October 27, 1918

My new Colonel [House] tiptoed into Paris so softly yesterday morning that I only reported to him today at the house that had been arranged for his reception in the Rue de L’Université. He immediately installed me in his official family on the same familiar footing that I had enjoyed in Berlin three years before:

“The President has given me no instructions; he said I would know what he wanted me to do and then told me to shove off. For the next few days we shall be very busy debating the terms of the Armistice, and you and Frazier and all of us¹ will have to work long hours. Today I am just talking with all and sundry [by this I suppose he referred to the two prime ministers and the three war ministers who were cooling their heels in the anteroom as Frazier passed me through their ranks], but tomorrow we shall get down to brass tacks. Come in at nine, prepared to make a day and perhaps a night of it.”

Then a moment later, “I will follow the President’s example and give you no definite instructions but just a hazy idea of what I shall expect from you. I think I can handle Lloyd George and the “Tiger” [Clemenceau] without much help, but into your hands I commit all the mighty men of the rest of the world. I shall expect you to call at least once a day and my door will always be open to you. From time to time, if inconvenient to call, send me a memo—or better still, leave it with the sailors who will guard my gate.”

After a moment’s reflection he continued, “You have seen all these strange people with whom Paris now is swarming on their native heaths. Most of them you knew and appraised before they were built up by war propaganda and nationalistic inflation. The war that has destroyed cities has puffed up some little men until they find their hats and their boots too small, much too small for them. I shall count on you to present them to me in their original proportions. That will be an invaluable service.”

I went out of the room gasping. It was certainly quite a job I had fallen into by “picking up” Colonel House on the streets of Berlin in March, 1915!

[One winter’s afternoon in Berlin, Stephen Bonsai spied a fellow American who seemed lost and confused, unable to extract directions from the hurried German pedestrians who jostled by him without notice. Bonsai came to the rescue, led the stranger to his destination, and in fluent German interpreted for him. Not until the next day at the American Embassy where they met again were they formally introduced. The two became firm friends, and when House was sent abroad to initiate the Armistice negotiations, he cabled General Pershing and asked for Bonsai’s services as interpreter. Eventually Bonsai was picked to sit in on the most “graveyard” secret sessions of the Peace Conference and interpret for President Wilson and Colonel House. This diary is the record of such meetings and was used by the President as a reminder of what had taken place from one important session to another.]