Painting The Shadows i Dedication This book is dedicated with love to the memory of my mentor and my hero. ii Painting The Shadows The Extraordinary Life of Victor Hoo Mona Yung-Ning Hoo ELDRIDGE & CO iii Copyright © Mona Yung-Ning Hoo First published in 1998 by Eldridge & Co 24 Altior Court Shepherds Hill London N6 5RJ The right of Mona Yung-Ning Hoo to be identified as the author of the work has been asserted herein in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-0-9533455-0-2 Typeset by Amolibros, Milverton, Somerset www.amolibros.com Publication of this title has been managed by Amolibros Printed and bound by Professional Book Supplies, Oxford, England iv Contents Acknowledgements vii Chronology x Chapter One Early Years 1 Chapter Two Geneva 24 Chapter Three Berne 46 Chapter Four Washington 66 Chapter Five Chungking 77 Chapter Six The War Ends 94 Chapter Seven Trusteeship Department 113 Chapter Eight Israel 126 Chapter Nine Korea 139 Chapter Ten Trusteeship Dept 1951 153 Chapter Eleven Trusteeship Dept 1952 179 Chapter Twelve Trusteeship Dept 1953 194 Chapter Thirteen Trusteeship Dept 1954 208 Chapter Fourteen Conference Department 230 Chapter Fifteen Technical Assistance 257 Chapter Sixteen Postscript: Going Gently Into That Dark Night 284 Bibliography 290 Index 295 v List of Illustrations Victor’s mother Victor’s father, Hoo Wei Teh, in the service of the Manchu Dynasty. The engagement is announced of Miss Marguerite Chen to Dr Victor Hoo, January 1927, Shanghai Caricature in a New York newspaper, 1946 Marguerite at Lake Geneva, September 1931 Some members of the Chinese Delegation at the League of Nations, 1939 During a weekend break, Nice, 1931 The Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at Berne and his family Family outing in Switzerland Marguerite in Geneva With Nehru at the United Nations. One of the reception rooms at the Chinese Legation in Berne Chiang Kai Shek with his two Vice Foreign Ministers, in Chungking, 1944 Dumbarton Oaks Conference. Lord Halifax on left of table, Edward Stettinius on right of table, Andrei Gromyko to his left, then Wellington Koo, Victor third from right. Chinese Delegation at the San Francisco Conference. Front row left to right, Victor, Wellington Koo, H H Kung, Wei Tao Ming.. Secretary General Trygve Lie and his Assistants, 1946 The first session of the United Nations Commission in Korea, January 12, 1948 The Trusteeship Visiting Mission to Cameroon, November 1949 Secretary General of the United Nations, U Thant vi Victor with Hammarskjold (center) and Chief of Protocol, Count Jehan de Noüe (right) Victor, representing the Secretary General at the Security Council, sitting next to Andrei Gromyko (Yacov Malik behind Gromyko) With Krishna Menon of India and Fernand van Langenhoven of Belgium. Victor welcoming Pope Paul VI to the United Nations Victor welcoming Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson to the United Nations United Nations Headquarters, New York City (reprinted here with the kind permission of the United Nations) A rare evening out together, for Victor’s sixtieth birthday Mona with Mrs Patricia Tsien, daughter of Dr V K Wellington Koo, New York, 1995 vii Acknowledgements It was in May 1989, seventeen years after my father’s death, that I was approached by a United Nations representative of the Beijing Government. Mr Qiu Yingjue was Deputy Director of the Security Council and Political Committees Division at the United Nations. He had never met my father but, he said, the United Nations was still impregnated with Victor Hoo’s personality and legacy. This, coming from a staunch Communist regarding a life-long anti- Communist, was remarkable. Mr Qiu impressed on me in an avuncular manner, that someone in the family should write Father’s biography; that it was our duty to make his life story available to the masses in China. The climate in China had become liberal. There was a great interest in the lives of successful Chinese people whose careers had taken them abroad. Father had left a quantity of files covering his working life, including detailed diaries. After his death in 1972, we decided to donate them to the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace in Stanford, California, for the benefit of future students of history. With Mr Qiu’s counsel in mind, I decided to attempt this task in the belief that Father would have approved. Mr Qiu gave me several useful leads on how to get the book translated and published in China. I was fortunate to obtain financial support from the Pacific Cultural Foundation in Taipei to allow me to travel for my research. I mapped out my travel plans and research programme, but almost at the same time there came news of the Tienanman