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Rewrite, Reel I, July 2, 1953 1. There are one or tuo other episodes thich I think throw some light on our relationships before I went into the State Department for the last time. One of th se has to do with the revival -- I think it was at the end of 145 or the beginning of 46 of the practice of White House dinners for the diplomatic corps. They had been given up during the war. Stanley Woodward, then Chief of Protocol, thought that it would be a good idea to revive them. Accordingly a din- ner was decided upon toward the end of 145 or sometime in January, 46. Mr. Byrnes was in New York at a meeting of the UN or a conference of foreign ministers, and I was acting in his place. We found that the diplomátic corps was so large that to include the Chief of Mis- sion and one or two senior officers of each mission with their wives exceeded the capacity of the State dining room at the White House. So two dinners were to be given, and Stanley decided that the best way to do this was to number the diplomatic list, alphabetically, and invite the odd numbered missions to the first dinner and the even numbered ones to the second. In that way there was no discrimination; nobody would feel offended. - 2