Avuncular American

The Sultan's Declaration of Independence

Sultan Mohammed V with members of Tangier Committee of Control, International Zone

9 April is not a Moroccan national holiday, but it is nevertheless remembered in Tangier and beyond, marking that day in 1947 when Sultan Mohammed V traveled to the International Zone and made a speech which was an important milestone in Morocco's road to regaining its independence.

So it was fitting that Dr. Bernabé López Garcia of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, eminent scholar of modern Morocco, chose April 9th to present his research into the context and the impact of the Sultan's speech.

And the venue of the Legation was highly appropriate, as the United States had already, in the early 1940s, made clear its support for the Sultan.  Roosevelt's dinner invitation to Mohammed V during the January 1943 Anfa or Casablanca Conference brought the Sultan to the table with the US President and Prime Minister Churchill, and American diplomats at the Legation incurred the wrath of French officials for opening their door to Moroccan nationalists.

Roosevelt's memory remained dear to Moroccans after the President died in 1945, and the aircraft carrier bearing his name visited Tangier to great fanfare (there was even the creation, in several Moroccan cities, of the "Club Roosevelt al-Moghreb" in honor of the late President).  The Sultan also paid his respects at the second anniversary commemoration of Roosevelt's death.

López Garcia spoke of the largely hostile Spanish reception given to the Sultan's plans to travel to Tangier.  Some imagined a nefarious French hand trying to undermine the Spanish position, and others suspected the US of wanting to extend its influence.

Spanish authorities came up with various plans to delay the trip, citing security and logistical concerns ("where will they all stay?").  Morocco's multiple borders (French Protectorate to Spanish Protectorate to Tangier International Zone) created multiple roadblocks to restrict mass movement on the international city, and Spanish authorities also feared that the event might be exploited by Spanish Republican dissidents who had escaped to Morocco from mainland Spain after their defeat in the Spanish Civil War.

Dr. López Garcia's anniversary presentation revealed a few nuggets about the Legation as well, including Chargé d'Affaires John Goodyear's successful insistence on US precedence in the diplomatic lineup, a not inconsiderable advantage when symbolism meant everything.

According to a contemporary Spanish diplomatic source, Sultan Mohammed V paid an incognito visit to the American Legation after his historic speech to thank the US for its crucial support.  Note to researchers: it would be interesting to check American sources (US National Archives) for confirmation of this historical footnote of interest to scholars of Moroccan - American relations.

We had a capacity audience for Dr. López Garcia's excellent presentation, and are happy that history can be recounted with such verve in the very building where a part of it took place.

Gerald Loftus

Culturally Significant, Symbolically Strategic

Thanks to the State Department's Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations - OBO, our landlord - we bring you this nice link where you can download the PDF of the glossy brochure illustrating the Secretary of State's Register of Culturally Significant Properties.

The Tangier American Legation is the first property on the Register, by virtue of our status as the first American diplomatic property, thanks to the gift of the Sultan of Morocco in 1821.

It's a story that we never tire of telling, for it strikes us as particularly significant - culturally, but also strategically and symbolically - that America's oldest and first diplomatic property is located smack in the middle of an ancient medina.

A medina in an Arab, Muslim, African country - Morocco - whose Sultan in 1777 was the first foreign head of state to recognize "the Americans."  George Washington - at the time hunkering down for the winter with his troops in Valley Forge - was later, as the first American President, to write to his "Great and Magnanimous Friend," the Sultan of Morocco.

In the above page and in the table of contents of the OBO brochure, we're listed as "Tangier Old Legation," a nomenclature that we're trying to edge away from.  "Old American Legation," and its French equivalent "Ancienne Légation Américaine" which we still see on maps published for visitors, connotes "former," "relic," or "moribund."

Wow, moribund We Are Not.  Just come and see.  This place is hopping.  Culturally, academically, and as a force in the community.

As Aretha Franklin said, give us a little respect.  Our "propers" include not just getting financial help from generous donors, but deserving attention for what we symbolize.

Gerald Loftus

The Return of the Legation Lions

Paraphrasing comic Dave Barry, Legation Lions would be a good name for a football team...

No, the "Legation Lions" refers to the rather cumbersome gifts that Presidents used to given by Moroccan Sultans back in the 1800s.  And the poor Tangier consuls who had to deal with the furry beasts.

From the US State Department Office of the Historian:

In 1834, the Sultan presented Tangier US Consul James Leib with a lion and two Arabian horses as gifts for the President.  He had to house the lion until he could persuade his superiors to transport it and the horses to the United States.  After much debate, Congress passed a resolution calling for the animals to be sold at auction.  The “Numidian Lion” fetched $3,350, with the proceeds being divided between two Washington orphanages.

