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Secret of Success. In England these days he has little time for the fishing he loves. The two bicycles given him by admirers are locked up in the cellar at Prince's Gate. He sees an occasional movie, sometimes gets in a walk in Hyde Park or a weekend in the country. After this week he will miss his rare, free evenings at home with Mrs. Douglas and daughter Sharman (a crashing belle of London society). They flew back to the U.S. for Christmas in New York with son Peter, down from Yale, and New Year's in Arizona with son James, a Tucson bank clerk.
Not the least of his personal troubles is financial. Contrary to tradition, and to legend, Douglas is not a rich man. His grandfather's fortune has already been dispersed; his father's is locked up in Canada, where Rawhide Jim retired in an anti-New Deal huff in 1939. With only $53,570 a year in pay and allowances to run the London Embassy, Lew is forced to dig deep into his own savings.
But Lew Douglas' spirits are up. Though his Arizona tan is gone and he is beginning to look a little drawn, his sinus trouble has not bothered him in London's unusually dry, bright weather. His stomach (he once had "most of the insides cut out" as a result of the Argonne gassing) is well enough so that he can sneak an occasional forbidden Martini or cigarette.
He wears the air of a man who has at last found his right job, who is doing just what he was made for and has been looking for all his life. He likes the feel and atmosphere of public success which he has had in London, and shows it in an assured, confident manner.
TIME'S London bureau cabled last week: "The secret of Douglas' success in dealing with Britons is that he remains thoroughly American, yet manages to be the complete antithesis of the grotesque caricature so many Britons have built up of the typical American: loudmouthed, loud-suited and inclined to give a condescending slap on the aching British back.
"He understands and seriously sympathizes with the British hypersensitivity in the face of the westward migration of power. He recognizes that one of his main tasks is to help preserve British dignity and authority to the limits set by the new realities of world power. He knows that the recovery of Germany and the stability of France are both important, but that if the British position continues to deteriorate, stability in Europe and the world as a whole seems impossible."
*Douglas is the 17th U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, the 46th Chief of Mission. Not until 1893 did the U.S. raise ministers to ambassadorial rank.