The Liveliest Ambassador

The job of U.S. Ambassador to France was once the envied passport to a life of gaiete parisienne. Since Charles de Gaulle's relations with Washington turned frosty in the early 1960s, however, the post has had some of the aspects of representing the U.S. in a hostile land. There were those who suspected Lyndon Johnson of shipping Sargent Shriver to the Siberian salt mines when the President picked him to succeed Career Diplomat Charles ("Chip") Bohlen in Paris. Bohlen made no secret of his sense of futility in dealing with the Elysee and the Quai d'Orsay. Undaunted, Shriver has brought to his new job the same inventiveness and dash with which he led the Peace Corps and the U.S. war on poverty; in a few short months, he has given U.S. diplomacy a rare and welcome panache.

Shriver and his wife, the former Eunice Kennedy, set a tone of informality from the moment they arrived. They were soon bicycling busily around the chic 16th Arrondissement. In front of the ambassadorial residence, the five Shriver kids found the wide gutters of the elegant Avenue d'lena excellent for sailing model boats.

Beatles and Indians. When the Shrivers arrived in Paris, the U.S. flag was flying from the top of the residence, Shriver explains, "because they were afraid that hanging it out over the door, someone would come along and either tear it down or throw something at the house." He and Eunice put it back in its proper place. "Now," he says, "it's there above the door every day, and nothing's happened." The once well-manicured lawn has been turned into a badminton court, to the Gallic gardeners' profound dismay. The residence's ornate furniture has either been shoved aside or put in storage. The walls are now covered with paintings by Jackson Pollock, Jasper Johns and Georgia O'Keeffe, plus a collection of Indians by George Catlin and Roy Lichtenstein's pop portrait of George Washington.

The diplomatic happenings on the Avenue d'lena have become a new fix ture of the Paris scene. So far, the Shrivers have staged half a dozen soirees for 30 to 50 young French and American students and professional people. Shriver acts as moderator, pacing about, sitting in a chair or squatting on the floor. On one such evening, Economist Walter Heller discussed the new Gaullist idea of employee participation in management with French economics students, financial writers and young Finance Ministry experts. Another evening pitted Evangelist Billy Graham against the World Council of Churches' Eugene Carson Blake before a group of worker-priests and students. Recently, U.S. Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Wilbur Cohen squared off with some 50 French university students, many of them turtlenecked rebel leaders of last May's uprising.

Bare Feet and Bathrobe. When the Orchestre de Paris left last week for an American tour, the usual thing would have been for the U.S. ambassador and his wife to have the conductor and the concertmaster to dinner. Not the Shrivers: they asked all 110 members, from Conductor Charles Munch to the tym-panists, and included a batch of French music critics in the bargain. Shriver gulped down his dinner and table-hopped. His characteristic opener: "Very glad to have you here. What else do you think we should be doing?"

Shriver wings off to the provinces whenever possible, plunging into crowds and pressing flesh with a friendly "Bonjour, je suis Searjahn Shreevaire," in his increasingly facile French. Early in September, Shriver made a whirlwind four-day visit to the Riviera, mingling with crowds and slurping steaming bouillabaisse cooked up by buxom fishermen's wives in Villefranche. He startled guests at two garden parties at the U.S. consulate in Nice by showing up in a white bush jacket. He padded barefoot down the Promenade des Anglais wearing only white swimming trunks and an open bathrobe. He kissed children in Saint-Tropez, visited Painter Marc Chagall, played tennis with Monaco's Prince Rainier. Marseilles' Le Provencal pronounced him "the most nonconformist diplomat there is." There are other swinging ambassadors around these days, but Shriver is probably the liveliest of the lot.

Sewers and Simcas. Shriver is also probably the most accessible ambassador anywhere. His door is always open to French newsmen, and he averages several interviews a week. He meets regularly with editors of both the most influential and national and provincial publications and papers. This continuous exposure is deliberate. "The old politics had a certain type of diplomacy," he says. "Relations were always conducted at the official level. The new diplomacy is public diplomacy."

Not that Shriver neglects his official contacts: when De Gaulle named a new government under Premier Maurice Couve de Murville in July, Shriver managed to call on 13 ministers in eight days --and since then has seen every other Cabinet member plus nearly all the junior ministers. He has arranged for a dozen French mayors to visit the U.S. during the December National League of Cities meeting in New Orleans. "There is a vast ignorance here about what the U.S. really is," says Shriver. "You name the field--be it the sewer diggers of America and the sewer diggers of France --and you can almost be sure there are no contacts."

To Shriver, the roles of the ambassador and his wife are to be "the representatives of the U.S., its society, culture and style." It is arguable whether Eunice and Sargent Shriver are typical Americans, but there is no doubt they are what many Europeans imagine Americans are like--and that explains much of their appeal. French television, notoriously the chief instrument of Gaullist propaganda, has positively fawned over the pair: Shriver's speech at 50th anniversary ceremonies for the battle of Verdun was carried for its full 15 minutes. French TV followed him through a handshaking tour of the Chrysler-owned Simca assembly plant, and in mid-October devoted nearly half an hour to "Une Kennedy a Paris." Eunice Shriver appeared in slacks, working with retarded French children. Then the camera crews followed the Shrivers out on a visit to the D-day beaches of Normandy. They showed Shriver, his wife and some of the kids bicycling through the autumn Norman countryside, Eunice romping barefoot through the Omaha Beach surf.

Shriver's personality has helped in his new diplomacy, but he was also fortunate to arrive at the time of a new detente cordiale between the U.S. and France. Chip Bohlen, Shriver's predecessor, got along well enough with De Gaulle personally. But official relations began to thaw only after President Johnson restricted the bombing of North Viet Nam in March. De Gaulle hailed that as "an act of reason and political courage." The general was no less pleased with the choice of Paris as the site for the Washington-Hanoi negotiations. Then came France's May riots, which shook the Gaullist monolith and weakened the franc; the Shrivers deplaned as students were battling police by night in the Latin Quarter. As the pro-De Gaulle newspaper Paris-Presse observed, "M. Shriver started from scratch at a time when France was making a clean sweep of the past." The assassination of Robert Kennedy evoked French sympathy for his sister Eunice Shriver. Finally, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia abruptly ended De Gaulle's cultivation of diplomatic openings to the East. France is looking elsewhere for friends, Charles de Gaulle seems to have rediscovered the U.S., and Shriver has benefited as well as shrewdly exploited the warmer climate.

Good Shot. The advent of balmier times was epitomized a fortnight ago, when Shriver was a guest at De Gaulle's semiannual pheasant shoot at the presidential chateau in Rambouillet, an hour from Paris. Shriver downed two birds in a row as the general watched closely from behind. Each time, De Gaulle exclaimed: "Good shot!" Shriver missed once, then hit a bird that plopped to the ground barely a yard from De Gaulle. "Splendid!" the general roared. "A present for you, M. le President," responded Shriver, offering his host the fallen pheasant.

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