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Royall Tyler to Mildred Barnes Bliss, November 14, 1944

Geneva

14.XI.44

Dearest Mildred,

I have just returned from spending 30 hours in Paris, with Elisina (who is staying on there for a bit) and Bill, whom I’m asking to take this to you. I hope he’ll be able to connect with you while he’s over there on the leave he’s about to start on—leave which I fear will be mostly work for him, however, as he’ll be grabbed the moment he gets there.During the Second World War, William Royall Tyler served as a manager for a short-wave radio station (1940–1942), as an editor in the Office of War Information in Algeria (1942–1943), as the chief of press of the wireless bureau in the western Mediterranean (1943–1944), and as the deputy director and later the director of the Office of War Information in France (1944–1945). If you do see him, he’ll be able to give you my news as well as his own, which seem to be very good.

But even if you’re away from the East Coast, I hope this may reach you, to tell you that I’m well and enjoying my work,During the Second World War, Royall Tyler took unpaid leave from the League of Nations to work for the U.S. intelligence network, run by Allen Dulles in Switzerland. Between 1943 and 1949, Tyler served as the Swiss representative of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and, in 1944, as the special attaché to the U.S. Legation in Bern. which indeed becomes more interesting all the time. The Swiss have a relatively big post-war relief programme of their own, and it is well worth while to get it as far as possible coordinated with UNRRA’s.The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), an international relief agency representing forty-four nations. Founded in 1943 by U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, it became part of the United Nations in 1945. Its purpose was to provide relief to the victims of war in any area under the control of any of the forty-four nations through the provision of food, fuel, clothing, shelter, and medical and other essential services. Not a little can be done in that way, to the benefit of both parties.

This visit I’ve just made to Paris is the first since May 1940. It seemed like a dream, being there, after all that has happened in between. A new France, and yet much of the old still there and struggling to survive. How will it go? I’m hopeful; but there are some slippery turns to be taken, yet.

I motored to Paris with Allen Dulles, and came back with him and David Bruce.David Kirkpatrick Este Bruce (1898–1977), an American diplomat and politician. On the way out, Allen and I got stuck in the snow on the Jura, and would have been there yet save for a fine pair of oxen that lugged us out of our predicament.

The old parts of Dijon haven’t suffered, nor have those of Auxerre or Sens, or Vezelay—or Tournus, or indeed anything of interest along that line, thank God! How I tremble for Ravenna, these days; and then Venice!

Fondest love to you and Robert, dearest Mildred—send me news by Bill, please

Yrs

RT

 
Associated People: Allen Dulles; William Royall Tyler