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Visser 't Hooft's stern Dutch face reflects warmth and good fellowship over a drink or at the staff's daily 15-minute tea party, but the ship he runs at Geneva is taut. He is capable of festive foolery: at an office party each St. Nicholaas Eve (Dec. 5), he sings a song consisting of good-natured personal gibes at the staff. He travels plenty. "If I hold any kind of a record," he says, "it is for attending international conferences. I wonder if it isn't 1,000 by now."
Visser 't Hooft's chief hobby is Rembrandt. He first grew interested simply because Rembrandt, a fellow countryman, was one of history's greatest painters and had contributed so much to the world of art. But as he learned more about him, he realized that Rembrandt had done an extraordinary number of Biblical paintings. "He had a certain conception of the Bible," says Wim. "I became interested in what he was trying to say." But he found no books that told him, so the World Council's Visser 't Hooft wrote one himself: Rembrandt and the Gospel.