There was always plenty of food and liquor in the Red retreat. All members of the local press corps were remembered with presents, especially beluga caviar. But now the Russians don’t go out except to official functions, and that goes for their satellites, too. And they travel only in pairs, one to spy on the other.
The Russians and their slave states bring their own females from abroad, because they’re afraid to trust American women, Communist ones included, any more. In the good old days, the consecrated American left-wingers used to go to the Soviet Embassy, where they proved their party loyalty by getting in the hay with the men from Moscow. After many frightened American Reds got religion and betrayed the cause, Soviet diplomats were forbidden to Ostermoor with American women. This did not cause too much hardship, because most American Communist women are no dream-girls; even the Russians shrank from them.
Almost every member of the embassy set has a wife or a concubine posing as a wife with him. In Russian Naval Headquarters, a few handsome young orderlies are being used. There are said to be few homosexuals in Russia, where perversion is strictly punished, except for “Kremlin and world revolution.”
As one humorist remarked, “There are no fags in Russia, because they like goats; but where can they find goats in Washington?”
As a further check on their own people, members of the Soviet Embassy staff are not permitted to live alone. Even couples must share apartments with others.
The Russians have been getting special kid-gloving in Washington since 1933, when the Embassy became the fashionable place to go. At Teheran, Stalin asked President Roosevelt for permission to set up a shortwave radio transmitter in the U. S. to enable his boys to contact Moscow directly. Roosevelt sent a memo to General Marshall, instructing him to cooperate. Marshall wrote back that the law absolutely forbade any foreign government to maintain a transmitter in this country. F. D. R. penciled across it, “Do it anyway.”
Consequently, an entire wing of the Pentagon was turned over to the Commies, where they sent over a million words a week. The President ordered Military Intelligence not to try to break the Russian code, but some officers took their oath to defend the Constitution literally, and overrode the President without his knowledge. As these words are being written, thugs of the NKVD are sitting 24 hours a day with ear-phones and transmitters in Russian Naval and Military headquarters at Massachusetts Avenue and Kalorama Road.
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When an embassy wife isn’t worrying about a change in government at home, which may mean the recall of her husband, she’s worrying about getting her daughter properly married. A lot of the debutantes of the embassy set are beginning to get American ideas after attending American schools. The foreign aristocrats don’t like it.
Embassy wives have rarely been known to fool around. On the whole, embassy children behave themselves. When they don’t, they get packed off to schools in their own countries.
With the exception of the Iron Curtain diplomatic slums, there is considerable camaraderie among attachés of the various embassies, though usually on equal strata. They go dancing in the hotels, visit at each other’s homes, ride and play golf together. Some time ago, an attempt was made to start a United Nations Club at R and 19th Streets, by Meredith Howard, who is the twin sister of Mrs. Teddy Hays. Hays, a big Democrat and White House intimate, is assistant to Federal Security Administrator Oscar Ewing, the socialized-medicine man. The idea was to get younger members of the embassies together, but it blew up when Miss Howard left town with no public explanation.
When it comes to con games, the diplomats and foreign missions could show Yellow Kid Weil something.
Washington and New York are constantly being dazzled by members of foreign missions who come here talking about purchases in hundreds of millions (the dough to be put up by Uncle Sam).
Salesmen, sure-thing boys and big executives turn on every tap to entertain the foreigners and grab their business.
Girls are provided, expensive gifts are passed, and plenty of money changes hands. Then, suddenly, the mission packs up, leaves without buying, says it can’t find what it wants.
Cooks and butlers in every Washington embassy get kickbacks from the merchants. Groceries, meats and other household goods are overpriced on a regular scale for the embassies, with a rebate going monthly to the aforementioned functionaries.
Lower-echelon foreigners have their wild parties in the Washington field offices of the United Nations. There is no central installation of the international body in the capital, but offices are spread out around the town.
One of the principal places for after-work revelry is in the U.N. offices in the Longfellow Building, on Connecticut Avenue, where booze and babes are available every day after five.
Employes of the embassies, foreign missions and the U.N. and such carry special cards which exempt them from the payment of all U.S. taxes such as DC sales, Federal amusement tax, etc. They are, of course, exempt from income tax, too.
It’s a racket in Washington to borrow a friend’s card when making any expensive purchase like a mink coat, where the sales and luxury tax swindle comes to 22 per cent by this means.
A racket begun in UNRRA and now going on in other foreign aid organizations is engaged in by top administration figures and important diplomats:
Most of the durable goods aid sent abroad goes with the proviso that it must be resold in the currency of the country to which it is consigned, and the money must be used to provide local home relief, such as food, clothes, etc.
So the way it works is this: The embassy wangles a shipment of, shall we say, locomotives. They arrive in the country of destination. They are then duly and dutifully resold in the currency of the country. But the law doesn’t say for how much.
Some locomotives were sold in Greece for 10 drachmas each. The drachma runs about 1,000 to the dollar. The local poor get the ten drachmas. The local political bosses, gangsters and crooked diplomats split the resale profits with their opposite numbers in America.
That’s big racketeering. A couple of Washington sisters have a petty, but profitable one. They operate a so-called Embassy social list and charge chumps to get on it, dangling invites to diplomatic balls as the bait, which they obtain from legation employes for a “cut.”
Some fall for it. Our confidential advice is, don’t pay. You can crash almost any Embassy party--but who wants to?
23. THE RIGHT TO PETITION
“_Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances_”--First Amendment to the Constitution.
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Don’t you believe it. Congress hamstrung lobbying by requiring practitioners to register. Then it appointed a committee to investigate them. Neither gesture got far. Lobbyists are among the most delightful people in Washington. They are the friends of everybody, including the Congressmen who are “probing” them.
Lobbying is like the Indian rope trick. Everyone talks about it, but no one has ever seen it done. It’s one subject all Congressmen shy from, regardless of party. That’s because there are lobbyists on both sides. You can hardly expect a Congressman to insult a supporter.
Many ex-Congressmen, who can’t bear the thought of returning home after their defeat, remain in Washington as lobbyists. They enjoy an advantage, because, forever after, all ex-Senators and ex-Representatives have the privileges of the floor and the cloak-rooms. They can collar the ones they need while the legislators are in action. Thus, members, who are always aware of the possibility of being lame ducks themselves, keep these pleasant prospects of earning a generous living after retirement open and in good working order.
When you read about lobbying being a $100,000,000 business, don’t believe that, either. Maybe they soak their clients that much, but most of it goes on padded expense accounts. Lobbyists are their own best press-agents. They are more responsible for the hue and cry against lobbying than are the reformers. By making it look more difficult, they can load their take.
Lobbying is as old as Magna Charta, which first granted people the right to petition their sovereign. Ever since, those who wanted something have hired someone to speak up for them. Washington is full of these hucksters. They are about the brightest spot on the glum scene. They spend, entertain, throw wild parties with pretty gals as souvenirs, tip lavishly and keep the hotel and liquor industries going. They are the only cream here in a welter of skimmed milk.
An Act of Congress, of doubtful legality, requires lobbyists to register and divulge the amount and source of their income. Some do, many more don’t. Those who comply are the technical lobbyists--in other words, they are errand boys who merely transmit messages and appeals from their clients to the Congress. Many have no physical contact with Congressmen at all, reaching them through mimeographed propaganda mailed from a Washington office.