His successor Thomas Carr was faced with a similar quandary:

The Sultan of Morocco presented Carr with two lions and two horses.  Congress passed another resolution authorizing the President to “dispose in such time and manner as he shall see fit of all such of the presents as cannot conveniently be deposited or kept in the Department of State, and cause the proceeds to be placed in the Treasury of the United States.”  The animals were duly sold when they arrived in Philadelphia in 1840.

For years, the scanned letter where Carr plaintively writes of lions eating him out of house and home on his meager Consul's salary has enchanted Legation museum visitors.  Especially amusing is the "gift you can't refuse' aspect: giving the lions back would result in the messenger's decapitation.  Not an option for a Consul with a conscience.

The previous scans' sickly green hue (maybe it was the early scan technology) finally became an eyesore, and we vowed to put up more presentable images.

Enter Kristen Kouttab and the Moroccan American Cultural Center in Washington.  With her colleague Dave Bloom, they went to the US National Archives in College Park Maryland and, with the help of friendly NARA archivist David Langbart, located the original letter and took these stunning photographs.  We only regret that we don't have an action photo of Dave Bloom climbing on tables and chairs to get the right shot in challenging lighting conditions.

The National Archives contain the "lion letter" and other treasures of American history that are there waiting for other Legation friends to exploit.  There's even an exhibit (sans lions) of famous gifts to US Presidents.  We greatly appreciate Kristen, Dave, and MACC help on getting this piece of American history in Morocco.

Now, we'll get the five sheets of the letter properly framed, as well as the beautiful but slow-to-read 19th century cursive handwriting transcribed for museum visitors.

Perhaps it was the pressure of dealing with successive sets of lions, but Leib and Carr later succumbed to Demon Rum and exhibited rather odd behavior on Zankat Amrika, recounted in our previous blog post on Crazy Consuls.  The Legation's tales never cease to fascinate.

Gerald Loftus

Calling All QR Readers

I have the QR app, but I don't have a smart phone to test it.  Maybe you do.

Okay, here it is: Mozilla Firefox offered a nice "add-on" in the form of a gizmo to generate those neat little QR codes from selected text or URLs.  I've been wanting to do this, so that we could link our museum exhibits to related articles on TALIMblog.  All those visitors with smartphones, zapping away at our static displays.  21st century technology in the cause of 18th century history.

Who knows? There might even be a "crowd-sourcing" way to generate mini-donations using this thing.  Don't have a spare $5.00 bill in your pocket or a 50 dirham note handy, but you want to help our worthy cause?  Zap that QR code on our "poor box."  You'll be making more exhibits possible, funding further book acquisitions for our research library, or helping us teach Arabic literacy to the women of Tangier's medina.

So here's my experiment: those of you out there who do have the smartphone ability to scan QR codes, please stick your phone against the screen and ID this QR.  Does it work?  And then write me a Comment on the blog.  You might even want to read the entire post that this - hopefully - will link you to.  Thanks in advance.

Gerald Loftus

Al Jazeera: the Legation "Min Washington"

TALIM Director Gerald Loftus (left) and Abderrahim Foukara (right)

"Min Washington," the Al Jazeera Arabic weekly news magazine hosted by Washington Bureau Chief (and Moroccan-American) Abderrahim Foukara, aired yesterday worldwide (it will be repeated throughout this week; see local listings).

The Tangier American Legation was featured, a full 10 minutes of interviews, exhibits, and lots of history.  Moroccans are proud of Foukara, whose clear style and serious interviews cover the gamut of current events, but also touch on cultural subjects like ours.  Here, the focus was on the longevity of US-Moroccan relations, and the accent on the fact that the American diplomatic post in Tangier was the pioneer permanent presence of the newly independent United States on African soil.

Abderrahim Foukara was moved by his visit to the Legation, and we have former Tanjawi Said Temsamani, now in the United States and a guest on the same "Min Washington" show, to thank for putting us in touch.  Here's Foukara on the Legation:

Visiting the American Legation in the heart of Tangier, a city where the Atlantic meets the Mediterranean, I could not help seeing, with my mind's eye, both Spain and America. To me, the bridges of co-existence and friendship often begin at the crossings of the future, the present and the past.

You can see the Legation segment on this link, approximately at minutes 35 through 45 (there's also a short soundbite "tease" at the outset).

Text: Gerald Loftus; photos courtesy of Al Jazeera

USS Elrod in Tangier & the "Mohammed VI" in Brest

When the noncombatant USNS Grapple called into Tangier last year, it was the first time in a decade and a half that a Navy ship had come to town.  So I guess that their reports were generally positive, since we now have a year later a warship, the frigate USS Elrod.  This morning, students from the American School of Tangier (AST) visited the ship, and this evening "le tout Tanger" will be aboard for a reception.

