Avuncular American

1947: Mrs. Biddle's Tangier

Note: Mrs. Virginia Hamill Biddle recalled her years (1947-49) at the American Legation in her lengthy (she must have gone through a bunch of cassettes) 1994 Library of Congress "Frontline Diplomacy" oral history, in cooperation with ADST, the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training.  Tangier made an impression: it was her first full Foreign Service posting.  And Mrs. B. made an impression too, mixing with the crème of Tangier's still-flourishing international set.  To read her entire account, go to the LoC's website and type in Memoir Mrs. Biddle in the search box (see illustration above).

We've chosen these bits - chatty, opinionated - for their flavor of life in Tangier and at the Legation.  Be ready for a few un-PC expressions and attitudes ("Moorish," "my fatmah") which are a reflection of her time.  This being oral history, some of the proper names may be approximations.  Virginia Hamill Biddle died in 2007 at the age of 103, then the oldest retired Foreign Service member.

Stay tuned for revelations: "the Legation plane;" the "perfect spy."  Enjoy.

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Keep the classified safe from the donkeys!

The Legation was the oldest in the history of our Foreign Service and probably the most unique having been a gift from the Sultan in 1821. It was in the old quarter of Tangier and divided by a tiny thoroughfare, which we had to cross to get from one office to another. We all quickly learned to flatten our backs against the walls, sometimes with highly classified documents in our arms, to allow the caravans of donkeys with their burden of faggots to pass, because here the animals have the right of way.

I was kindly offered the office previously occupied by Mr. Alling [note: Paul Humiston Alling, Diplomatic Agent/Consul General Tangier, July 16, 1945-July 14, 1947], which I thought was a most kind gesture. Looking down upon me from the walls were photographs of all the former representatives of our government to Tangier. It was a big room with an old Moorish tile floor and I looked out upon an ancient courtyard planted with flowering vines where a fountain played and little gold fish swam.

There was a staff of about 35. The hours were from 9-1 and 4-7. Everyone usually had their traditional siesta or went to the beach. The legation car transported us back and forth from our homes to the office, but sometimes I enjoyed walking through the old streets.

Tangier Tummy and Arabian Nights

[I was in bed for two weeks]. It seems I had succumbed to the common complaint so many new arrivals to North Africa get from germs in certain fruits and vegetables and fish and from so much oil used in the cooking here. Apparently few escape Tangier Tummy. The ailment is the same depending on which country you wish to blame it on. It goes by various names in different parts of the world. It is Pharaoh's revenge in Egypt; and in Mexico, Montezuma's revenge; Balkan Blight in southeastern Europe; and Turkey trots in Turkey.

Once back in the office I gradually became absorbed in the work. The code clerk, Ruth Charles, was so security conscious and quite rightly, when she returned from lunch one day and saw a bundle thrown in the wastebasket she immediately picked it up with fright in her eyes and exclaimed, "Is this Top Secret?" I couldn't help suppress a smile as I assured her it wasn't and explained that it was a sandwich I had ordered at noon which had been made from a long hard loaf of French bread cut into lengths with a thick slab of goat's cheese inside. I couldn't get it in my mouth so I threw it in the wastebasket, failing to classify it.

Occasionally there were English-speaking movies but not too good. One I saw was "Arabian Nights." As we were coming out of the theater, I noticed a great many Arabs leaving and wondered what they thought of the Hollywood version of themselves.

One Christmas Day the Plitts [note: Edwin August Plitt, Diplomatic Agent/Consul General Tangier, September 11, 1947-April 25, 1951] invited the staff - 35 in all - for a luncheon. It was then that I learned about the "protocol of the sofa," that it was not just a piece of furniture for comfort but a symbol of rank! In veiled hints it was conveyed that only the wife of the Minister had the privilege of sitting on it! It had been a day when thoughts are certainly directed to our loved ones in America so being with the Plitts and the Legation family was like a home from home.

I left [Marrakech] early Tuesday morning and arrived home about 2:30pm. That evening I dined at Francis Fileo's. The other guests were two interesting women and a representative of Coca Cola. As someone said, "American culture has come to Tangier when Coca Cola arrived, a world wide symbol of American capitalism."

Quick, to the showers, there's water!

The never ending water shortage reached tragic proportions [note: she mentions a murder in the Casbah].  But sometimes things get so tragic they get comical. A funny thing happened when several people were sitting around chatting at one of the consul's homes. The door of the kitchen had been left open when suddenly they all heard a slight trickle. There was dead silence for a moment, and then everyone dashed out of the door and ran home to take showers. Converse Hettinger, one of our new vice consuls who always looked very impressive carrying a briefcase bulging with reports, came in one morning and said, "Well, I had to brush my teeth with scotch this morning." Water was becoming more scarce than scotch. Once there was such a waste - my fatmah went away forgetting to turn off the taps and the salon was flooded. My beautiful long draperies showed the water marks ever after.

