Avuncular American

Rives Childs: Remembering the Righteous

This post was originally published in 2011 on the Tangier American Legation blog.

In honor of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and the Soviet arrest of Raoul Wallenberg, the "Swedish Schindler," I republish three posts on a righteous American diplomat who helped more than a thousand Jews escape the Holocaust.

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Our post on J. Rives Childs, Chargé d'Affaires at the Tangier American Legation during World War II, has elicited a fascinating comment from a friend of his.  We repeat David Meyer's letter below to give it proper attention, as Mr. Meyer begins to answer one of the questions we raised in January: does J. Rives Childs deserve "Righteous" recognition at Yad Vashem for his role in saving Jewish lives during the Holocaust?  Mr. Meyer's letter addresses one of the key Yad Vashem criteria: "Righteous" designation is reserved for people who not only saved Jews, but also risked their own lives in doing so.

Images from Toledo sword cane inscribed to J. Rives Childs

TALIM Museum, Tangier American Legation

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"Rives Childs was a close personal friend of mine for many years, from 1971 until his death in 1987. Childs was promoted to the rank of Ambassador soon after the war and was the U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia and then Saudi Arabia in the post-war years that proved pivotal for both the creation of Israel and the resulting conflicts. Childs worked diligently to keep the Arab states, especially the Saudis, from engaging in war with Israel. His rapport with the Saudi King was critical in this regard.

When Senator McCarthy began his campaign alleging that there were Communists in the State Department, Childs had just turned 60 years old and was elgible for retirement. His wife, whom he had married in 1922 in Moscow, was from a formerly prominent, aristocratic Russian family, but had of course had her assets seized by the Bolsheviks. Childs was in Russia at the time, helping Herbert Hoover address the widespread famine that was occuring in Russia, when he met his wife-to-be. Childs told me that he was concerned in the early 1950s that he may become a target of McCarthy, because his wife was Russian. He told me that if he was ever called before the Senate committee, he was prepared to defend himself, in part by reading the letter from Renee Reichmann.

Childs was a native of Virginia, and his family lineage was long and prominent. He told me that he probably could have asked the U.S. Senator Harry Byrd (Virginia) to support him, but he did not want to put his wife through such an ordeal. Consequently, he decided to retire. He lived in Nice, France for the next 20 years (1953-1973) before returning to the United States after his wife's death.

Note also that Childs was awarded the Medal of Freedom by Harry Truman (*see note at bottom of page) after the war for his contribution to the North African invasion by providing intelligence early and continuously to the Allies before Operation Torch began. At one point, the Nazis had targeted him for assassination. The Allies had discovered this (because they had broken the Nazi's code) but did not tell Childs. For whatever reason, the assassination never occurred. Childs discovered this later after the war.

I have in the past thought, like you, that Childs ought to be considered for recognition for his actions regarding the Hungarian Jews he helped save. He told me that there were other diplomats who said, in essence, "Why bother? You are putting yourself at risk." (Evidently, he WAS at risk, but did not realize how much so until after the war. My hunch is that the Nazis wanted him dead because they suspected him of spying for the Allies more than his actions regarding the Jews in Budapest, but who knows for certain?).

I met Childs in 1971 when I was 19 years old and a freshman at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. Childs was a 1912 graduate of Randolph-Macon (subsequently received his M.A. from Harvard) and would regularly visit the school for several months in 1971 and 1972. In my senior year, he left Nice, France and returned to the U.S. permanently.

We maintained a close friendship for the many years following my graduation in 1974 - in fact, he introduced me to a woman who became my wife (we have been married for 31 years). I told him that it was remarkable that he could still at the age of 85 have such a profound influence on people's lives by such simply "match making." He was always a modest person, but he found that humorous whenever I reminded him.

Obviously, he was one of many unsung heroes from that horrible time. While I sometimes wish that these types of persons would be able to live forever, I take solace in the fact that there are children and grandchilden alive today, making contributions to this world in ways we will never fully know, because Rives Childs saved those Budapest Jews from certain death in the concentration camps. I write this narrative on Yom Kippur as a testimony of one person's courage long ago that is an example of Atonement for all of us."

David Meyer

Fairfax, Virginia USA

* Note: James Cockfield, in his book on J. Rives Childs' work in famine relief in post-WW I Russia, says that Childs "was belatedly awarded the Medal of Freedom in 1946 for his work in cryptography" [in World War One].  Obviously, Childs (also a renowned expert on Casanova, and a prolific author) was quite a Renaissance man, in addition to being an unsung hero.

(originally posted October 9, 2011)

Tangier American Diplomat Among the Righteous?

