Ambassador to the World

In the Assembly, U.S. Chief Delegate Warren Austin rose to answer Molotov. He mounted the rostrum with slow but agile dignity, and lowered his white-topped, ruddy-cheeked head in a courtly bow to the chairman. Then he began to speak slowly, deliberately, with imperturbable poise. He quickly made three things clear: 1) the U.S. would support Russia's disarmament proposal, provided that disarmament was internationally inspected; 2) the U.S. would support Russia's stand against abolishing the veto (though limiting its use was desirable); 3) the U.S. had no objections to revealing the size of its armies at home or abroad, if Russia did the same.

For the rest of his solid, well-balanced speech, Austin ignored Molotov's charges, expressed quiet optimism about U.N.'s achievements. The commissars from the Armenian mountains and the lawyers from the jungle's fringe, the princes of the Arabian desert and the polemicists from the Balkan cafes looked at the immaculate, stocky figure with varying degrees of understanding. Warren Robinson Austin, ex-Senator from Vermont, the President's Special Representative to the General Assembly, was the U.S.'s new Ambassador to the World.

The world, with the exception of the sovereign state of Vermont, knew virtually nothing about him.

Practice & Faith. Warren Austin was not what the world generally considered a typical American. He appeared reticent, formal, gentle, oldfashioned, a man of controlled emotions and clear purposes. He was born in 1877 in Highgate Center (pop. 500 at the time), among the green, hard hills of Vermont. He read the Bible, Lincoln, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, was fullback at the University of Vermont. Later, he settled down to the life of a small-town lawyer. In 1931, he was elected to the Senate, where, after 1939, he labored long & hard for aid to the Allies.

At 69, Austin, a tireless worker, has unflagging enthusiasm for U.N. Says he: "Practice, difficult at first, will develop into custom, custom into faith. . . ." Though an idealist (and a sentimentalist at times), Austin has a hard Yankee core, and likes to win. But, says he: "The will to win should generate the will to do justice. . . ."

To a world which has elevated its lack of principle to a philosophy, he brings a firm belief in principle. (He revealed his credo during his speech last week: "There is an injunction contained in the Constitution of Vermont. ... It calls for 'a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles. . . .' ") An anti-New Dealer, he often refers to the flaming individualism of Vermont's Green Mountain Boys, some of whom were his ancestors.

Harding & Hootchy-Kootchy. Austin's teammates in the U.S. delegation: P:| Thomas Terry Connally, 69, Democratic Senator from Texas and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who has a much sharper mind than his flowing white mane, flowing string tie and flowing oratory indicate. P: Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg. 62, Republican Senator from Michigan, a harness maker's son, who got into politics via journalism by helping Isolationist Warren Harding write campaign speeches, and who has become (with Secretary Byrnes) the architect of practical postwar U.S. internationalism.

P: Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, 62, who, to her foreign U.N. colleagues, is perhaps the most interesting and most likable of the U.S. delegates.

P: Representative Sol Bloom, 76, son of poor Polish immigrants, former showman, lyrics writer, theater owner, real-estate operator, who entered Tammany politics after he had successfully retired at 50. At the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, when he was 23, he was the concessionaire who introduced the "Dance of All Nations" and the "Hootchy-Kootchy." P:Charles Aubrey Eaton, 78, a Baptist minister from Nova Scotia who combined preaching and journalism for 25 years before he became a Republican Representative from New Jersey in 1925. P:John Foster Dulles, 58, stoop-shouldered senior partner of Sullivan & Cromwell, one of the U.S.'s most puissant law firms, veteran of innumerable international congresses, No. 1 Presbyterian layman, and chairman of the Commission for a Just & Durable Peace of the Federal Council of Churches. P:Adlai Ewing Stevenson, 46, able Illinois lawyer, grandson of Democratic Vice President Adlai ("The Headsman") Stevenson (who distinguished himself by discreetly purging some 40,000 Republican postmasters when Grover Cleveland became President). Young Stevenson entered public service as Assistant General-Counsel to the Federal Alcoholic Control Administration, subsequently became assistant to Secretaries Knox, Hull, Stettinius.

P:Helen Gahagan Douglas, 46, once named one of the twelve most beautiful women in the U.S., former actress and singer, who left the boards for the soapbox during the depression. Her last Broadway hit: Tonight or Never.

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