events. It became obvious that the liberalism and freedom of information would be drastically curtailed. My plans were somewhat spoiled but I decided to start by translating the diaries from the French. In March 1990 I went to California to delve into the files and diaries deposited at the Hoover Institution. I also visited Ambassador Liu Chieh, Father’s old friend and colleague. From him I learned something of the life behind the scenes, both in the Chinese Delegation and at the United Nations. Also on this visit, I spent an afternoon with Alison Stilwell, the daughter of Joseph Stilwell. She viii had known Chiang Kai Shek and had first-hand appreciation of the situation in China in the forties. At the end of 1990 I travelled to Taipei to search in the government files. I stayed with my uncle, Raymond Hoo, a former ambassador who was working in the Waichiaopu. Thanks to him I was given access to the government archives and was driven every day in his official limousine, accompanied by my translator, Wu Ya Mei. There I discovered many official reports, in Father’s own handwriting, covering the period from the Versailles Treaty to the early thirties. I also found boxes of files covering my grandfather, Hoo Wei Teh’s career. In 1991 I spent my holiday researching the United Nations archives in New York and took the opportunity of interviewing colleagues and friends of my father. One or two refused to be interviewed, others were only prepared to offer platitudes. A handful were able and willing to contribute important facts, in particular, Mrs Patricia Koo Tsien, daughter of Dr V K Wellington Koo, one of Victor’s closest friends and collaborators. She had not only known Victor since childhood, but had worked with him from 1947 in the Trusteeship Department of the UN. Her knowledge and candour were most appreciated. The other was K K Tsien, son of Ambassador Tsien Tai, also a family friend who had worked in close proximity to Victor, first in Berne and then at the UN. K K Tsien gave me a unique and frank insight into Victor’s working environment, with an unbiased analysis of the international stage setting as Victor would have experienced it. My thanks also go to Lorraine Shea, Bill Sie, Gerry Wen, Charles Chung, Philippe de Seynes, Eileen Pei and Munling Landegger for their contributions. In 1992 my research took me to the League of Nations archives in Geneva and to a second visit to the Hoover Institution. This time I was able to interview C Y Wu and Professor William Tung, both close colleagues of Victor’s at the UN and in Chungking respectively. I owe a special debt to Phoebe Phillips and my niece Roseanne each of whom in their own way gave me support and encouragement from the beginning and throughout this project. My greatest thanks and appreciation are due my friend Lynn Bushell who took on the task of weeding out masses of details which, though fascinating to me, threatened to clog up the narrative. As an experienced journalist, she helped me to shape and polish the research material into the finished product. ix I would like to thank my consultant, Jane Tatam of Amolibros, for her remarkable competence, her cheerful good nature and her enthusiasm. Last but not least, I am most grateful to all the members of my family, within which I include Jeremy Eldridge, who contributed reminiscences and anecdotes to achieve a fuller picture of Victor Hoo, the person. x Chronology Birth: November 16, 1894 in Washington DC (father was then Secretary of the Chinese Legation) 1899 Went to Russia Kaiser Primary School, graduating 1905 Annan Schule in St Petersburg, graduating 1912, awarded the Kaiser Prize Visits to Japan during this period (father Chinese Minister since 1908) 1912 To Paris École Libre des Sciences Politiques, Section Diplomatique. Graduated and awarded Gold Medal for outstanding academic achievement 1916 Received degree of Licencié en Droit at the Law School of University of Paris 1918 Docteur en Droit. Prix Goullencourt and Prix de Thèse Doctoral Dissertation “Les Bases Conventionnelles des Relations Modernes Entre la Chine et la Russie” Summers in Oxford and Cambridge 1919 Assistant Secretary Chinese Delegation to the Peace Conference in Paris at the conclusion of World War I 1920 Member of Chinese Delegation to the Conference of Associations for the League of Nations, Brussels 1921 Technical Member of the Chinese Delegation to the International Finance Conference for the Suppression of Traffic in Women and Children, Geneva xi 1921 Technical Adviser of the Chinese Delegation to the League of Nations 1921 Technical Delegate of the Chinese Delegation to the first five Assemblies of the League of Nations and also to many other conferences convened by the League.