This post was originally published in 2011 on the Tangier American Legation blog.

In honor of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and the Soviet arrest of Raoul Wallenberg, the "Swedish Schindler," I republish three posts on a righteous American diplomat who helped more than a thousand Jews escape the Holocaust.

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Photo at left: J. Rives Childs, Chargé d'Affaires, American Legation Tangier, February 1941 - June 1945 (from the collection at TALIM).

The following letter is from one of Childs' many books, Vignettes, or Autobiographical Fragments, Vantage Press, 1977.

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                                                                                                Tangier, 13 June 1945

Excellency:

Permit me, before your departure from Tangier, to express to Your Excellency from the bottom of my heart my most profound and everlasting gratitude for your extremely noble and generous assistance in the affair of the entry visas for Tangier for 500 children and adults, for the most part of large families of Hungarian Jews.

 It is without doubt, due to the intervention of Your Excellency that the requests for entry visas were accorded.

The International Red Cross of Budapest, not having received German transit visas for these persons, had, thanks to the entry visas for Tangier, been able to arrange for the departure of this number of Jews from a Nazi concentration camp, place them in safety in a building rented by it which was, in consequence of the authorization of entry visas, protected by the Spanish Consulate in Budapest.

Thus 1200 innocent souls owe their survival to Your Excellency.

I pray God and hope for Your Excellency that benedictions and success accompany all your life each of your steps.

Please accept, Excellency, this testimony of my most profound respect and most distinguished thanks.

                                                                                                Your very devoted,

                                                                                                Renée Reichmann

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Renée Reichmann, when she wrote this letter, was in Tangier representing the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC).  The incident is partially described in this 1997 Business Week excerpt from Anthony Bianco's book on the Reichmanns.

J. Rives Childs, in his 1977 book, wrote "All these years... I have carried a copy of Mme. Reichmann's letter in my wallet."  In his autobiography, Let the Credit Go (1983, Frederick Fell Publishers), Childs modestly gave credit for the rescue to Reichmann and to General Luis Orgaz, high commissioner of the Spanish Zone of Morocco, who had ordered the visas issued.

My question is this: shouldn't J. Rives Childs be considered one of The Righteous, and be properly recognized in Yad Vashem?  Childs, in Vignettes, wrote: "I cannot now recall whether, in the hurly-burly of leavetaking of Tangier, I made Mme. Reichmann's letter a matter of official record or ever reported to Washington my unofficial and personal intervention with General Orgaz."  Might there be some mention of this event in Childs' State Department file or at the National Archives?

Childs died on July 15, 1987 at the age of 94, but even posthumous recognition would do him honor.

Next month, it will have been 70 years since Childs took up his post as Chargé at the American Legation, a key post given the events that would unfold here over the next two years, culminating in the first American combat operation in the European theatre of World War II: Operation Torch, the North Africa landings that started to turn the tide on the Western Front.

We knew he was in charge of sensitive diplomatic relations then; we didn't know that he was a hero, a righteous man.

(originally posted January 3, 2011)

Can't Stop Curating

New "name cloud" exhibit of Paul Bowles and literary & artistic friends drawn to Tangier

Can't stop curating?

Well, I do have to stop - we're getting on the ferry to Spain Friday morning!  Friends have joked that I'll still be at it tomorrow morning, mounting yet more exhibits while my wife waits in the car.  Not true; I stopped this afternoon.

At the French Consulate's 14 Juillet reception after we arrived in 2010, a Moroccan friend introduced me as the "nouveau conservateur" in what people in Tangier only knew then as the "Musée de l'Ancienne Légation Américaine."  I joked that I was no conservative... I was a Democrat!

But the point is that conservateur or curator was the way people thought of this position in this city.  I thought that was a bit limiting - how about our research library?  Our seminars?  The Arabic literacy program?  Etc.  I also didn't like that ancienne thing - made it sound like we were closed.

Over the past four years, I've waged a branding campaign, using our award-winning logo on business cards and throughout the building, and our no-longer-new appelation of TALIM to convey the message that though we have a museum, we are much more than a museum.  Now, it's quite common to see references to "TALIM" in the press, and it always pleases me to hear us described as an institut.

That said, it has really been fun, that curating stuff.  In 2010, when we mounted what has become one of our biggest attractions, the Paul Bowles Wing, replete with musical soundtrack and illustrated story of Bowles' treks through Morocco for the Library of Congress, someone asked me who had curated the exhibit.  I replied, well, that I had.  That was the first time someone described what I had done as curation.  It felt pretty good.

