Paris after the Liberation 1944-1949

young men felt that even out-of-order elevators and erratic telephones possessed a certain exotic charm. The envy of the French, however understandable, was the trickiest thing they had to come to terms with. Hard currency gave Americans the choice of the best apartments and pushed up prices for others; while they shipped over everything unobtainable in Europe, notably cars and shoes. ‘How will you recognize me?’ asked a young American, on the telephone to the French family who were to meet him at the railway station. ‘By your shoes,’ was the immediate reply.
    The quality of American officials varied greatly. There were those who knew France well and spoke the language admirably, while others barely spoke French at all. Many could not pronounce the name of the French Prime Minister, Henri Queuille, and just referred to him as ‘Kelly’. This became a joke, and even French-speakers at the embassy picked it up.
    Some members of the ECA responsible for direct contact with the French were incapable of reading a set speech and understanding the questions put to them afterwards. On 3 December 1948, a senior member of its information service gave a lecture on the philosophy of the Marshall Plan. The arguments were so incompetently put over that virtually everything he said was easily ridiculed by a French philosophy professor who was a member of the Association France-URSS and almost certainly a Communist. So embarrassing was this spectacle that the Minister of the Interior wrote to Robert Schuman, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, begging him to advise the American ambassador of ‘the need to send out only talented speakers, who know our language properly and are able to reply without difficulty to questions which might be put to them’.
    The Communist campaign was relentless. ‘At times,’ remembered a member of the ECA’s public relations staff, ‘we could not show a film on the Marshall Plan without getting a brick through the screen.’
    David Bruce, the ECA chief of mission, had no problems with the language after his experience of France before and during the war. He was appointed ambassador after the departure of Jefferson Caffery, but returned to the United States for discussions at the State Department before taking up the post. On 10 May 1949, a strategy meeting on France was held with Dean Acheson, the Secretary of State since Marshall’s retirement, Philip Jessup, George Kennan, Chip Bohlen and Bob Murphy. ‘The presentation of the United States’ viewpoint was thoroughly and exhaustively discussed,’ Bruce recorded drily in his diary. He was sceptical about any approach which smacked of American intervention.
    On 14 May, David Bruce landed at Le Bourget to an official reception and was driven into Paris with a motorcycle escort. ‘The Embassy flag fluttered bravely atop a fender,’ he wrote in his diary, ‘and I think the bystanders were somewhat baffled by the lone funereal old Cadillac car, surrounded by helmeted police, speeding with unknown occupants to an unknown destination.’
    David Bruce and his wife, Evangeline, were on their way to 2 Avenue d’Iéna, a house built by President Grévy in the 1880s and purchased by a previous American ambassador. ‘It is a large, typically French, rich, bourgeois dwelling of the later nineteenth century, with a small but attractive garden. On the ground floor, it is well disposed for large receptions and dinners. Upstairs, the bedrooms are rather appalling, and it is not nearly as attractive or as well furnished as those in most good Paris homes. However, it is a joy to be here.’ One of the joys turned out to be the chef, Robert. A ‘simple Sunday night dinner’ prepared by Robert consisted of onion soup, a timbale of lobster with thick wine sauce, followed by chicken and salad.
    Bruce went over the mission’s domestic arrangements thoroughly. There had been trouble with the Marine guards, now quartered in the Hotel Continental. Bruce wanted them in civilian dress. This was not a time to allow America to be characterized as a proconsular power, whatever the realities of its economic hegemony.
    He had little time to read himself into the job. Within a fortnight of his arrival, foreign statesmen began to assemble for the Conference of Foreign Ministers. This was to be held in the Palais Rose on the Avenue Foch – ‘Boni de Castellane’s ostentatious monstrosity’ – and followed the usual set pattern. The four delegations, headed by