Mr Hoover frowned slightly, and a slight stir went through the assembled group, all of whom looked across at Mr Hoover, then at me.
Mr Hoover frowned again into his plate. ‘We would set up a non-partisan commission in cooperation with the American Red Cross and work through the Hague Agreement, under paragraph twenty-seven, section forty-three, which allows a Commission of Mercy to administer to the sick and needy of both sides, belligerent or not. I think you as a humanitarian will endorse such a commission.’ This is not accurately what he said – only an impression of it.
I held my ground. ‘I am whole-heartedly in agreement with the idea, providing the food does not get into the Nazis’ hands,’ I said.
This remark created another stir round the table.
‘We did this sort of thing before.’ said Mr Hoover with an air of nettled modesty. The towering skyline of young men now directed their attention to me. One of them smiled. ‘I think Mr President can handle that situation,’ he said.
‘It’s an excellent idea,’ said Mr Sulzberger authoritatively.
‘I quite agree,’ I answered meekly, ‘and would endorse it one hundred per cent, if the physical administration of it could be handled by Jews only!’
‘Oh,’ said Mr Hoover curtly, ‘that wouldn’t be possible.’
*
It was strange to listen to slick young Nazis along Fifth Avenue haranguing small gatherings from little mahogany pulpits. One spiel went as follows: ‘The philosophy of Hitler is a profound and thoughtful study of the problems of this industrial age, in which there is little room for the middleman or the Jew.’
A woman interrupted. ‘What kind of talk is that!’ she exclaimed. ‘This is America. Where do you think you are?’
The young man, an obsequious, good-looking type, smiled blandly. ‘I’m in the United States and I happen to be an American citizen,’ he said smoothly.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m an American citizen, and a Jew, and if I were a man I’d knock your block off!’
One or two endorsed the lady’s threat, but most of them stood apathetically silent. A policeman standing by quietened the woman. I came away astonished, hardly believing my ears.
A day or so later I was at a country house and a pale, anaemic-looking young Frenchman, Count Chambrun, husband of Pierre Laval’s daughter, pursued me continually before lunch. He had seen The Great Dictator the opening night in New York. Said he magnanimously: ‘But of course, your point of view is not to be taken seriously.’
‘After all, it’s a comedy,’ I answered.
Had I been aware of the bestial murders and tortures that went on in the Nazi concentration camps, I would not have been so polite. About fifty guests were present and we sat four at a table. He joined ours and tried to draw me into a political argument, but I told him I much preferred good food to politics. His conversation was such that I lifted my glass and said: ‘I seem to be drinking in a lot of “Vichy”.’ I had no sooner said this than a violent altercation broke out at another table, and two women went at it hammer and tongs. It became so violent that I thought they would resort to hair-pulling. One shouted to the other: ‘I won’t listen to that kind of talk. You’re a goddam Nazi!’
A young New York scion asked me in a benign way why I was so anti-Nazi. I said because they were anti-people. ‘Of course,’ he said, as though making a sudden discovery, ‘you’re a Jew, aren’t you?’
‘One doesn’t have to be a Jew to be anti-Nazi,’ I answered. ‘All one has to be is a normal decent human being.’ And so the subject was dropped.
A day or so later I was to appear at the Hall of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Washington, to recite the last speech from The Great Dictator over the radio. Beforehand I was called to meet President Roosevelt, at whose request we had sent the film to the White House. When I was ushered into his private study, he greeted me saying: ‘Sit down, Charlie; your picture is giving us a lot of trouble in the Argentine.’ This was his only comment about it. A friend of mine later summed it up by saying: ‘You were received at the White House, but not embraced.’
I sat with the President for forty minutes, during which he served me several dry martinis which I tossed down quickly from shyness. When it was time to leave, I literally reeled out of the White House – then suddenly remembered that at ten o’clock I was to speak over the radio. It was to be a national hook-up, which meant speaking to over sixty million people. After taking several cold showers and drinking strong black coffee, I had more or less pulled myself together.
The States had not entered the war yet, so there were plenty of Nazis in the hall that night. No sooner had I begun my speech than they began to cough. It was too loud to be natural. It made me nervous so that my mouth became dry and my tongue began sticking to the roof of my palate and I could not articulate. The speech was six minutes long. In the middle of it I stopped and said that I could not continue unless I had a drink of water. Of course, there was not a drop in the house; and here I was keeping sixty million listeners waiting. After an interminable two minutes I was handed water in a small paper envelope. Thus I was able to finish the speech.
twenty-six
IT was inevitable that Paulette and I should separate. We both knew it long before The Dictator was started, and now that it was completed we were confronted with making a decision. Paulette left word that she was going back to California to work in another picture for Paramount, so