Frigates are on our minds these days - American and Moroccan.  The Moroccan Navy (and Prince Moulay Rachid) accepted delivery of Morocco's newest frigate, the Mohammed VI, in the French naval port of Brest in Brittany last week.  What a sleek, futuristic vessel, said to be Africa's most modern.  Check this French-language article for a couple of videos showing the ship under construction and during sea trials.

With its 1,835 kilometers of coastline on the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the strategic Strait of Gibraltar, it is entirely normal that Morocco would want the best for its Navy.  The new naval base at Ksar Seghir, between Tangier and the Tangier-Med port, was designed with modern ships like the Mohammed VI in mind.

And this week's port visit by the USS Elrod also shows that the security pillar of the Morocco-US relationship is on course.  That's how relations all started back in the 18th century: it was Morocco's outward-looking view across the Atlantic that led its Sultan to be the first foreign head of state to recognize "the Americans," before the new country was even called the United States.

Text: Gerald Loftus; photos: Mohammed Jadidi and Allan MacArthur

When Sidi Bouariqiya Was a Nationalist Shrine

Dr. M'hammad Benaboud, a leading Moroccan scholar of the Andalusian diaspora and of Tetouan, and a major force in the intellectual and cultural life Tetouan and northern Morocco, wrote the following as a comment on the TALIMblog post commemorating Sidi Bouariqiya, the shrine to the patron saint of the city of Tangier.  To Dr. Benaboud, Sidi Bouariqiya is much more than that: it is the final resting place of his father, who gave his life in the cause of Moroccan independence.

The above photo of the senior Benaboud is courtesy of Hassan Eltaher of Ottawa, whose richly illustrated website Eltaher.org is dedicated to the work of his father Mohamed Ali Eltaher, the pioneering Palestinian-born Egyptian publisher.  The caption under the photo indicates that the man "to the left of Saudi Crown Prince Saud Bin Abdelaziz, in Cairo in February 1947 while on an official visit, is Moroccan nationalist leader Mohamed Ben Abboud, from Tetouan in northern Morocco. Ben Abboud was killed in an airplane accident in Pakistan."

Dr. Benaboud's resemblance (cameo, right) to his father is remarkable.

Thanks to Dr. Hsain Ilahiane of the University of Kentucky for providing a link to the Eltaher trove of information on the Arab nationalist world of the early to mid-twentieth century.

Dr. Benaboud's essay, which contains a moving tribute to his mother's faith, has been edited and abridged below.

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On the first of January 1950, a procession marched to Sidi Bouariqiya, but it was different from this year's in both purpose and form. That procession started from the main post office across the "Boulevard" past Café de Paris just like this one up to Sidi Bouariqiya Mausoleum. The marchers included a number of eminent nationalist leaders including Abdelkhalaq Torres, Allal Fassi and Shaykh Mekki Naciri.

When it approached Sidi Bouariqiya's main gate, men and women sitting on the wall began to shout Allah Akbar, God is the Greatest, and to make you you sounds which are common in wedding celebrations. But this was not a wedding procession, it was a funeral procession, my father’s funeral procession.

He died in a plane crash between Lahore and Karachi on the 12th of December, 1949. He had participated in the first Islamic international Conference in Karachi with Ali Hammami from Algeria and Dr Habib Thameur from Tunisia. They all died in that plane accident. Thameur’s body was completely burned. Hammami was buried in Algiers on the same day that my father was buried in Tangier, the 1st of January, 1950. Several nationalist leaders including Allal Fassi and Abdelkhalaq Torres gave obituary speeches inside the mausoleum grounds, then his body was buried.

I was told by people who attended this funeral that it was a truly emotional event for two reasons. Mhammad Ahmed Benaboud, after whom I was named posthumously, had sacrificed his life for the independence of his country. The second reason is that he was buried in Tangier because the Spanish High Commissioner in Tetouan took the decision that he had been exiled when he was alive and would also be exiled after his death. He therefore forbid his body to cross the International Zone and Spanish frontiers between Tangier and Tetouan.

Many years later after Independance, it was suggested that his body be transferred to his hometown of Tetouan, but our family decided to let him rest in peace in Tangier on the basis that as a martyr, his soul had already reached paradise and that this was no longer a political matter. Sidi Bouariqiya is in a Muslim land too. This is what my mother told me before she died in 2010.

The Khalifa, Abdelkhalaq Torres and many others in Tetouan had tried to convince General Varela, the Spanish high commissioner in Tetouan to allow his body to be buried in Tetouan, but the General had made his choice and would not change his mind. There was no way I could have learned all this because I had not been born yet. My mother was in Cairo when all this happened.  She lost consciousness for two months when she was informed of her husband's death by my uncle, Dr Ahmed Benaboud who was in Cairo too [note: Ahmed Benaboud was later named Moroccan Ambassador to Egypt].

