William Christian Bullitt, Jr.

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William Christian Bullitt, Jr. : biography

January 25, 1891 – February 15, 1967

Notes

Diplomatic career

Working for Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference, in 1919, Bullitt was a strong supporter of legalistic internationalism, subsequently known as Wilsonianism. Prior to the negotiation of the Versailles accords, Bullitt, along with journalist Lincoln Steffens and Swedish Communist Karl Kilbom, undertook a special mission to Soviet Russia to negotiate diplomatic relations between the US and the Bolshevik regime. Having failed to convince Wilson to support the establishment of relations with the Bolshevik government, Bullitt resigned from Wilson’s staff.

He later returned to the United States and testified in the Senate against the Treaty of Versailles and had his report of his Russian trip placed into the record.

First US ambassador to the Soviet Union

Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Bullitt the first US ambassador to the Soviet Union, a post that he filled from 1933 to 1936. At the time of his appointment, Bullitt was known as a liberal and thought by some to be something of a radical. The Soviets welcomed him as an old friend because of his diplomatic efforts at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Though Bullitt arrived in the Soviet Union with high hopes for Soviet-American relations, his view of the Soviet leadership soured on closer inspection. By the end of his tenure he was openly hostile to the Soviet government. He remained an outspoken anticommunist for the rest of his life.Brownell and Billings, pp ?? Bullitt was recalled after US journalist Donald Day had disclosed that he had been involved in illegal exchange of and trading with Torgsin ruble.Donald Day: Onward Christian Soldiers. Suppressed reports of a 20 year Chicago Tribune correspondent in eastern Europe from 1921. Noontide Press. Torrance, CA. 1985. ISBN 0-939482-03-7

During this period, he was briefly engaged to Roosevelt’s personal secretary, Missy LeHand. However, she broke off the engagement after a trip to Moscow on which she reportedly discovered him to be having an affair with a ballet dancer.

The Spring Ball of the Full Moon

On April 24, 1935, he hosted a Spring Festival at Spaso House, his official residence. He instructed his staff to create an event that would surpass every other Embassy party in Moscow’s history. The decorations included a forest of ten young birch trees in the chandelier room, a dining room table covered with Finnish tulips, a lawn made of chicory grown on wet felt; an aviary made from fishnet filled with pheasants, parakeets, and one hundred zebra finches, on loan from the Moscow Zoo; and a menagerie of several mountain goats, a dozen white roosters, and a baby bear.Charles W. Thayer, Bears in the Caviar (New York, 1950), 106-114

The four hundred guests included Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov and Defense Minister Kliment Voroshilov; Communist Party luminaries Nikolai Bukharin, Lazar Kaganovich, and Karl Radek; Soviet Marshals Alexander Yegorov, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, and Semyon Budyonny; and the writer Mikhail Bulgakov.

The festival lasted until the early hours of the morning. The bear became drunk on champagne given to him by Karl Radek, and in the early morning hours the zebra finches escaped from the aviary and perched below the ceilings around the house.Thayer, 106-114 Bulgakov described the party as "The Spring Ball of the Full Moon" in his novel The Master and Margarita.Spaso House; 75 years: A Short History, 18-20 On October 29, 2010, Ambassador John Beyrle recreated Bullitt’s ball with his own Enchanted Ball, dedicated to Bullitt and Bulgakov.See video of 2010 recreation of Bullitt’s ball under external links.

Ambassador to France

Bullitt was posted to France in October 1936 as Ambassador. Fluent in French and an ardent Francophile, Bullitt became established in Paris society and rented a château at Chantilly. He owned at least 18,000 bottles of French wine.Adamthwaite, 176 As a close friend of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, with whom he had daily telephone conversations, Bullitt was widely regarded as Roosevelt’s personal envoy to France, and as such was a man much courted by French politicians. Bullitt was especially close to Léon Blum and Édouard Daladier, and had cordial but not friendly relations with Georges Bonnet.Adamthwaite, 176-177. Historians have criticized Bullitt for being too influenced by the last person to whom he spoke and for including too much gossip in his dispatches to Washington.Adamthwaite, 177