On the 4th of July there was a reception at the Legation, which is usually given to celebrate our Independence Day. To attend is almost a sacred duty of every American. At various parties I kept meeting Dr. Dunlap, who took such good care of me when I was so ill, and his wife, everyone called Teddy. She was blond and bubbly and a vice consul at the British legation. But, what I didn't know until some years later was that she had been a highly efficient member of their Secret Service because she never appeared to take anything seriously. The perfect spy.

Our electricity had been cut to such an extent that for three consecutive days and nights we had none at all in the apartment. Everyone had to make huge investments in candles. Working under feeble lights until 7:00pm at the office and trying to do urgent work by candlelight began to be irksome to us all.

The daily rounds of duty that by now had become routine continued at the office. Then one day news circulated that the Legation plane was going to Rome on June 10th. These occasional trips were one of the fringe benefits of being posted in Tangier and I was not one to ignore the opportunity whenever it presented itself. Who was it said, "Three things come not back to man or woman - a sped arrow, a spoken word and a lost opportunity?"

Mr. Seate, our administrative officer, telephoned me to ask if I could take off at 7:00 the next morning for Port Lyautey, the naval base about two hours from here where we have medical examinations. But as my Spanish visa had expired I was unable to go. However, I went with a group later. The staff is obliged to go there regularly, a rather strict examination. The commissary and PX are also there so we can make some purchases before returning.

"Non-pro" courier: can a woman do it?

At last I was given permission to take the diplomatic pouch to Gibraltar. One of the officers had been going over with it every other week and some time ago I asked if I could take it because I was anxious to see the Merrills. But the powers to be were not certain if a female could act as a courier. I was quite excited about the little mission.

A hundred invitations were sent out for a cocktail party I was having, which was sort of a "hail Mildred [note: Biddle's visiting sister] farewell Virginia" affair. A few days before the party I heard Mildred going into peals of laughter.  When I went to see why, she was leaning over the window watching a little donkey deliver all the liquor that it had carried on its back. A usual sight in Tangier, but not in Washington, DC.

There appeared this account in the Tangier Gazette, dated October 14, 1949. "The American Minister, Mr. Edwin A. Plitt and Mr. Bolard Moore, American Consul and his wife, were amongst the 100 guests that thronged the lovely apartment of Mrs. Virginia Hamill Biddle on Sunday evening last. Mrs. Biddle is shortly leaving to return to Washington, DC. Her masses of friends and American consulate colleagues will miss Virginia who has resided here for 2 and a half years and, so she says, has been very happy. Good luck to you Mrs. Biddle, and thank you for the lovely party."

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And Thank You, Mrs. Biddle, for the rare glimpses of life at the Legation!

Mrs. Malt's Doors

In honor of the memory of Mr. Hal Malt, 1918 - 2013, his wife Carol donated funds which enabled the Legation to restore a set of beautiful cedar doors - hand-carved by medina neighbor Said Mechnini - which are the main entrance to our distressed Pavilion building.

Here is what Dr. Carol Malt wrote concerning her husband, who passed away almost one year ago:

HAROLD LEWIS MALT

1918 – 2013

 

Harold Lewis Malt (Hal), 94, passed away on January 3 at his home. Born in Pittsburgh, PA, he was preceded in death by his parents Isadore and Florence and his son Bruce and is survived by his loving wife Carol and daughter Ilene. He received his MFAID from Carnegie-Mellon University and MID from Syracuse University.

 

He served in the Army Air Corps during WWII as a P-39 (Airacobra) fighter pilot. After the war he formed two companies that provided services to Army and Navy agencies in Washington DC. His companies expanded to include urban design and planning services for HUD, LEAA and other federal agencies, receiving national industry and government design recognition for his work and publications. Notable were the 5^th Biennial Housing and Urban Development Award for Excellence of Design, naming him Expert Advisor for the physical environment and a prestigious Design Recognition Award from the National Endowment for the Arts. He is the author of 35 monographs, two books on design and the historical novel, The Tangier Option.

 

Later, joining the faculty at the University of Miami as professor of architecture and planning, he moved to Miami and continued as a consultant in urban design and as city planner for Hialeah Gardens and Virginia Gardens. His projects also included museum feasibility surveys and urban design for the Pensacola Downtown Improvement Board.

