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In a splendid new biography, The Last American Aristocrat, Nelson D. Lankford recreates the life and times of this public servant who was "a shining example of the transitional elite that dominated American foreign policy in an era now long gone. Useful tools of membership were money and the connections it made possible. More important was a desire to serve the republic . . . The liberal internationalists who dominated American foreign policy for the generation after World War II had no better exemplar." Early in his life Bruce developed strong ties to both England and France, where he served during World War I and after the war, in the Army Courier Service, where he carried documents between the Paris peace conference and embassies and legations across the continent.
Relying on Bruce's diaries and extensive research, the author achieves an admirable balance between his subject's personal and public lives. Bruce was born into a prominent Virginia family; his father was a U.S. senator from Maryland and Pulitzer Prize-winning author. His friends at Princeton included F. Scott Fitzgerald. After the war, Bruce dabbled in journalism and the law, but found it hard to settle down. Then, in 1926, he married Alisha Mellon, whose father, Andrew, was one of the wealthiest men in the country and Secretary of the Treasury. Although Alisha was not well and the couple divorced in 1945, Bruce helped his father-in-law in various ways, the most lasting the work he did as the key family member making decisions about the Mellon gift of art that became the National Gallery of Art. Although he served in the state legislatures of Maryland and Virginia, and headed the Red Cross in England, it was the effort to save Britain that led to Bruce's long-term government service.
In the early 1940s, he was tapped by America's most decorated World War I hero, "Wild Bill" Donovan, to head European operations for the OSS, forerunner of the CIA. In this role he was responsible for intelligence gathering and for providing liaison "with the alternately helpful and hostile British intelligence organizations" and with others. Bruce's skill as diplomat knew many challenges throughout this period.
Lankford is especially helpful in presenting the issues that faced Europe and the U.S. after the war and how and why Bruce was so effective as an advocate for the Marshall Plan and later plans for European integration. Bruce most admired his good friend Jean Monnet whom he called "the foremost political philosopher of the Twentieth Century." Monnet was the visionary behind plans that led to the Common Market, later the European Community, today's European Union.
It is important to note that presidents asked Bruce to serve in important posts in difficult times. Lankford notes that "David Bruce showed a knack for being present at the most dramatic turning points in his country's foreign affairs during the twentieth century."
What was the secret of Bruce's success as a diplomat? He was genuinely interested in the leaders, the people, and the cultures he served. And the fashionable embassy parties he and his second wife, Evangeline, hosted were enjoyed and appreciated. He was carefully focused on policy issues. He valued ideas and instinctively recognized the most important. The author notes, too, Bruce's elegance and charm. Also, perhaps most important, "He developed a talent for making everyone he talked to, no matter what their rank or importance, feel they were the center of his attention." He was a good listener. "Diplomacy," according to Bruce, "is the management of international relations by negotiation. It is not a system of moral philosophy, it is rather the application of intelligence and tact to the conduct of official relations between the governments of independent states."
Lankford relates the tragedies in Bruce's life, the death of his younger brother and the deaths of two of his children. And he does not shy away from the fact that, at least when his children were young, Bruce was an indifferent parent.
This is a fascinating and important story, told in a fair and compelling way.
Roger Bishop is Contributing Editor to this publication.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.