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Dangerous Situation. Although the Messersmith stomach is weak, the Messersmith will is strong. When he makes up his mind, it is like snapping the jaws of an iron trap. As consul general in Berlin from 1930 to 1934 he quickly acquired a viselike antipathy for the Nazis. In 1933 he wrote home: "There is a real revolution here, and a dangerous situation."
On more than one occasion he stalked grimly out of gatherings where a Nazi Speaker was making derisive remarks about the U.S. His scrupulous concern for protecting the rights of U.S. citizens won the favorable notice of F.D.R. In 1934 he was advanced to ministerial rank in Vienna. He came back to Washington as Assistant Secretary of State before the German tide rolled over Austria.
Messersmith's reaction to Germany's revolution of the Right stamped him as a man not likely to be fooled by the façade of fascism. But another side of his nature recoiled almost as violently from an upheaval of the Left. After Pearl Harbor the State Department sent Messersmith to Mexico. During four wartime years in politically aroused Mexico City he took no pains to conceal his contempt for the radical strain of Latin emotionalism. He crossed swords often with militant Vicente Lombardo Toledano, former leader of Mexico's leftist workers.
Mexicans, who set great store by amiability, did not take naturally to this buzz saw of a man who worked all day and went to bed early with a pile of detective stories. Although he spoke Spanish passably well, a sandpaper larynx caused strange cacophonies in that musical language.
Compliment. Popular or no, he performed his mission loyally and well. He wangled enough from wartime-restricted U.S. resources to slake Mexico's rapidly growing industrial and food needs. He ran his Embassy staff with topnotch efficiency.
He made some mistakes. When former King Carol of Rumania turned up in Mexico City with red-headed Magda Lupescu (Messersmith had met them both in Cuba), he went to extreme lengths to try and get them admitted to the U.S. Loyalty to old friends is a Messersmith trait. Leftists attacked him for kowtowing to royalty, and tarnished royalty at that. To an acquaintance who took him to task for his efforts he replied: "For 13 years he [Carol] has been faithful to her; and for 13 years she has not looked at another man. Which is more than you can say."
Parallel. Just before leaving Mexico last May for Argentina, George Messersmith said what was on his mind:
"There are many of us who see in what is happening today a definite parallel between the period from 1933 to 1938. . . . We have nothing better than an armed truce. ... I am sorry to say that I am resting today under none of the illusions I rested under after the end of the first World War. . . . Then I sincerely believed that war had ended forever."