Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [451]
109 After Komura and Takahira TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1293. Philippe Bunau-Varilla to Francis B. Loomis, 27 July 1905 (FBL); Loomis to TR, 28 July 1905 (TRP).
110 Roosevelt was worried TR, Letters, vol. 4, 1293. TR here displayed acute intuition. According to Baron Rosen, Witte “would not have hesitated to consent to the payment of a war indemnity provided it could be accomplished under some plausible disguise.” Roman Rosen, Forty Years of Diplomacy (London, 1922), vol. 1, 263–64.
111 his friend Kentaro See above, Interlude, p. 368.
112 The Russian plenipotentiaries Korostovetz, Diary, 31.
113 His guests arrived Ibid.
114 Still less could Trani, Treaty of Portsmouth, 112, quotes some of the Tsar’s adamant instructions, which formed the basis of Witte’s negotiating brief.
115 Their country Rosen, Forty Years, vol. 1, 263–64. Sakhalin was to remain a Russian strategic trigger-spot for most of the rest of the century: vide the downing of Korean Airlines Flight 007 in 1983.
116 Paradoxically, the Ibid., 264.
117 Baron Rosen’s suspicion Ibid.
118 Witte was enormous Smalley, Anglo-American Memories, 386–87; TR, Letters, vol. 5, 61. TR’s impression of Witte was not altogether pleasant, and turned to outright dislike as the peace conference progressed. TR, Letters, vol. 5, 22–23.
119 “We are not” Korostovetz, Diary, 31, qu. Witte’s own repetition, later that day, of his words to TR.
120 However, Witte Ibid., 32.
121 Witte watched Witte, Memoirs, vol. 2, 442. It is probable that Witte told TR, for example, that Japan had just as many imperialistic designs in Manchuria as Russia did, and considerably more in Korea. And by her very nature, she was likely to close the Open Doors in both those countries with louder slams than any yet heard. After Portsmouth, Japan did indeed immediately close the door on Korea, and by the time TR left office she had begun to shut it in Manchuria, too. By 1938, Japan had used her military power to close off all of China to the West, and her subsequent moves upon the Philippines, not to mention Pearl Harbor, made wastepaper of the Taft-Katsura Memorandum. It is moot, of course, whether China and Korea would have fared any better under Russian domination. See Dennett, Roosevelt, 238–39, for the role of public relations in formulating American attitudes in 1905.
122 Roosevelt said Korostovetz, Diary, 32.
123 The plenipotentiaries Dennett, Roosevelt, 240 “I have brought them to a cool spring,” TR said later that afternoon. “It remains to be seen whether they will drink of it or not.” Smalley, Anglo-American Memories, 362.
124 Tweedledum and Tweedledee See above, p. 168.
125 from next Wednesday When the delegations got to Portsmouth, they found that TR had made no arrangements for meetings, leaving them to construct their own schedule. Trani, Treaty of Portsmouth, 127.
126 He sent two Korostovetz, Diary, 35. Except where otherwise indicated, the following is taken from this source, plus New York Sun, 6 Aug. 1905, and Henry J. Forman’s excellent oral history of his coverage of the Mayflower reception for the Sun syndicate. Forman was one of the bright young reporters TR liked to cultivate with exclusive favors. He was given a presidential pass to remain on board during the ceremonies, and permission to dispatch bulletins ashore by rowboat shuttle (dropping them out through a porthole). A transcript of Forman’s memoir, “So Brief a Time” (1959–1960), conducted by Doyce B. Nunis, is in the Department of Special Collections, Young Research Library, UCLA.
127 glittered like a ballroom The simile is Forman’s.
128 From then on It is not likely that a peace conference ever began more noisily. The Mayflower’s logbook records twenty-one guns for TR, nineteen each for the plenipotentiaries, then respective honors for every Cabinet officer, admiral, and general who came aboard. O.H.M. McPherson, “The U.S.S. Mayflower, a Presidential Prerogative,” Yachting, July 1992.
129 the Stars and Stripes This flag now hangs at in the North Room at Sagamore Hill.
130 Since Komura and Rosen, Forty