Accent on Facts

Few Ambassadors ever came to Washington with the spectacular advance notices of Great Britain's tweedy, impassive Lord Inverchapel. His glittering reputation spanned more than 40 years of service in most of the world's capitals (Moscow, Chungking, Bagdad, etc.). But once in the U.S., Inverchapel became known as "the invisible Ambassador." He studiously avoided the press, ducked official parties, made no effort to cement all-important friendships on Capitol Hill. Last week, after 20 months in his post, Lord Inverchapel learned over the embassy's news ticker that his orders for home had finally come.

The man Britain chose to replace him was lean, ascetic Sir Oliver Shewell Franks, 43, a philosopher-turned-economist who was born in the year that Inverchapel first headed into the foreign service. No conventional diplomat, Sir Oliver is one of the little group of keen-minded young Oxford dons who rocketed to prominence in wartime government service. He is an emotionless factfinder who has been described as the most unneurotic man in Britain.

Less Medal-Pinning. Though the appointment had been in the works for weeks, most Britons were taken somewhat by surprise. Sir Oliver and his wife are so little inclined to the social side of diplomacy that an acquaintance once remarked of their infrequent parties: "One always has to break the ice--and when one does, one finds a lot of very cold water underneath."

But with the inauguration of the Marshall Plan, His Majesty's Ambassador would be less concerned with the traditional medal-pinning and speechmaking of diplomacy, and more with the facts & figures of economic life which Inverchapel had neither the training nor the inclination to tackle. For that role, Sir Oliver fitted Britain's specifications to a T.

As head of Britain's mission to the Paris conference last summer, Sir Oliver has a perfect understanding of the Marshall Plan from the European perspective. As Europe's representative in Washington for further talks last fall, he is equally equipped to interpret the U.S. point of view.

Victory at Montreal. An austere, hard-driving administrator, Sir Oliver was brought up under the stern eye of his theologian father, made a brilliant record at Oxford and stayed on to become a don and dean of Queen's College. He was a professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow when he was drafted into the Ministry of Supply.

By 1945, having earned a reputation for getting things done, he had risen to Permanent Undersecretary and a knighthood. He is an iron-willed negotiator. At an UNRRA conference in Montreal in 1944, he held a deadlocked meeting in session most of the night, finally convinced Russia's delegates that they had misinterpreted their instructions from Moscow. After the war, despite an offer to become Permanent Undersecretary of the Foreign Office, he returned to Oxford.

Sir Oliver would take over some time in late April or May. Inverchapel would stay on until the Marshall Plan was passed by Congress, then retire to his sheep farm in Scotland.

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