A great-grandmother was on the speaker's platform. She had been talking for nearly an hour and a half. The audience was made up of the most exacting, sophisticated women in Cleveland. It was lunch time. The speaker looked at her watch. "Oh, my time is up. Shall I stop now?" A chorus of eager "No's" was her answer. Who could hold up a group of blase women beyond their lunch hour? It had to be a fascinating speaker. It was. She was none other than our minister to Norway, Mrs. J. Borden Harriman, known to her intimates as "Daisy." Take a dynamic woman, full of the spirit of adventure, and place her in the midst of international intrigue and the overnight capture of a city, and you really have a dramatic story. In all history there will never be a story of intrigue and treachery to surpass that of the capture of Oslo, Norway, by the Germans on that fateful morning of April 8, 1940. Mrs. Harriman can tell you all about it. It was she who received a telephone call and a subsequent telegram in intricate code from an American consul on the mainland, telling of the sailing of a German fleet into neutral waters, headed for Oslo. Unable to get cooperation from the local telegraph office, she called the legation at Stockholm, Sweden, at 1:30 in the morning, got the U.S. minister to Sweden out of bed, and asked him to cable the news (in code) to Washington for her. This telephone conversation took place just 20 minutes before all points of communication in Oslo were taken over by the Germans. (These Germans were already "planted" in the city under the pretext of protection.) It was she who received the keys to the British and French legations at 3 o'clock that same morning when the British and French ministers had to flee to escape internment for the duration of the war. It was her job to "seal" the two legations and gather up their valuable papers and telegraph code book. The latter became her "white elephant," as she carried it for five days and nights, as she followed King Haakon in his flight to the north. Mrs. Harriman did not have to flee for her own life - as she was a "neutral' - but it is the law that a minister to a country follow that country's government wherever it is transferred. King Haakon was hunted like a wild animal; the Germans' orders were to capture him, dead or alive. Airplanes followed his flight, bombs falling everywhere. Mrs. Harriman saw the second car in front of her's demolished. For five nights she and her secretary and maid never removed their clothes. Mrs. Harriman slept (when she dared sleep) with the code book tucked under her (like Jacob's pillow of stone). Such was the swift change from dignified court and diplomatic life to the life of a hunted animal.
Let us turn back the pages and learn a little about this intrepid woman, whose irreproachable conduct in peace and magnificent courage in war make her stand out as one of our truly great ambassadors. I had read so much about her resourcefulness, her good sportsmanship (learning to ski after the age of 65) that I could hardly wait to see her, face to face. Let me go back just a step further, and tell you that Mr. Walker "financed the expedition" - carfare and all - to see and hear this remarkable woman last Wednesday. The Town Hall lectures are quite expensive - and this special treat was a little extra. So I want you to know that Mr. Walker gladly and generously paid for it all - having faith that you would enjoy knowing Mrs. Harriman, and reading about her experiences. One speculates about a woman of great wealth, who is honored with such a responsible position - especially after the age of 65. Surely she would have just a touch of arrogance - at least, conceit, and cocksureness that is a bit annoying. Not Mrs. Harriman. I have tried, in my own mind, to analyze Daisy Harriman, and catalogue her, as it were. She is like a sweet, eager, unspoiled child; thoroughly feminine; completely unaffected. Dressed in a tailored dress of brown, with matching hat, her silver-gray hair was her chief adornment. Her face shows great character but her eyes bespeak a zest for life, a kindly humor, a great tenderness. It was 1:30 in the morning - in the spring of 1939 - when Mrs. Harriman received news of her appointment as minister to Norway. A reporter called her at that unseemly hour for her comments. It was the first she had heard of it. "Interesting, if true" was her only comment. That morning she called her daughter in California (from New York) for advice - whether or not to accept. (See how like a child she is in that respect!) Her daughter told her to think well before declining - that here was a chance to widen her interests and have a great adventure. Her next remarks were filled with warm appreciation of the courtesy and help she received in Washington - from President Roosevelt and the department of state; of the unfailing courtesy of Ambassador Bullitt in Paris, and Ambassador Bingham in London, coaching her in world affairs and matters of diplomacy. I thought, "How could anyone resist giving aid to such a perfectly charming woman?"
I could easily fill all of Page 4 with enthusiastic narrative and description of this grand person and her adventures. But Mr. Walker has asked me - again - to keep down to one column, if possible. So I must leave her informal presentation to King Haakon and her adventures among the peasant women and fishermen until next time. Just hoping you are getting some of the pleasure and inspiration that has been mine, I am,
Florence B. Taylor.