Thread by @delong

@adam_tooze From Dean G. Acheson (1961), Sketches from Life of Men I Have Known (New York: Harper and Brothers): “General Maxwell Taylor, then Commandant of our Sector in Berlin, had a reception for me to which the other three Commandants were, of course, invited. General Chuikov, he 1/

@adam_tooze said, would not come: he had not attended any Western social function for months. I offered a ten-dollar bet that he would. General Taylor took it. The reception had been going for an hour and my chances seemed pretty dim. Then there was a great clatter at the door and in 2/

@adam_tooze came, not only General Chuikov, but all of his staff. (General Taylor refused to pay a bonus for staff.)

While we were exchanging noisy greetings and he was demanding [that I do my Andrei] Vyshinksy [imitation], up came a waiter with a tray of cocktails, a large tray. Chuikov 3/

@adam_tooze took a solemn appraising look and began to drink them, before I realized his mistaken assumption of a challenge.

"You don't have to drink all of those, General," I assured him. "They're for everybody." He looked immensely relieved. "Good Lord," I went on. "You must have a 4/

@adam_tooze tin stomach."... He shook his head. "No," he said, "steel."... 5/END

@adam_tooze MOAR context from Acheson: "
One evening, in May, 1949, during the Conference of Foreign Ministers in Paris, [Vyshinsky] dined with our American group at Ambassador Bruce’s residence. The evening passed pleasantly enough.Toward its end Vyshinsky started to talk of the first 1/

@adam_tooze time he had seen Charles Bohlen. It had been some years before, when Bohlen was a junior officer at the Moscow Embassy. Bohlen remembered the meeting, but said that he had seen Mr. Vyshinsky long before that. Vyshinsky guessed unsuccessfully a number of diplomatic receptions. 2/

@adam_tooze “No,” said Bohlen, “it was at the Bukharin trial.” Bukharin
had been a friend of Vyshinsky’s, who got him condemned to death. One of the episodes at the trial had been Vyshinsky’s production of a talisman which Bukharin’s wife had sewed in the lining of his coat to bring him 3/

@adam_tooze luck. Vyshinsky had taunted him on the luck which had brought him to the prisoner’s dock.

As Bohlen pronounced the name, Vyshinsky turned deathly white. “Oh,” he said, “that was not a diplomatic job.” Then hastily getting up, he said that it was late and he must be off. 4/

@adam_tooze Froom the look of him, Bukharin’s ghost went home with him.

Vyshinsky was short and slim, with quick abrupt gestures and rapid speech. He gave the impression of nervous tension. The close-cropped gray mustache, merciless blue eyes and sharply, if not finely, cut features set 5/

@adam_tooze him apart from the stocky, peasant-faced Soviet officials and secret police agents around him.

We met first at the Palais Rose conference. Knowing his formidable courtroom reputation, I was braced for a dangerous and adroit antagonist. But neither then nor later did I find 6/

@adam_tooze him so. Instead, he proved to be a long-winded and boring speaker, as so many Russians are. His debate held no surprises or subtleties. His great penchant, again like many Russians including Khrushchev, was for Russian fables. In retaliation, I, too, began to rely on fables 7/

@adam_tooze and epigrams, making them up, even Russian ones, when nothing appropriate came to mind. One day, when he had made a particularly outrageous proposal, I said that to use an old American Indian saying his proposal was as full of propaganda as a dog was of fleas, only in this 8/

@adam_tooze case it was all fleas and no dog. The laughter which followed convinced him that this would be in every paper in France by morning. He indicated that that point was mine, and went on good-naturedly to something else.

One contest we carried on enlivened those dreary meetings 9/

@adam_tooze for me. The dining room of the Palais Rose, where our sessions took place, had three double French doors looking onto a garden. The room, though large, was crowded with staff people sitting in rows behind the Ministers and their immediate aides at the table. It became stuffy 10/

@adam_tooze and hot. The center doors were to Vyshinsky’s right and a little behind him. Being susceptible to drafts, he objected to their being opened. So I would wait until he was well launched on a speech and then motion to a mostco-operative English girl, a member of the British 11/

@adam_tooze staff, whose seat was by these doors. Very softly she would open one of them. As the reviving and balmy spring air began to restore us to consciousness, Vyshinsky would stop speaking and go into those convulsive gasps which precede a sneeze. Then out would come a fine 12/

@adam_tooze explosive one. He would look angrily at the door, which one of his men would jump to close.

One evening he gave us a return dinner. “Us” included AmbassadorRobertMurphy(thenmyadvisoronGerman- Austrian affairs), Philip Jessup, Foster Dulles, and Chip Bohlen. Among the 13/

@adam_tooze Russian guests was General Chuikov, Military Governor of the Soviet Zone of Germany and Commandant of the Soviet Sector of Berlin, a great ox of a man, his chest covered with medals—one, he pointed out, conferred by General Eisenhower. He was able, he said, to crack a man’s 14/

@adam_tooze skull with a blow of his fist. While we were having sherry, the General spoke of the French door episode with some amusement. He plainly stood in no awe of Vyshinsky. I then did an imitation of Vyshinsky speaking and being caught by the sneeze, my Russian being pure 15/

@adam_tooze gibberish, made up as I went along. The General bellowed, slapped his thigh, and spoke to the interpreter. “The General,” said he, “says ‘begin at the beginning and do it all over again.’” He kept me at it until dinner was announced.

Vyshinsky’s smile became forced. 16/

@adam_tooze Six months later I crossed the General’s trail again, this
time in Berlin. The brief thaw of May had passed and by November a political freeze was on again... 17/END

@adam_tooze Dean Gooderham Acheson: such a WASP...

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