Delegates ate "austerity" cakes (without icing), drank sugarless coffee, stared enviously from crowded hotel rooms at the snug Nissen huts in London's parks. The war without parades had produced a peace conference without glamor.
Biggest social event was Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin's dreary cocktail party in the Royal Gallery of the House of Lords. The most conspicuous guests were the broad-shouldered, anonymous young men clustered around Foreign Commissar Molotov. Their hip pockets bulged. Said a Briton: "Damme! Pistols in the House of Lords. Incredible!"
In its first week the Council of Foreign Ministers achieved two notable agreements: 1) it gave a...
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