 

Moving to Pensacola as professor emeritus in 1991, he continued his consultancy and writing. He will be well remembered for his talents, achievements, mentoring and friendship.

 

Hal was - and Carol continues to be - a friend and supporter of the Legation, and we always look forward to Carol's annual residency in Tangier, which always means engagement with the Legation.  It's help from friends like this which keeps the Legation alive, and we are thankful.

 

We hope that her gesture serves as an inspiration to the US State Department to proceed with the critically urgent restoration of the historic Pavilion building, which is suffering from major structural stress.  We now have "crack monitors," which enable us to measure the size of our wall fissures.  Crack repair is now in order - might we hope for progress in 2014?

 

Text Gerald Loftus, photos Mohammed Jadidi, TALIM. 

Mediterranean Regional Research Fellowship Program

We're happy to announce that CAORC, the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, of which TALIM is, through AIMS, the CAORC/AIMS center for Morocco, has received funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York for the 2014 Arab Regional Workshop & Fellowship Program.  Apply at the CAORC site.

All application materials must be received by CAORC by 17 March 2014.

 

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Purpose: The purpose of this program is to build cooperative networks among scholars from Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia, and Yemen, working in the social sciences and allied humanities (including, but not limited to, political science, sociology, anthropology/ethnology, and history). The program will draw on the resources, facilities, and contacts of American overseas research centers located in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia, and Yemen to enable the recipients to further their research and to build professional networks in and among host countries.

 

Fellowships: The fellowships are intended to serve scholars who are currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program, or who have completed their Ph.D. in the past ten years. The program offers up to twenty short-term (six to eight week) research residencies with recipients affiliating with one of the following overseas research centers: American Center of Oriental Research (Amman, Jordan), American Research Center in Egypt (Cairo, Egypt), Centre d’Études Maghrébines en Algérie (Oran, Algeria), Centre d’Études Maghrébines à Tunis (Tunis, Tunisia), American Institute for Yemeni Studies (Sana’a, Yemen), Palestinian American Research Center (Ramallah, Palestine) or the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies (Tangier, Morocco). Prior to commencing their fellowship, fellows will participate in a research capacity-building workshop in Amman, Jordan.

 

Workshop: Selected fellows will participate in a research capacity-building workshop in Amman, Jordan on 18-21 October 2014. The workshop will bring together international scholars and research fellows to hone the research design of fellows’ projects. Workshop sessions will include the essential elements of research design development, grant proposal writing, and small group and one-on-one discussions of ways to incorporate these essentials to the research design.

 

Award: This two-part award funds participation in the capacity building workshop in Amman, Jordan, and a six to eight week research affiliation with an overseas research center. Round-trip travel, accommodations, and meals will be provided for the capacity-building workshop in Amman, Jordan. A stipend of $700 per week, up to eight weeks, will be provided for travel and living expenses incurred during the research residency. All research must be completed by 1 September 2015. A final report, with one page summary in English, is due no later than 15 September 2015.

Teatro Cervantes Centenary: Year Zero

Whatever happens to Tangier's landmark Cervantes Theatre - Gran Teatro Cervantes - in its second century will not likely be a repeat of its tumultuous first 100 years.  Despite the attention raised by the 1913 -2013 centenary year and the wonderful exhibit at Tangier's Cervantes Institute which opened last night, the future of "GTC" is likely to be a continuation of its long decline into oblivion.  Le Monde highlighted the fading beauty earlier this year.

It need not have been so.  In this centenary year, theater greats Kenneth Branagh and Rob Ashford wanted to lead an international fundraising effort to restore GTC to its former glory, but ran into general apathy or bureaucratic hurdles - is the Teatro Cervantes still Spanish? (yes) or is it Moroccan (yes, at least the city of Tangier has a say in its destiny).  The Ashford/Branagh effort never got off the ground.

The current exposition (through 12 January) in Tangier is well worth seeing, lovingly mounted by Madrid Autonomous University (UAM) Prof. Bernabé López García, a renowned expert on Spain in Morocco.  GTC has been a theater, a cinema (early Bollywood was its specialty post-independence), and even a wrestling ring...  Artifacts from the theater (chairs, decor) and a wealth of documents from the Spanish Consulate archives, make this a highly educational display.

With the assistance of French Tangier-based photographer Daniel Aron, whose imaginative use of lighting momentarily brought the eerie derelict back to life, the exhibit provides a wealth of historical detail on a century that saw two world wars, a civil war (though in Spain, Tangier was affected), transition from International Zone to Moroccan independence, then a long, slow decline, with the last event happening in GTC in 1993.  It's been closed - and falling apart - ever since.

