Louise had called Hamilton’s office first thing Thursday morning and got herself on his calendar Friday afternoon, telling his secretary, Helmi, that it would only be fifteen minutes. After the dinner with Max Hamilton and his wife, Louise had spoken several times more with Hamilton at one of the many Christmas parties and was now on a first-name basis. She found herself increasingly more relaxed with him and appreciating his old-fashioned politeness and good manners.
Her father had taught her about business, but her mother had taught her about doing business. The more pulled together she looked, the more she was taken seriously. The problem was her more pulled-together clothes were either at some army warehouse in God-knows-where or on the Atlantic Ocean. On Friday morning, to her normal street outfit she’d added a simple nylon chiffon scarf she’d found in a small women’s retail store, surprisingly with a Sears and Roebuck label, and she applied some of her precious red lipstick. So far, she’d found no replacement in all of Helsinki. In fact, she’d seen none on Finnish women and wondered if maybe they didn’t wear makeup.
When she was ushered into Hamilton’s office, he was as cordial and gracious as he’d been before, as she expected. He was, after all, a diplomat. But he was also warm and welcoming, which she hadn’t expected. She smiled through the polite questions of health and finding housing, waiting until he finally asked, “So, Louise, how can I help you?”
Then he waited.
Louise then launched into the plight of the orphans. When she finished, Hamilton walked over to the window. He looked out at the gray sky in the gray streets for some time.
“Louise,” he said, turning to face her. “The war was terrible. More horrible than most Americans can ever imagine. I’ve seen some of those children, and I saw too many of them in France in the last war.”
Her hopes were rising.
“I know I have the seemingly impressive title of envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary.” He chuckled. “That is a very traditional title, carefully constructed to signal just what authority I have. And don’t have.” He paused. “Because I am not an ambassador, I do not have the authority to direct funds to private charities, no matter how worthy the cause.”
“But surely there must be some money. Criminy, with what we spend on defense and—”
“Louise,” he interrupted gently. “Every penny is budgeted and publicly accounted for. I do not run a spy agency like the OSS that can keep expenses secret.”
She couldn’t hide her disappointment. “But, Max, we spend millions on foreign aid! Surely …”
Hamilton cocked his head sideways at that. “Louise,” he said gently. “We, in the field, distribute foreign aid. We don’t decide who gets it.”
She took that in. Of course. Bureaucracies.
“Maybe you could raise the money privately,” Hamilton suggested, “some sort of fund drive or raffle.”
Louise nearly blurted out, raffle what? They didn’t have enough money to buy anything to raffle. She held her tongue. He was trying to help.
“I would be happy to make a personal donation,” Hamilton continued, “contribute some of my own money,” obviously trying to soften the blow. “And perhaps some of the others on staff might be willing. You have my permission to ask them.”
“Thank you. That’s very kind.” Louise thought a moment. “Just out of curiosity, what do you have authority to distribute funds to?”
Hamilton chuckled. “Almost anything that looks like it’s keeping Finland on our side but doesn’t make the Russians mad.”
“You mean something like what we’re doing in Germany.” She was thinking rapidly. “Like reconstruction.”
He nodded. “Something like that.”
“I’ll try and think of something.”
“Do that. I’ll always be happy to see what you come up with. Albeit,” he sighed, “I can’t promise anything, even if I am a plenipotentate.” Smiling, he stood and held out his hand.
Walking back to the hotel, Louise felt as somber as the streets. She knew that whatever she came up with must be something Hamilton could put into a letter or budget document. Hamilton had said that the Department of State’s primary mission was to keep Finland in the camp of the democracies. Surely, helping a Finnish orphanage would qualify. She’d taken civics in school, but civics never said a word about how things actually worked in politics—things like budgets. At the base of it all was money. An image of a cartoon politician with a string tie and potbelly rose in her mind. That person wouldn’t be motivated by sympathy for foreign orphans who couldn’t vote she thought wryly. If she could only think of something that a politician or bureaucrat could use to make themselves look good. Something. The germ of an idea was starting to form.
By the time she reached her room, there was a spring in her step. She’d come up with the idea of a joint American and Soviet effort that could fit under the general umbrella of “war reconstruction.” She knew a large percentage of Americans still thought of the Russians as friends. They referred to Stalin as Uncle Joe. It made Arnie furious, but that was political reality. The angle could be continuing to work as allies, just like in the war, but now for peace. What better than a project like caring for the orphans of our common enemy? An act of generous forgiveness. She could write a letter—no, Hamilton could write a letter to some bureaucrat with a green eyeshade whom she imagined sitting in Washington with a big rubber stamp—a letter that could extol the twin virtues of greatly furthering relations with Finland and the Soviet Union. Before that letter from Hamilton could be written, however, she needed the project to be a joint project. She needed help to firm up the Soviet side—and she already had the person in mind.
She wrote a note to Natalya Bobrova that evening, saying how much she’d enjoyed meeting someone her own age at the legation party, someone with whom she could talk about French literature. She ended it asking if Natalya and Mikhail might be attending the performance by the Liberation String Quartet at the French embassy Wednesday evening. Perhaps they could sit together. She dropped the letter off at the Russian legation first thing the next morning.