A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK
THE fact of Mr. Winant's death is almost as tragic as the manner of it. In many ways he was a unique figure—shy, awkward, almost uncouth, generally looking as though his clothes had been made for someone else. He was like no recent American Ambassador, perhaps no American Ambassador at all, in London—the very anti- thesis in most ways of his successor Mr. Lewis Douglas. For in spite of the history he had made in the past as Governor of New Hampshire (for three terms) and Director of the International Labour Office at Geneva it is as war-time Ambassador of the United States in London that Winant will be remembered. Never did this country have a more loyal, sincere or understanding friend, and the regard in which he was held by President Roosevelt made his appointment here the more valuable. Though he was still in office during the first few months of the present Government's regime it was with Mr. Churchill and Mr. Eden that he was brought into the closest contact, and both of them held him in the very highest regard and • esteem. The cause of his death may or may not be explained. It almost looks as though, when in writing his memoirs he threw his mind back over the past and contemplated the gloomy present, the heavy and the weary weight,
Of all this unintelligible world, became more oppressive than he could tolerate. That would justify the comment of one of his New Hampshire friends that "Winant was a war-casualty." * * * *
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