Free American Lady : The Life of Susan Mary Alsop (9781101601167) by Frances (INT) Caroline; Fitzgerald De Margerie Page B

fundamentals of seeing you as much as possible and keeping Bill happy.” She continued writing from London on September 28: “What I really want is to lie in your arms again and not think at all.” September 30: “Darling, darling will I really see you in three days?” On October 3, they were reunited at Ditchley, now the home of the newly wedded Ronnieand Marietta Tree. Bill was at a London clinic treating his asthma. “The arrangement of the rooms was admirable,” wrote Duff in his diary, “Susan Mary and I, in the pink and blue bedrooms respectively, had practically a flat to ourselves. I enjoyed every minute of the day and most of the night.” 19 Susan Mary would later write of “the perfect happiness of those two days and three nights at Ditchley.” 20
    None of this kept Duff from making the most of an opportunity. When he learned that Susan Mary was in bed with a cold she had caught from him at Ditchley, he chuckled to himself that the cold had probably come from a girl to whom he had made love one night outdoors. Shortly afterward, he turned down a lunch invitation from Susan Mary, pretending he had an important business meeting. In fact, he had a lunch date with two women. One was a former mistress, and he hoped to add the second to his list of conquests. When he went to pick her up, he was horrified to discover she lived next door to the Pattens. “It was unlucky but not, as far as I am aware, discovered.” 21 Two days later, the woman was in his bed.
    A Farewell Party
    Storm clouds gathered over Paris during the winter of 1947. The disastrous economic climate was causing a wave of strikes. To make things worse, the cold war had begun. In early 1947, the American administration had come to the conclusion that the threat of Soviet expansion in Europe had to be counterbalanced through financial aid to its allies. Harry Truman’s speech on March 12, 1947, followed by that of Secretary of State GeorgeMarshall at Harvard on June 5, introduced the plan that would use dollars to fight Communism. Financial aid was refused by the U.S.S.R., which forced Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia to do the same. The Marshall Plan would cause the final rupture between the United States and the U.S.S.R.
    France chose sides. The government needed American aid to pursue the modernization plans begun by Jean Monnet in order to improve the daily life of the population. But while waiting for aid, the country’s economy fell deeper into crisis. In November, three million workers went on strike to protest against rising prices and stagnant wages. Public buildings were taken by assault, arms factories occupied, telegraph lines cut, and rail lines sabotaged. Electricity was cut off and mail delivery was interrupted. The Communist Party, which had no cabinet ministers since their dismissal by Paul Ramadier in May, decided to oppose the government and play on national fears, proclaiming that the Marshall Plan was aimed at rebuilding Germany so that it could better fight Russia in the forthcoming war. At the height of the violence and provocations, the CGT, one of France’s major trade unions, unexpectedly called off the strike on December 9. In Le Havre, the dockworkers returned to their jobs just in time to receive the first Marshall Plan shipments arriving from America.
    During those troubled months, the American ambassador, Jefferson Caffery, kept the State Department informed of the situation, which was, according to his French colleagues, close to insurrection. As usual, Susan Mary tried to keep a balanced view. Although she fumed about France being “a nation of
frondeurs
,” 22 she saw the strikes as coming from a determined minority ratherthan reflecting, as claimed, popular will. She also knew that wages were too low and that many of the workers’ demands were justified. She was nevertheless extremely relieved when the flare-up came to an end. It meant the Coopers’ farewell ball could take place. Duff had been told