A couple of years later, when we put on Dorothy Weems' one-woman show of her mother's stories during the Legation's wartime years, the actress referred to me as her "producer," just for organizing the venue and helping her with rehearsals.  Not to worry: I'm not about to embark on a Hollywood career at this stage.  But "producing" what was a very memorable recreation of a special period in the place where it all happened was a joy.  I learned later that it was called, in academic circles, "site-specific performance."  And how.

It's been quite a whirl, these past four years, and Marie Hélène (who has worked tirelessly, helping me in everything I do, plus teaching French in our women's literacy program and helping shepherd the other volunteers) and I wouldn't trade this experience for anything.

So it's not adieu, but only إلـى الـلـقـاء.

Gerald Loftus

A Virtual Tour for Ambassador Peck

TALIM logo and lettering at entrance to museum (installed June 2014)

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Pavilion cedar doors, re-sculpted 2013

This is a "guest post" by Ambassador Edward Peck, who returned to Tangier on May 1 on board a cruise ship, and had been hoping to show Mrs. Peck the place where he and several other future US ambassadors had studied Arabic over fifty years ago.

He found our doors closed.  Disappointment all around - we were so looking forward, as the Pecks were, to a trip down memory lane.  Since the visit unfortunately didn't happen, here's a virtual tour of the Legation in photos (featuring some Legation exhibits that have just been opened), along with Ambassador Peck's narrative of his return to Tangier.

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One of the first six students who attended FSI’s Arabic Language School in the old Legation building when it opened in 1961, I was both pleasantly surprised and extremely impressed by the view of Tangier from the sea as our ship arrived on May Day 2014.

The string of impressive, white high-rises all along the shoreline of the bay, and marching up the hills, were dramatic indications that there have been some very significant changes since I graduated in 1963.

Legation room: more than two centuries of diplomatic history

Although the newer parts of the city look very much like those in other countries, especially in terms of the modern shops, office buildings and condos that line the wide, clean streets, the old city, the medina/casbah, is very much like it was back then.  Using my rusty but still serviceable Arabic as needed, I was able to make my way through the winding, narrow alleys to what is now TALIM, but found it closed for May Day.

 

"Moroccans in America" exhibit, Pavilion staircase, opened June 2014

Director Jerry Loftus and I had been communicating about the visit, and he had left instructions with the guard to be on the lookout for me, but somehow that did not work and I did not get an opportunity to actually see what the inside looks like now.  Photographs are helpful, and I doubt I could find the rooms in which we studied and played ping-pong to relax, but I know it is quite different.

The dining room exhibit of Marguerite McBey's sketchbooks

It was pretty run down when I did the 22-month, 6 hour days, five days per week, and had been empty since the new Consulate General had been built farther up the hill.  An explorer by nature, in an empty cellar room I found three metal boxes containing about forty 78 rpm records from wartime Germany.  They included some heavily propagandist music: "We’re Sailing on England Tonight" and "Deutschland Uber Alles," played by the Hermann Goering Division band; "The Horst Wessel Song," by the Adolf Hitler SS Division band.  There were also many contemporary, folk song and classical records, all in excellent condition.  I donated them to the Library of Congress, since no one in the CG had any idea how the boxes got there.

Exhibit of glass negative images of Tangier International Zone (opened May 2014)

In 2014, I went looking for the little house we had lived in, and found it in a tiny island of similar houses totally surrounded by multi-storey buildings.  It is a pharmacy now, and I imagine that enclave of small homes will soon be a memory.

Legation courtyard: four orange trees in parterres of crushed seashells

What has not changed is the warm and outgoing population.  Moroccans are justifiably known for their open, welcoming and smiling personalities, especially those in Tangier, and it was a pleasure to be among them again.  The visit was brief, but wrapped in reliving very pleasant memories of a time long ago.

Ambassador Edward Peck; photos Gerald Loftus

Gaetana Enders, Tangerina in New York

It was only last month that Gaetana Enders, née Marchegiano, was back in the Tangier of her youth.  We don't often have the pleasure of hosting eighty-something researchers in our library, and I regret that I don't have a photo of Gaetana poring over a stack of books on Tangier, International Zone.

Another regret: she was in the final, fact-checking stage of writing her autobiography, and I wish that I had had more than a tantalizing look at the draft, filled with detail on the war years, when Italian families in Tangier were divided between loyalties to Mussolini, or, in the case of Gaetana's father, to Italy's monarchy.

Gaetana Enders, widow of career Ambassador Thomas Enders, passed away in New York on May 21.

Her trip to Tangier in late April was to revisit the city where she was born and grew up, and where she met her husband.  Which was at the American Legation.

