The Foreign Service Journal, March 2016

42 MARCH 2016 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL I’ve heard enough about it, but it still was a shock to fly over the city and see the mass of ruins. It’s very large and extends as far as I could see on all sides. Assignment Berlin: 1949-1951 Secretary to the consul general May 5 and May 8, 1949, aboard the Queen Mary We have a beautiful stateroom. It all reminds me of a first class hotel…you can hardly tell we’re on the ocean—so smooth. The dining room is luxurious and we just finished a huge lunch. I know now what happens to the gowns and fur stoles and capes in Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue . I feel adequately dressed during daytime, but egad—at night it’s nothing to see ermine, mink and sable wraps over original creations, which are gor- geous. The evening dress is really breathtaking. Last night we danced uphill then downhill as the ship rocked. May 14, 1949 And so here I am in Berlin [the Berlin Airlift crisis has just been resolved]. … I arrived via bucket seat from Frankfurt. … I’ve heard enough about it, but it still was a shock to fly over the city and see the mass of ruins. It’s very large and extends as far as I could see on all sides. … Everyone here is jubilant, and also everyone here is gone! At long last they are now able to leave the city and most every- one took advantage of this one great weekend to get out of town. May 18, 1949 Today is my first day at work. I will be the secretary to the Consul General. …The building itself is a big white place with marble stairs and three floors. My office looks out across the street to endless gardens. We can walk through them during lunch hour. … Berlin is, or rather, was, a beautiful city. It must be huge as the only part we see is the American sector. … We drove down and around Saturday to the Brandenburg Gate, which is one of the boundaries into the Russian Zone. Past the huge buildings of the German government, the Chancellery, the embas- sies of foreign governments, all of which are now just shells. It must be a dreadful feeling to these people who’ve lived here always to see their city like this, as it is so bad in the central part of the town, I don’t see how it can ever be repaired. We also walked down part of the shopping district where the streets were packed as Saturday displayed the first shipments of all kinds of food, etc., they haven’t had since before the blockade. There were queues of people lined up in front of the fish stores, and crowds gathered in front of the pastries shops, all of them just looking. They look so poor and are wearing pre-war clothes that are patched and worn away. … I didn’t see one decently dressed woman. We felt quite self-conscious wearing our stateside outfits and received many stares. July 12, 1949 Last week I was invited over for lunch at the home of the United States Political Adviser for Germany [James W. Riddle- berger]. He and his wife had six of us over to greet us to Berlin. It was very cozy, and we chatted and ate a fancy lunch with wine and had demi tasse in the library after- wards. I am beginning to get used to the high standard of living over here now, and don’t jump when a maid shoves a platter of food over my left shoulder. My boss’s cocktail party for the elite was carried off to a fine finish on Saturday. After much telephoning and writing invites, etc., he invited me to attend and asked me to Maxine Desilet with her mother, Irene, during a home visit in the early 1950s.