Mother recovered her senses two months later and found the room where she had been full of empty medicine boxes. My uncle brought her, with me in her womb, by ship to Tangier and then to Tetouan where I was born about six months later on June the 23rd, 1950.

There is an interesting point I would like to express here. My mother obviously never forgot what had happened to her when she was only 22. But I have always admired how she had handled the situation throughout her life. Shortly before she died, I asked her for an interview which I published in Arabic in a regional weekly magazine called Achamal which is published in Tangier. In the interview she said that as a devout Muslim woman, she accepted her fate because she did not consider herself to be in a position to question God’s decision. She stated that she continued to be a staunch nationalist and that she would never regret it. Looking at the situation with hindsight, she had one basic objective in her life following my father’s death: to give me the best education and upbringing that she could. I was her only child. And she was my only mother, and father...

Abdelmajid Benjelloun, one of Morocco’s top Arabic novelists and one of my father’s best friends wrote an article which he published in the newspaper Al-Alam seven years after his death. It was entitled, A Rendezvous With a Grave. He visited my father's grave at Bouariqiya and had an imaginary dialogue with his friend. He starts by describing the cold marble grave under the moonlight (the grave later was incorporated inside the mausoleum when the buiilding was expanded). Benjelloun wrote a poem for his own tomb, in which he addresses his future visitors and tells them that he was in the realm of the dead, and they are in the realm of those who are still alive, and asks them to leave his grave and carry on with their lives normally.

So forget all that you have read, and think of Tangier's colorful procession to Bouariqiya to celebrate the annual anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday.

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For the entire text of Mhammad Benaboud's comment, click here (scroll down to Comments).

Images of newspaper accounts of the burial of Mhammad Ahmed Benaboud from the TALIM library Tangier Gazette collection, 6 January 1950.

January in Black & White

Our just-concluded January series of four films, every Monday evening, on the theme of race relations, ended with a record turnout for "Prince Among Slaves," the award-winning PBS documentary about the African prince who, thanks to his Muslim faith and literacy in Arabic, was taken for a "Moorish" prince.

The case of mistaken identity led to his eventual freedom, because "his emancipation would greatly please the Emperor of Morocco."  It's a story we love to tell, because it involves Morocco, the United States, and the Tangier American Legation.

Earlier this month, we also showed feature films "Goodbye Bafana" (a worthy but perhaps factually flawed film about Nelson Mandela and his white jailer) and "The Defiant Ones," a 1958 Oscar-winner with Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier, chain-gang escapees in racist America.

And we couldn't let Martin Luther King's birthday pass without another showing of "Freedom Riders," always moving, about the struggle to integrate interstate buses in the American South in 1961.

We got an early start with African American History Month, in large part due to travel in February.  And we're glad that the Tangier public was more interested in content than in timing.

Gerald Loftus

Wish List Brings Results

Thanks to the generosity of donors Renee Payne, James Henkel, and Caitlyn Olsen, we have just received five of our eleven Amazon Wish List titles for our research library.  We now have:

- "The Reichmanns," which provides a wealth of information on Tangier during World War II as a haven for Jewish refugees from the Holocaust.

- "Prince Among Slaves," involving a case of mistaken identity, where a Muslim prince is emancipated from slavery, thanks to the interest expressed by the Sultan of Morocco.

- "The Architecture and Memory of the Minority Quarter in the Muslim Mediterranean City," especially longtime Legation scholar Susan Gilson Miller's chapter on our neighborhood, Beni Ider.

- "The Time In Between" by Maria Duenas, which, hinting at its content, is entitled "L'Espionne de Tanger" in French.  Picture of Tangier during the interwar period.

- "Tangier: A Literary Guide for Travellers," Josh Shoemake's new look, street by street, quarter by quarter, at Tangier's rich literary past.

Though these five books are but a beginning - and we'll add more - they show that our community of researchers (Caitlyn Olsen conducted part of her Fulbright year at TALIM and wrote us a nice guest post on Moroccans in the Spanish Civil War, and we hope to carry another in the near future from Renee Payne, researching her uncle's story, a former Tangier schoolteacher shot by Germans as a Resistance fighter in wartime France) and visitors (James Henkel, who has a soft spot for books and for "storied port cities" - combined in his Valparaiso, Chile bookstore).

As always, TALIM is greatly appreciative of all the help given by our fan club, whether it is of books (former TALIM President Bill Zartman has just sent us another chunk of his voluminous North Africa-centered personal collection), of money, or of their time and effort.  Thanks to all and Happy New Year.

Gerald Loftus

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!