In 1951, when Minister John Carter Vincent - who, as a "China Hand" was in diplomatic purgatory in Tangier, prior to his departure from the US Foreign Service in the worst days of McCarthy - wanted to give a reception for the visiting Thomas Enders, then still a student, he thought of young Gaetana Marchegiano.  She would be the hostess, and invite her young friends.

Daughter of the International Zone's judicial administrator on the Commission of Control, Gaetana not only threw a great party for Thomas Enders but soon became his wife.  She recalled her marriage in Tangier a few years later: "I was paraded through the medina in my white wedding dress, to the accompanying you-yous of the Moroccan women."

 

Wedding in Tangier, courtesy Enders family

Thomas Enders joined the Foreign Service in the late Fifties, and made a meteoric rise through the ranks, serving in several ambassadorial posts, including Canada, Spain, and the European Union.  After his death, Gaetana presented a rare map to the Legation in his honor, in the place where the two had met.

Gaetana led an extremely active life, first as an ambassador's wife, then as International Editor of ¡Hola! magazine (or Hello in its English edition), interviewing a series of international figures and celebrities.

Her final visit to Tangier, though she was still recovering from serious medical problems, was especially touching, revisiting as she did places like the Legation that were so important in her life.  We feel honored that we were able to share this moment with her, and our hearts go out to her family.

Gerald Loftus

American Pirate in the Consular Court

1952: The case of the U.S. vs. "Nylon Sid"

Consular Court?  Piracy?  By an American?  Yes, this was Tangier, International Zone.

We couldn't find the Tangier Gazette article (not even sure there was one) about Sydney Paley, the American pirate in Tangier.  But thanks to Margery King, one of the Legation's steadfast friends, who remembers her father being called to serve as a juror at the Legation, we have this item from Time Magazine of December 29, 1952, Nylon Sid & the Jolly Roger:

The location was the Barbary Coast, Technicolored to perfection in the midwinter sunshine; the set was a makeshift courtroom in the ancient Moorish palace that houses the U.S. consulate in torrid Tangier. On trial was Tangier's No. 1 manufacturer of nylons and lingerie: dapper Sidney Paley, 32, a spunky ex-G.I. from New Jersey known to his intimates as Nylon Sid. The charge: plotting piracy on the high seas.

From a procession of multilingual witnesses came the story of how an 80-ton privateer (the ex-British Admiralty launch Esme) rammed the Dutch ship Combinatie one night in October and hijacked its cargo of $100,000 worth of U.S. cigarettes. Masked and heavily armed, the pirates sailed their prize to a cove "somewhere in Corsica." There, they unloaded their booty, and abandoned the Combinatie a few miles offshore, leaving its crew locked below decks.

 

The leader of the pirates, said the prosecution, was one Elliot Burt Forrest, 29, Bronx-born operator of a Tangier nightclub and now a fugitive from justice. But the brains behind the exploit was Nylon Sid, who was lurking in Marseille waiting to dispose of the loot when the Esme's crew was captured. Spanish cops nabbed Nylon Sid when he skipped to Madrid; last week he faced trial before a U.S. consular court in the internationalized port of Tangier.

Nylon Sid insisted that he and Forrest had chartered the Esme to do a "salvage job" off Malta; anything else that happened was all Forrest's doing because Nylon Sid wasn't there. Besides, said his lawyer, "this is the season of 'Peace on earth, good will to all men.'" U.S. Consular Judge Milton J. Helmick was unmoved; he found Nylon Sid guilty and sentenced him to three years in prison. Nylon Sid would be allowed out on appeal, said the judge, if he would put up as bail $10,000 and his cream-colored Cadillac.

I recently came across mention of Nylon Sid in an entertaining book from the Fifties, Turbulent Tangier by Aleko Lilius.  Lilius knew a thing or two about pirates.  His 1931 book I Sailed With Chinese Pirates was the inspiration for the long running comic strip Terry and the Pirates.

When he arrives in Tangier to cover the Nylon Sid trial, Lilius starts to get the feel of the place: a hotel clerk is wary of talking to him about the "important exporters" (a.k.a. smugglers) who stay at the hotel.  He plays cat-and-mouse with Sid to get a photo for Life Magazine, which, like Time, is following this story intently.  "The general talk in Tangier was that Lucky Luciano had had a hand in most of these operations" - with hints of the Mafia and "American gangsterism," no wonder people were nervous.  A note arrives in his hotel pigeon hole: "Lay off Sydney."

Consul Milton Helmik, "acting judicially" according to notices in the Tangier Gazette, presided over the Consular Court, with Vice Consul Miklos playing bailiff ("Hear ye, hear ye").  Writes Lilius:

We assembled in the Legation's big drawing room.  The presence of prison guards, a police van outside, and an armed Marine inside the courtroom created an ominous atmostphere.

