Messersmith's Nose

George Strausser Messersmith was U.S. consul general in Berlin when Hermann Goring paid him a call one day. Hitler's No. 2 man was in his usual arrogant mood. He swept his hand over a map of South America. There was one of Germany's spheres of influence, he boasted, and began pounding the table. Messersmith stopped him. "This is my house," Messersmith said coldly. "No one pounds the table here but me. If there is any pounding done, I will do it."

This is the man whom the State Department chose last week to run the U.S. Embassy in Argentina, a job which has been vacant since bull-necked Spruille Braden was called back to Washington last August to become Assistant Secretary in charge of Latin American affairs.

Some Argentines will remember Messersmith--he was consul general in Buenos Aires in 1928. They will remember a stubby man with a cocky gait, invariably armed with a cane and wearing a flower in the buttonhole of his well-draped coat. Other foreign embassies around the world remember him for his unbending ways and a cold manner punctuated by discreet belches; he is dyspeptic.

Braden's Man. A onetime Delaware schoolteacher, George Messersmith has been in the diplomatic service 32 years--he had served in Canada, the Dutch West Indies, Belgium and Luxembourg before he went to Berlin. According to a colleague, he has "an uncanny nose that can smell an s.o.b. as far as the wind can carry the scent." He got the scent in Berlin almost immediately. In 1933 he wrote to Washington: "There is a real revolution here, and a dangerous situation." He was home, serving as Assistant Secretary of State, when the situation cracked in September 1939.

For the last five years he has been a conscientious Ambassador to Mexico. Although he was sometimes tactless, Mexican officials approved of him.

In Argentina, Peronistas hailed his appointment as a defeat for Braden and a sign that the U.S. now intends to conduct its Argentine business on a strictly professional basis. Actually, there has been no basic change in U.S. policy. Messersmith is Braden's man. And Peron might remember Messersmith's "uncanny nose."

In another shuffle of its South American representatives, the State Department switched 49-year-old William Douglas Pawley from Peru to Brazil, to fill the spot recently vacated by Adolf Berle Jr. Swashbuckling Bill Pawley* began a fabulous, up-&-down career at 18 by selling diving suits to Venezuela pearl divers, more recently helped organize the famous Flying Tigers. He once modestly remarked: "Unquestionably I have been one of the prime contributors to China's defense." As Ambassador to Peru he earned the respect and awe of the Bustamante Government. He, too, was the personal choice of Spruille Braden.

* Not to be confused with Oilman Ed Pauley.

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