Dark Palace (65 page)

Aghnides
^*
, Thanassis, Greek, Under Secretary-General, Director of Disarmament Section, Secretary to the Disarmament Conference.

Alva, friend of Edith from undergraduate days in the Faculty of Science at Sydney University.

Ambrose, see Westwood.

Andrade
^*
, Will, a professional conjurer and well-known Australian Rationalist.

Angell
^*
, Sir Norman, British intellectual populist, one-time leading pacifist, author of bestselling book on pacifism,
The Great Illusion
, among many others. For a time in the early part of the century there were Norman Angell societies in Europe and the US.

Arnold
^*
, Dot, officer of the Peace and Disarmament Committee of the Women's International Organisation.

Avenol
^*
, Joseph, French, Deputy Secretary-General (1920–1933), Secretary-General (1933–1940).

Bage
^*
, Freda (1883–1970), lecturer in biology at University of Queensland and then Principal of Women's College, Australian delegate to League of Nations Assembly 1926, 1938.

Bartou, Auguste, Swiss, Under Secretary-General.

Berry, Edith Alison Campbell, Australian, member of Section, League of Nations Secretariat, attached to Under Secretary-General Bartou.

Briand
^*
, Aristide, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of France, great supporter of the League of Nations, received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1926, died in 1932.

Brittain
^*
, Vera (1893–1970), English writer of novels, biography, poetry and journalism, pacifist, feminist, and supporter of the League of Nations, and part of the literary and intellectual elite of the 1930s and 1940s.

Bruce
^*
, Stanley Melbourne, former Australian Prime Minister, then High Commissioner in London, supporter of the League and President of
Council. Chaired the last committee on reform of the League in 1939 which produced what was known as the Bruce Report. Many of its proposals were taken up by the newly formed United Nations.

Cecil
^*
, Lord Robert, member of House of Commons, sometime member of Cabinet, a dedicated British proponent of the idea of a League of Nations, frequent member of British delegation, helped draft the Covenant.

Charron
^*
, Rene, French, member of the Economic, Financial, and Transit Section, confidant of Avenol.

Comert
^*
, Pierre, French, Director of Information Section.

Crowdy
^*
, Dame Rachel (1884–1964), English, Head, Social Questions Section from 1919 to 1931 (this section changed its name a few times over the years). Dame Rachel was one of the first professional social workers and had a distinguished record during WW1 behind the front lines as Commandant of the Volunteer Aid Detachment (VAD) for which she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She was never officially made director of the section but she was the only woman who headed a section during the history of the League, although for a time Florence Wilson was in charge of the library and Nancy Williams was in charge of Personnel.

Dame Rachel
^*
, see Crowdy.

Derso
^*
, world renowned cartoonist, companion of Emery Kelen (see Historical Notes).

Dingman
^*
Mary, leading American feminist and peace activist.

Dole, Robert, English, journalist, not to be confused with Robert Dell
^*
, doyen of the international press corps in Geneva, representative of
Manchester Guardian
.

Drummond
^*
, Sir Eric, English, the first League Secretary-General (1919–1932). Born in 1876, a member of a prominent Catholic family, educated at Eton, entered the Foreign Office. Was successively private secretary to Asquith as Prime Minister, and to Lords Grey and Balfour as Foreign Secretaries. He was Lord Grey's Secretary at the Peace Conference in Paris in 1920. After retiring from the League he became British Ambassador to Italy.

Eden
^*
, Sir Anthony (1897–1977) British, Minister for the League of Nations and Foreign Secretary, champion of collective security and the League of Nations, Prime Minister 1955–1956. During World War 1 (1914–1918), he fought in France and was awarded the Military Cross for distinguished service. He graduated from Oxford University in 1922. Eden entered Parliament in 1923. He became
Britain's Foreign Secretary in 1935, but resigned in 1938 because he disagreed with the way in which Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain yielded to the demands of dictators Adolf Hitler of Germany and Benito Mussolini of Italy. Became Foreign Secretary under Chuchill during the war.

Eric
^*
, Sir, see Drummond.

Field
^*
, Noel, US, former US State Department officer, joined Disarmament Section of the League in 1937, during war worked for Unitarian Relief organisation in Europe, spied for Soviet Union during 1930s and 1940s, defected to Czechoslovakia 1946. He and his wife and adopted daughter were separately gaoled by the communist government for five years for being American spies. After their release Field and his wife continued to live in Prague.

Florence (Travers, surname not mentioned), Canadian, bookkeeper, Finance.

Follett, Bernard, Swiss, owner-manager of the Molly Club, Geneva, patron of the arts, friend of Ambrose and Edith, part of organisation smuggling Jews from Germany, supplied intelligence to the Dutch until Holland fell to the Germans. Delegate for the International Red Cross.

Gerig
^*
, Benjamin, US, Information and Mandates Sections of the League, Commissioner-General of the League of Nations Pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair, then Department of State and Deputy Secretary-General of the United States delegation at the San Francisco Conference of the United Nations.

Gerty, Dutch, Edith's personal assistant.

Gilbert
^*
, Prentiss, US Consul-General, Geneva, later at the US Berlin Embassy. Was outspoken against the Nazis and met with the German underground.

Gray
^*
, Potato, colourful English journalist of the period.

Haile Selassie
^*
(1892–1975), became Emperor of Ethiopia in 1930 and worked for economic and social reforms, such as making slavery illegal. He gave Ethiopia its first written constitution in 1931. Ethiopia was attacked by Fascist Italy in 1935, and Haile Selassie lived in exile in England until 1941. During WW2 (1939–1945), British forces assisted in the liberation of Ethiopia and restored him to the throne. He belonged to a dynasty that claimed to be descended from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. His reign ended in 1974, when military leaders overthrew him.

