The Foreign Service Journal, May 2020

82 MAY 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL sive collection of memos andmemorabilia overseen by the on-staff historian, Dr. Robert Conte, the colorful descriptions of the detainees’ lives rely onmaterials from the National Archives, Library of Congress and other repositories in the United States, Germany and Japan. One tantalizing tidbit concerned Japa- nese Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura, who ordered his staff to request only minimal meals in the dining room to show camaraderie with their countrymen at home suffering fromwartime food short- ages. Meanwhile, he was having extrava- gant meals delivered by room service to his deluxe suite. Some detainees didn’t acknowledge the decadence at all. In an especially humorous incident, two German detain- ees once appeared for dinner wearing sweaters. Reminded of Greenbrier’s strict jacket-and-tie dress code by an elderly headwaiter, one detainee said, “What the hell are you talking about?This is just a concentration camp anyway.” The headwaiter replied, “Maybe a con- centration camp, all right—but deluxe.” Readers of Such Splendid Prisons get an intriguing view of how FDR, the State Department, FBI, Immigration andNatu- ralization Service, and intelligence agencies worked in unison and under tremendous pressure to bring our diplomats safely home fromwartorn countries while con- currently having former allies turned war- time enemies returned to their countries. All in all, it’s a fascinating lesson in how diplomacy is meant to function and should enthrall American history buffs, current and retired U.S. diplomats, and employees of the FBI and CIA whose predecessors played such crucial roles in this daring operation. n Peter F. Spalding is a retired Senior Foreign Service officer. FS Side Notes R eviewer Peter Spalding tells us that his maternal grandfather, Edgar Prochnik, was the Austrian minister to the United States at the time of the Anschluss and declined the invitation of the German ambassador to return to Nazi-occupied Austria. Prochnik later taught a seminar on European diplomatic history at Georgetown University. Spalding once asked a student how he liked the seminar. The student replied, “Oh, we love it. Instead of an exam, Prochnik gives a cocktail party!” It was a different time. s Another retired FSO, Marc E. Nicholson, shared thoughts on Such Splendid Prisons after attend- ing a talk on the book at Politics and Prose inWashington, D.C. He currently resides in the district, two blocks from the former home of Nazi Germany’s military attaché in Washington, who figures promi- nently in the book. Nicholson reports that author Harvey Solomon said he found the online archives of past FSJ editions from the 1930s and 1940s very helpful to his research. The FSJ is cited at various points in the book. and stay be borne by a trust fund set up by the Boetticher family. Solomon provides a vivid picture of life at the Greenbrier, in particular, where prime activities included gourmet dining at ritzy restaurants (food included, alcohol extra), shopping in its high-end stores and even ordering frommail-order catalogues since the detainees continued to be paid their salaries. The Swiss liaison once brought a suitcase containing $35,000 (the equivalent of $545,000 today) to distribute. In addition to the Greenbrier’s exten-