Despite encouraging words from the mayor of Tangier (evoking King Mohammed VI's "Tangier Metropolis" project) and the Spanish Consul General (hoping that the renovation of the port will help the theatre, which is in the general neighborhood), one gets the distinct impression that this current exhibit is the best thing that has happened to GTC in quite a while.  And that, save an intervention from on high - inshallah - the venerable theatre will continue its downward death spiral.  This centenary is Year Zero - what comes now is anyone's guess.

Photos thanks to Instituto Cervantes Tangèr.

Gerald Loftus

Sephardic Song in an Anglican Church

... accompanied by Muslim women musicians.  As songstress/academic Vanessa Paloma put it: "you've got to love Tangier."

Last night a full "congregation" (well, some of us were there only for Vanessa) of Tangier's music lovers gathered in historic St. Andrew's Anglican church for an evening of Sephardic song.

Former Fulbright scholar Vanessa Paloma, who we've written about before (here and here), returned to her favorite city on the Strait and impressed us with her wide repertoire of songs from Morocco's (and Andalusian Spain's) past.

There's something about Sephardic music.  Sometimes when you shut your eyes, you can hear the long links to its Andalusian and North African homes, a rhythm that would match the gait of a camel caravan crossing the distance of time.

This impression was enhanced by Vanessa's choice of accompanists, Tangeroises Zakia Yahlef, violinist, and percussionist Sanae Hantout.  Educator and fellow blogger Anouar Majid of the University of New England provides us with a nice video excerpt on his blog Tingitana.

Vanessa Paloma explained that

Tonight's concert draws from the rich repertoire of Romances (narrative ballads) that have been sung in Morocco and Andalusia since before the expulsion from the Iberian peninsula.  My work has focused on... transporting forgotten ballads out from the memories of older women and recorded archives to stages throughout the world.

Performer and audience reveled in the multi-religious and multi-cultural content of the songs and of the city in which they were performed.  One Tanjawia, a Muslim, recalled how her grandmother used to sing Jewish ballads in Haketia, the Ladino dialect of northern Morocco.

Vanessa was inspired, seeing a plaque in the church dedicated to 19th century Tangier British diplomat Drummond-Hay, to adjust her program.  She inserted a ballad of Solica or Suleika, the real-life Sol Hachuel, a tragic case about which Drummond-Hay wrote to the Foreign Office.  Paul Bowles, in his 1984 book "Points in Time," wrote about Sol Hachuel, "favored with exceptional beauty," whose walks through the Mellah or Jewish quarter of the Fez medina attracted the attentions of her future husband, a Muslim.  After straying from the boundaries of religion for love, Solica begins to regret her marriage and conversion, but her escape is short-lived and fatal.

Love, longing, loss - and all the dangers that can befall women in a dangerous world (kidnapping, seduction, abandonment of tradition) - were a common theme in Vanessa Paloma's selections.  And what better ballad to conclude the evening than "Mosé salió de Misrayim," the Moses that Muslims know as Musa, and who all three great monotheistic religions venerate.  Truly, it was an evening of celebration of the Mediterranean/Andalusian/Maghrebi world's "tres culturas." 

Do You Receive Me? Reception Theory

In another of our continuing series of programs with Tangier's King Fahd School of Translation (part of Abdelmalek Essaadi University), TALIM hosted a full house of students in the communications master's program.

The topic was reception theory.

Now, your correspondent may be a practitioner of communication - blogging, public speaking, media interviews - but I had never before come across reception theory.

Perhaps it is best summed up by a couple of cartoons, possibly by students trying to cut their way through dense theory.  First by Doyinsola, then by Vi Paravane.  Be sure to come back to this blog!

For me, since most of the presentations were in Modern Standard Arabic, I enjoyed the capsule summaries provided by Prof. Tayib Boutbouqalt, sitting next to me.  Especially his take on the students in his program, probably a good third of whom would be known in the US as "continuing education," "non-traditional," or "mature" students.  According to Dr. Boutbouqalt, this is a very recent phenomenon in Morocco, which is to be lauded for including professionals in the mix of these graduate classes.

Yesterday's group, for example, included several working journalists and practitioners of corporate communication.  One of the mature students even did a stint as a political prisoner in the days when Morocco had a number of people who paid the price for nonconformity.  Now this person is a civil servant, practicing his journalism in the cause of his country - and taking classes in things like reception theory.

