Unmistakable was the clatter of mounted police, then another silence, the Bavarian voice now louder, more satisfied, ignoring Trilling’s interjection, quiet but startling, ‘Cultural scoundrel!’ Heads turned, Malraux nodded approval, and coughs and mutters forced Dr Flake to sit down. Relief was provided by a recording from an African poet, his ‘Ode to the Unnoticed’.

Then another German, unrhetorical but with controlled passion. ‘We knew what was happening and we did nothing. That was our Internal Emigration. Our eyes were open, our skins shuddered and we waited for brutes to tell us our next move. Internal Emigration! Choice words for those seeking to swim on dry land, get drunk from empty tankards, fortify themselves with words. All words published under the Third Reich stink. One should never touch them.’

Hands twittered and thrust, like Bourse dealers; some were clapping. Mr Spender, beside Malraux, head glistening like Parsifal, was pink with approval. Above us, Wilfrid was impassive, others worried or undecided, until Martha Gellhorn, in a few staccato, invigorating sentences, pleaded not for tolerance, mysticism, eloquence but alertness and analysis. A French existentialist academic, at a nod from the bulky commanding Brazilian, demanded that Europe should seek Freedom: from idolatory, weak notions of self, history, the myth of the unconscious. ‘I ask for the Essence,’ he concluded, though none of us could stand up and supply it.

These mouthings could not be for what Wilfrid had laboured, but that he himself, with his aversion to oratory, would address us I doubted. The Algerian deputy was protesting against colonialism, with a flair for nineteenth-century abusive phrases, but afterwards the verbal criss-cross was as tepid as Herr Flake’s soul-movements or Rising Tide. Another resolution was acclaimed, another postponed. An Iranian quoted Voltaire emphatically but, Trilling murmured, inaccurately. Expectations of Wilfrid’s protégé, François Bedarika, Catholic historian and Maquis fighter, were disappointed. Some saint must soon assure us that American racialism was journalistic propaganda, that Show Trials, Purges, the Pact, had never occurred, the Baltic states had never existed. Even the Revolution choked itself on ideals.

At the buffet interval, on the lawns secluded from the uproar of the barricades, now, apparently, in retreat, Trilling left me, to join a more fervid debate amongst French and Poles, about the moral validity of Americans executing Ethel and Julius Rosenberg for atomic espionage and treachery. I could not hear Trilling’s opinion but guessed him liberal almost to excess, while a grey-haired, grey-suited man smiled shyly, before speaking to me in English. ‘I am so glad to meet you at last. I hope the Atlantic crossing did not upset. But you probably flew with His Grace.’ His plump face was vague at the edges, the smile as if pinned to settle the slack mouth. He added, ‘When you are back home, be so kind as to tell Miss Bette Davis that she is still what, in once-popular parlance, they called the tops.’ I refrained from telling him Davis’s alleged assessment of a rival, that she was the original Good Time Had by All.

Despite the general clamour, there was unmistakable listlessness and discontent. Nehru was in Delhi, Churchill in Morocco, Russell had been blown off course by a tantrum and was now sitting down in Trafalgar Square to delay the Bomb. Signor Levi was departing, though pausing to shake hands with me, excusing himself by his horror of public speaking. The eyes, behind spectacles, though confiding, were also shrewd. ‘Don’t forget,’ he repeated, almost whispering.

Trilling rejoined me for the afternoon session which began with a torrent of accusations from an exiled Polish painter, scorched face, hair like a black biretta, French like a grating file. Soviet generals had invited sixteen Polish leaders to confer with Marshal Zhukov; they complied and were shot. British generals had done likewise in Carinthia, betraying Russian and Serb anti-Bolsheviks to Stalin and Tito. Appeasement, he told us, was muck and sewage, sewage and muck. We should use scythes, we should use bullets, in extremity we should use… But loudening discomfort blocked out the last horror. We were, despite his outcry, appeased by an Italian actress in a dark velvet pyramid-shaped hat topped with blue aigrette. ‘Such sentiments’ – she spread hands – ‘such intolerance…’ her thick brows rose almost into the hat. She spoke of the onus of new circumstance, the dilemmas of crisis, the need to forget history, true or false. Listeners wavered between politely applauding sincerity and shrugging at operatics.

A diminutive Dutch lady had replaced the Brazilian chairman, and, the proceedings on the verge of lapsing into fuggy void, she signalled to a stocky Belgian ex-general, ‘The Hero of Gravelines’, ex-minister, whose savage temper was reputed to have helped lose King Leopold his throne. Unprepossessing as Southern Spite, he lectured us, reinforcing his reputation, rasping, threatening. Before he finished, it was as though the ‘Radetsky March’ had blown through us.

‘Retribution is sanctioned by religion but again and yet again is rejected as disgraceful, uncivilized. But, on behalf of millions, I maintain that, as Nuremburg proved, it can be necessary as bread, medicine, wine. It is tribute to the dead, the shattered and bruised. It restores moral balance, totality…’