Tchicherin is a many-sided character. When one sees him on the street of an afternoon blinking and confused, with an old umbrella under his arm, rain or shine, he appears pitiful and frail and incapable.... But if one sees him also, as I once saw him, in an ancient, resurrected dress-suit, at the head of a long conference table in a gold and white hall, under glittering candelabra, speaking in flowery and perfect French to the suave Turkish delegates, one gets quite another idea; he appears fine, selfless, determined.
And it is like him to admire Secretary of State Hughes, and call him a “fine, high-minded man” without realizing that Hughes’ high-mindedness is that of a stern, religious brother who refuses to admit again into the family of nations the erring and prodigal Soviet Republic; that it was Hughes who stood out alone against the Genoa conference until he stampeded other members of the Cabinet and even overpowered the President. Hughes regards Communism as immoral as Tchicherin regards capitalism. Both men possess that unbending, cold objectiveness, that unattractive righteousness of attitude towards those who disagree with them, which we know in America as Puritanism. Both would have made excellent bishops.
One evening last spring I happened to be present when Tchicherin was nearly assassinated. A man flourishing a revolver appeared in the reception room and called out for the Foreign Minister. This roused a Red soldier half asleep in a comfortable chair near the door leading to Tchicherin’s private office. A scuffle ensued and the soldier succeeded in getting the pistol before any harm was done.
Tchicherin refused to discuss the incident and remained obviously tranquil. He was annoyed when the Cheka tried to put extra guards at his door and absolutely balked at the suggestion that the Foreign Office be made a place difficult to enter. He simply asked every one to forget the whole incident.
I always believed that he secretly dislikes the Cheka. I remember the night that Santieri Nuorteva was arrested. It happened at midnight and was rather spectacular. Tchicherin liked Nuorteva. He was visibly upset and for a whole week he would not talk to a soul.
The confusion of the Foreign Minister’s desk is a national scandal. In midwinter I have seen his summer hat still lying there, crushed under a pile of papers. I have seen papers piled high on all the chairs and sofa and gray with the dust of months. He has a fearful habit of misplacing important telegrams and then sending out a search call. Those are terrible moments in the Foreign Office. All other work stops. After everything is turned upside down some subordinate gets the courage to ask, “Comrade Tchicherin, perhaps it is on your own desk.” And there it invariably is, almost on his nose, like grandmother’s proverbial spectacles.
It was his habit to give a short talk about once a month to the personnel of the Foreign Office. We would meet about eight o’clock in the Foreign Office Club. Tchicherin was persistently late, sometimes one, sometimes two or even three hours. From time to time someone would whisper, “He has lost another telegram!” There would be suppressed laughter running around the room. Then suddenly the Foreign Minister would appear glancing shyly about him, clear his throat and before he began his address would explain in his high plaintive voice how sorry he was to be tardy but he had somehow misplaced a telegram....
People at home have often said to me that they could not comprehend the “fascination” of the Russian revolution for an American; they have pointed out that they would find anything possible to endure except such unpleasant facts as lice and filth and lack of soap. Most of us, quite correctly, imagine ourselves capable of the larger tragedies of life and entirely lacking in the courage to face the million little miseries of an economic breakdown. It is true that any man with delicate sensibilities who has stood the test of the Russian revolution has stood the test of fire. I have always believed that we are too sentimental about the romances of the Middle Ages. My opinion is that not much really that happened then was fine or good or beautiful; certainly over it all hovered no scent of the attar of roses. King Arthur’s knights probably never marched away with any more noble visions before them than did those little awkward peasant boys of the Red Army. The Communists are undoubtedly the knights errant of the twentieth century and their slogan of “internationalism” is but a revival of that old, old banner of “Brotherhood.” It is not altogether curious that such a whirlwind has swept into its heart a few men like Tchicherin.
In 1917, when Trotsky was Foreign Minister, I well remember a strike of his entire diplomatic corps. How it paralyzed that arm of the state! At that particular moment Tchicherin was under arrest in London. Workers with muddy boots tramped in and out of the Foreign Office with a desire to help. They were loyal to Trotsky but they were ill at ease; entirely incomprehensible to them was this intricate business of diplomacy. It is well for those same workers and peasants and soldiers that a quiet, aloof person by the name of George Tchicherin presently arrived to arrange all this business for them.