The Foreign Service Journal, September 2019

46 SEPTEMBER 2019 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 2:55 a.m., Washington time. A sleeping President Franklin Roosevelt awakens to Bullitt’s call. After weeks of tension, a war of nerves is now a shoot- ing war. The president alerts Secretary of State Cordell Hull and other senior officials. In the pre-dawn hours, lights suddenly begin to burn at the State Department. Twenty years after the peace settlement of Versailles, Europe again plunges into general war. / The German attack does not catch Ambassador Biddle or the department entirely by surprise. In March 1939 the department had outlined what today would be called an emergency action plan, granting chiefs of mission considerable authority to respond to imminent crises and mapping out numerous contingencies. Guidelines were issued for handling welfare and whereabouts cases, repatriations, protection of American property and representation of the interests of warring nations. Following these instructions, Ambassador Biddle had requested permission on Aug. 21 to evacuate children, wives and other nones- sential personnel. Soon afterward, American citizens were warned of an increased danger of hostilities and an evacuation route was arranged into what is present-day Belarus. As another precaution, several American staff members moved to a safer suburban location outside Warsaw. Closing the mission, however, was considered a last resort. The department believed it was important to keep a diplomatic presence because the “continuing character of the office may avoid any question of ‘reopening’ or ‘establishing’ a consular office in ter- ritory under German control.” In the hope of preventing a war, Great Britain and France dispatched their diplomats to Moscow in an effort to enlist Stalin’s support in curbing Nazi aggression. The Nazi-Soviet Non- Aggression Pact of August 23 aligning Hitler and Stalin—an act (albeit tem- porary) of geopolitical reconciliation between arch ideological enemies— had stunned the world. Hitler’s bold diplomacy now made war virtually inevitable. / A political appointee, Ambassa- dor Biddle would be the man of the moment. Descended from a historic Philadelphia family, he served in World War I and was known in the 1920s and early 1930s as an extremely well- dressed “sportsman-socialite” on his second marriage to an heiress. After backing Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1932 election, he had been named minister to Norway. He took to his new métier with enthusiasm, establishing close ties with Norwegian royalty. In 1937 FDR selected Biddle as the next ambassador to Poland. Immune to panic, throughout the September crisis, Biddle would demonstrate a readi- ness for action, a will to serve and enormous sangfroid. / On Sept. 3, the third day of the Nazi invasion, Biddle wakes to the drone of low-flying aircraft. Taking shelter in a stairwell of his suburban villa, he and his family endure a German attack that sends shrapnel flying, shatters glass and deposits an unexploded incendiary bomb in his yard. The Biddles are among the first Americans to experience the fearful impact of modern aerial warfare. That day, Great Britain and France, honoring commitments to stand with Poland, declare war on Nazi Germany. World War II officially begins. Sadly, neither Great Britain nor France will offer any significant assistance to the beleaguered Poles in the weeks ahead. U.S. Consulate General Warsaw on Sept. 1, 1939. Anthony J. Drexel Biddle Jr. U.S.LIBRARYOFCONGRESS U.S.DEPARTMENTOFSTATE/U.S.EMBASSYOSLO Ray Walser is a retired FSO who served from 1980 to 2007. His overseas postings were Managua, Bogotá, Guadalajara, San Jose and Cape Town. He also served as a visiting professor at the United States Military Academy from 1988 to 1990, and a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation from 2007 to 2013. He holds a Ph.D. in European history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.