Hall
^*
, H. Duncan, Australian, a graduate of Sydney University, he
worked for the League's Opium Section, 1927–1939, the second Australian to join the Secretariat, Jocelyn Horn being the other (see below). In 1940 he went to Yale as a visiting professor and subsequently held a number of positions in international affairs. He was an authority on the British Commonwealth. He died in 1976.

Harada
^*
, Japanese Under Secretary-General until Japan withdrew from the League in 1933.

Henderson
^*
, Arthur (1863–1935), British, President, World Disarmament Conference 1932–35, pioneer of the establishment of British Labour Party, Labour member of Parliament, Foreign Secretary, Nobel Prize for Peace 1934. Believed in strengthening coercive powers of the League, financial, economic, and military.

Hirschfeld
^*
, Magnus, German, physician and early pioneer of the study of human sexuality, campaigned to reform laws against homosexuality. He established the Hirschfeld Institute for the study of sexuality in 1919. He coined the word ‘transvestite'. The Nazis destroyed the Institute in 1933.

Horn
^*
, Jocelyn, Australian, Head of Administrative Department of the Pool of Shorthand-Typists, first Australian to be employed by the League of Nations in 1921, former resident of Adelaide, dismissed for unacceptable conduct including ‘dancing too much' at one of the early League conferences in Barcelona.

Howard
^*
, Miss J. ‘Tiger', English, private secretary to Sir Eric Drummond.

Hutchinson
^*
, Leslie, black American singer and pianist, thought to be the man involved in the scandal with Edwina Mountbatten.

Hudson
^*
, Manley, US, Judge Permanent Court of International Justice.

Huneeus, a Deputy President in the Azerbaidjhan government-in-exile.

Ingersoll
^*
, Colonel Robert Green (1833–1899), lawyer, Attorney-General Illinois, friend of Mark Twain and Walt Whitman, campaigner against religion and for liberal causes. He entered politics as a Democrat, but he became a prominent Republican after the Civil War. He was a centre of controversy for almost 30 years because he attacked orthodox Christian beliefs. He wrote
The Gods, and Other Lectures
(1876),
Some Mistakes of Moses
(1879), and
Great Speeches
(1887). His writings and beliefs influenced Edith's mother and father.

Jacklin
^*
, S., South African, Financial, Treasurer of the League, appointed an Under Secretary-General. One of the League delegation to the 1945 UN foundation conference in San Francisco.

Jerome Curry, US, horn player with Eddie South's Alabamians.

John
^*
(Latham), see Latham.

Kelen
^*
, Emery, Hungarian, caricaturist world famous in the 1920s and 30s for his cartoons of the League (see Historical Notes).

Latham
^*
, John (1877–1964), Australian, a conservative politician, one-time Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for External Affairs, Federal Attorney-General, several times delegate to League of Nations Assembly. Became Chief Justice of the High Court in 1935, and was briefly the first Australian Minister to Japan (1940–41). First President of the League of Nations Union in Australia. An atheist and rationalist throughout his life.

Laval
^*
, Pierre (1883–1945), French Prime Minister before and during WW2. Became leader again in the Vichy government and under the German occupation almost until the end of the war. After Germany surrendered in 1945, Laval was handed over to the new French government and convicted of treason. He swallowed poison in a suicide attempt on the day of his execution, but the attempt failed and he was shot by a firing squad. In 1935, as Prime Minister, he and Hoare, British co-Foreign Secretary with Eden, decided on the Hoare-Laval Agreement, proposing a peace between Italy and Ethiopia which gave way to Italian demands. This was done without the agreement of the British Cabinet or of Eden and was repudiated, but finally scuppered the attempts to rein in Italy.

Léger
^*
, Alexis Saint-Léger, French, officer in the French Department of Foreign Affairs, Secretary-General of the Department 1933–1940, poet who wrote under the name St-John Perse and won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Lester
^*
, Sean (1888–1959), Irish journalist, Irish representative to the League of Nations, High Commissioner to Danzig, third and last Secretary-General of the League 1940–46.

Lichtheim
^*
, Richard, German-Jewish, former editor of
Die Welt
, ran the office of the World Jewish Congress in Geneva during WW2, along with Gerhardt Riegner.

Liverright, Howard, Austrian, translator with bohemian tastes and habits.

Loveday
^*
, Alexander, English, Director of Economics, Finance, to which was added Transit Section when the League was reduced and these Sections moved to Princeton University in 1940. Loveday was one of the frustrated League delegation to the UN San Francisco foundation conference in 1945.

Lux
^*
, Stephan, Jew of Czech nationality, film director and writer. Shot himself in the League of Nations Assembly on 3 July, 1936, in protest at anti-Semitic policies of German Nazi government.

Madariaga
^*
, Salvador de, Spanish diplomat and delegate to the League, responsible for the animal peace analogy, ‘The lion looking sideways at the eagle said, “Wings must be abolished …” '

McDougall
^*
, Frank Lidgett, economic adviser to Australian government in many different capacities during the 1930s and 1940s, especially to Stanley Bruce when he was High Commissioner in London (see above). He was born in London, educated at Darmstadt University and in 1909 migrated to Australia and became a fruit grower in Renmark in South Australia. He served in WW1. Among many other international contributions, he was very significant in the planning of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN.

McDowell, George, Australian, businessman, childhood friend of Edith (features in the book
The Electrical Experience
, 1974).

McGeachy
^*
, Mary (1901?–1991), Canadian, Information Section, became first woman appointed to British diplomatic service, served with UNRRA, following WW2, and then executive officer of International Council of Women.