In the end, after appeals, Paley was given a suspended sentence and his fine was reduced.  Later Nylon Sid tells Lilius that his pirate days are over, and that he would henceforth confine himself to smuggling.

In the 1950s, as Moroccan independence was looming, Tangier continued to have its unique set of institutions, with an American Consular Court at the Legation, but also with an American judge, Juan Sedillo, on the International Court.  The city's transition from International Zone to Moroccan city took several years, described here.

By the time I joined the US Foreign Service in 1979, vice consuls no longer got to play bailiff or consular court judge.  Lucky for me: my legal duties amounted to "adjudicating" visa applications, for which very skimpy familiarity with US regulations sufficed.

Gone were the days of Nylon Sid at the Consular Court.

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

Legation Guards: 2 and 4-Legged

Photo of G4S security guard Mohammed Saïd by Mohammed Taleb.

Nothing significant* in today's post, but we couldn't pass up this opportunity to share this photo of the cute little dog who wound up hitched to our entrance sign while his masters toured the Legation museum.

Normally we tout our "human security" approach, but here we got a boost from our four-legged friends.

* "Nothing significant," perhaps, except that this not-quite shaggy dog story makes our 300th TALIMblog post in some 3 and a half years.  Stay tuned for more!

Gerald Loftus

Josh Shoemake's Tangier: A Literary Guide For Travellers

Books with "Tangier" in their title - Amazon lists 1,226 of them, though some are about the namesake island in Chesapeake Bay - never stop appearing, and many of them are possibly in the forgettable category.

Not so with Tangier: A Literary Guide for Travellers, by Josh Shoemake.  A lover of maps, Josh has taken the innovative approach of leading his readers through the fabled city on the Strait street by street, quarter by author-associated quarter.

Shoemake, a former teacher at the American School of Tangier, must have dazzled the students with literary lore, though some of the content in his book - extensive quotes from the likes of William Burroughs, Joe Orton, and many others - was probably not fit for the curriculum in the 8th grade English class.

The Legation is mentioned several times, and Shoemake shares our fondness for Crazy Consul stories (perhaps hare-brained but not crazy, there was even mid-19th century Consul Samuel Collings' suggestion that "Moroccan camels would be ideal for service in the American west," which eventually did result in the creation of the US Camel Corps).

At some points Shoemake's technique of associating streets and neighborhoods with their former literary residents can seem a bit contrived, and you might tire of reading yet again about the Beats and other usual suspects and their proclivities (spare me the details of Burroughs and his various experiments with drugs).

But in the main, Josh Shoemake has hit the mark, and his chapter "San Francisco - Immeuble Itesa" - largely about Paul and Jane Bowles - is particularly enlightening.  If you want to get an appreciation for the two writers and what made them tick, Josh Shoemake's work is the best short summary I've ever seen.

Speaking of short summaries, Shoemake provides not only an extensive bibliography but a nice set of thumbnail "Author Profiles" of the writers he covers, from Ali Bey el-Abbassi (an 18th century traveler and spy, born Domingo Badia y Leblich) to Tennessee Williams, frequent Tangier visitor.

Book in hand, a literary traveler could revisit Dean's Bar, though other watering holes associated with legendary writers, like Café Porte, no longer serve alcohol.  And the Parade Bar and Brion Gysin's "1001 Nights" restaurant are long gone.

There are a couple of anachronisms or just plain mistakes: Truman Capote, born in 1924, comes to Tangier "just after the Great War," which generally means WW I, not World War II.  In fact, Capote came to Tangier - and was ambushed by his rival Gore Vidal, which Shoemake describes in his book - in 1949.  And then there was Emily Keene ("The British Bride of Tangier" who wedded a Moroccan aristocrat) who was "flown down to" Tangier... in 1872!  What about the Wright brothers and 1903?

But this is quibbling.  Josh Shoemake has made a real contribution to better understanding of the incredible concentration of literary talent that Tangier represented, especially in the twilight of its International Zone days.  It's full of fascinating detail, and written with a sense of you-are-there: there's Jack Kerouac, settling down to a beer at the Café de Paris...

And here's Paul Bowles, who must have wanted to strangle Allen Ginsberg, whose "declaiming" (he apparently couldn't shut up) ruins Bowles' recording of the last non-amplified call to prayer in Tangier, "leaving Bowles with a recording on which the only audible sound was a declaiming Allen Ginsberg."

Tangier: A Literary Guide for Travellers was on our Wish List, and thanks to one of our supporters, we've now added Josh Shoemake's book to our shelves of Tangier American writers.  He's in good company.

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!