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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2011
“The best thing about diplomatic life,” Joseph C. Grew once confided to his diary, “… is that one never knows when some event or development of prime importance is going to occur. We pursue the even tenor of our ways for weeks and months and then, often suddenly and unexpectedly, we find ourselves in the midst of a maelstrom of hectic activity, working day and night, rushing telegrams, drafting press communiqués and speeches, dashing from place to place, doing useful work.” Turbulent Era, the account of the forty years he spent as a career diplomat in the American Foreign Service, is convincing evidence that Joseph Grew was present on an extraordinary number of occasions when something of importance broke and that, above all, he was always doing useful work for the country he served so faithfully and so well.
1 Grew, , Turbulent Era, 11, p. 888.Google Scholar
2 Ibid., 1, p. 144.
3 Ibid., 1, p. 13.
4 Ibid., 1, pp. 20–21.
5 Ibid., 1, pp. 409–11.
7 The Constitution, of course, reserves the appointment of ministers and ambassadors to the President and there can be no legislative restrictions on his powers (Wilson, Hugh, Diplomat Between Wars, New York, 1941, p. 167).Google Scholar
8 Pusey, Merlo. J., Charles Evans Hughes, New York, 1951, 11, p. 419.Google Scholar
9 Grew, , op.cit., 1, p. 703.Google Scholar See also Wilson, , op.cit., pp. 171ff.Google Scholar The charge that the “Harvard clique” of the Personnel Board was giving all the breaks to the social diplomats and “tea-hounds of the service” was revived when Mr. Grew received the post of Ambassador to Turkey after completing his Under Secretaryship. Grew, incidentally, was the only Harvard graduate on the Personnel Board, but there were enough Harvard men in high Departmental positions to make other officials believe that the existence of the “clique” was a fact. Mr. Grew's account of the entire difficulty may not be the final answer, but it is certainly a reasoned and documented defense of his policies.
10 Grew, , op.cit., 1, p. 384.Google Scholar
11 Ibid., 1, pp. 627–28.
12 Ibid., 1, pp. 481–85.
13 Mr. Grew's extensive account of the Lausanne Conference will be of great interest to students of European diplomacy. His interpretations certainly suggest that Harold Nicolson's familiar description of Lausanne, in Curzon: The Last Phase (New York, 1939, pp. 281ff.)Google Scholar should henceforth be approached with many reservations. To Nicolson, Curzon's “handling of that Assembly will always remain among the classic examples of expert diplomacy,” and the British Foreign Secretary's adroit diplomacy restored British prestige. Grew, on the other hand, offers convincing evidence that Curzon's steam-roller tactics, derisive attitude, general browbeating of the Turks and, above all, lack of patience contributed to the disruption of the conference and frequently made the Turks just that much more obstinate. Particularly fascinating are Grew's incisive portraits of the various diplomats, especially that of Ismet Pasha and his devotion to green chartreuse. Similarly, Mr. Grew's account of his Turkish mission from 1929 to 1932 is a detailed and sympathetic analysis of the new Turkey which will be of interest to students of the Near East.
14 Grew, , op.cit., 1, p. 609.Google Scholar
15 Ibid., 11, p. 1262.
16 Kennan, George. F., American Diplomacy, 1900–1950, Chicago, 1951, p. 95.Google Scholar
17 Feis, Herbert, The Road to Pearl Harbor, Princeton, N.J., 1951Google Scholar, chaps. 32ff., on the Roosevelt-Konoye meeting.
18 For a concise summary of Hull's views, see Memoirs of Cordell Hull, New York, 1948, 11, pp. 1025–26.
19 U.S. Congress, Pearl Harbor Attack, Washington, U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1946, Part 11, p. 717.Google Scholar
20 Grew, , op.cit., 11, p. 1524.Google Scholar
21 Ibid., 11, p. 1444.
22 Ibid., 11, p. 1482.
23 Ibid., 11, p. 1448.
24 Ibid., 11, pp. 1445–46.