Okay, back to RT.  Reception theory, in case you didn't look at the cartoons, is the study of how messages are understood differently by people with different backgrounds.  You can see a whole bunch of slides on RT by clicking here.

After a wide range of presentations from different schools of thought and linguistic sources, the students engaged in some Q & A.  One question - unanswered - was how reception theory has fared in these days of Facebook, Twitter, etc.  I have a feeling - simply from the average age of much work done on RT, as seen in these JSTOR search results - that the field may have had its heyday in the pre-internet 1980s.

But then, what do I know?  Did you receive me? Over and out.

Gerald Loftus

Play It Again, In Casablanca

As we (we, as in Dar America and Villa des Arts) did with Patton, the "Morocco In Hollywood" series continued with a showing of Casablanca, the classic 1942 film that counts among many people's top-rated films of all time.  How to present Casablanca to Casawis?

One way is to tell them that the film should have been called "Tangier..."  No, I didn't actually say that, but did tell them about the real-life "Dean's Bar" and the wartime reality of Tangier as a haven for refugees from war torn Europe.

So after enjoying the film for the nth time (I never tire of it), we settled down to a discussion of the context of Casablanca.  For many in the audience, Moroccan Casawis (inhabitants of Casablanca) in the majority, it was their first time seeing the film; for others, the first time seeing it in the original English with French subtitles.

Our little trivia contest didn't disappoint.  Q: Which cast member was the subject of a Gestapo assasination plot?  A: Conrad Veidt, eminent actor and exile from Nazi Germany, who, ironically, plays German villain Major Heinrich Strasser in the film.

People are still astounded that Casablanca was shot entirely in a Hollywood studio, and that today's "re-creation" of Rick's Café Américain in Casa is as fictitious - and as seductively beautiful - as the original.  The film has given its namesake city its brand - just Google "Casablanca" and the film trumps the city by far - and "Rick's Cafés" are found in places as widespread as Capetown South Africa and Starkville Missisippi.

Casawis are vaguely aware of this, and sometimes have to ward off wondrous comments from foreign acquaintances who imagine them rubbing elbows with the likes of Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains.  No, they answer, we just live in a sprawling crazy metropolis of 4 (or is it 13?) million people suffocating from automobile and other pollution.  But they are happy with the reflected romanticism from this 71 year old film.

Gerald Loftus at Villa des Arts, Casablanca. Photo by Vanessa Paloma

Another major disconnect in film vs. reality was in the context between the United States and France between 1940 and 1944.  For four long years, official US policy was to maintain relations with the Vichy government of Maréchal Pétain or, after those relations were severed by the American landings in North Africa, with Vichy successors in place in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.  Until late 1944, well after the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris, US policy could be summed up as "ABDG" - Anybody But de Gaulle."  And anything to keep the French fleet from falling into the hands of Germany.

But this wouldn't have been apparent to the huge (upwards of 90 million tickets per week) American movie-going public of 1942-43.  Premiering only three weeks after the November 8, 1942 Operation Torch landings, Casablanca is unabashedly anti-Vichy, to the point where Pétain's portrait smiles down on a Free French agent being gunned down by Vichy police in the street, and where - in case you didn't get it - a bottle of "Vichy water" is unceremoniously thrown into the trash bin at the end of the film.

Very rousing, and you'd have to be a hard-hearted stoic not to get a lump in your throat at the jousting "Watch On the Rhine" sung by Nazis vs. "La Marseillaise" belted out by the Rick's crowd - the latter winning out in volume and passion.  But as Richard Raskin, writing in Film History, noted:

At the time Casablanca was playing in movie theatres across the U.S., men like Victor Laszlo were hunted down by the police of Darlan and Giraud, the French High Commissioners kept in power by Roosevelt.

"Casablanca and United States Foreign Policy," Dr. Richard Raskin, Aarhus University Denmark, Film History, Volume 4, 1990.

Despite OWI's (the US propaganda arm, Office of War Information) enthusiasm for the film ("presents an excellent picture of the spirit of the underground movement..."), the Free French found a less welcoming stance on the ground in North Africa, where OWI - perhaps worried about that bottle of Vichy water - didn't want Casablanca to be screened.

70-plus years later, we can sweep away the details of history, perhaps, and lull ourselves into thinking that Rick and Capitaine Renault do go off to battle Nazis together, that "beginning of a beautiful friendship."

General de Gaulle - who liked the film too, and ordered a copy for his Free French HQ in London - would have to wait until October 1944 to finally achieve US recognition.  But don't let that get in the way of your enjoying what still may be the perfect film of all time.

Gerald Loftus