FAMOUS PEOPLE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3248, 5 April 1943, Page 6

FAMOUS PEOPLE

TIRELESS JAN MARSARYK DEVOTED TO THE ALLIES WORTHY SON OF GREAT FATHER M. Jan. Marsaryk, Deputy-Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary of the Czechoslovak Republic, is seen broadcasting to his country from London on the accompanying illustration. He is a frequent speaker in the Czech broadcasts of the British Broadcasting Corportion’s European Service and has given a number of talks in the BBC Home and Overseas Services. Son of the founder and first President of Czechoslovakia, Jan Masaryk, now fifty-six, has been concerned all hi? life with his country’s cause. His father, a dominating personality in “post-war” Europe, though a fine parent, was also a strict one. He sent young Masaryk, at an early age, to make his own way in the U.S.A. The boy joined a'well-known business firm whose president, Mr Charles R. Crane, took a lively interest in fpreign affairs. He was soon on friendly terms with the young Czech, who, later, became his son-in-law, Masaryk’s most recent visit to the U.S.A, extended from October, 1941, to July of last year.

Masaryk went back to 'Prague when the last war broke out. America- became a rallying point of the plan to create a Czechoslovak Republic. After the war, Mr. Jan Masaryk was the first diplomatic representative of Czechoslovakia to Washington. His brother-in-law, Mr Richard Orane, went to Prague as the first U.S.A. Minister to Czechoslovakia.

M. Masaryk’s next appointment was to London—first as Counsellor at the Legation, and next (after a brief period in Prague), as Minister, from 1925 until December 1938. He then resigned his post, but continued to live in England.

He has always been one of the most popular, as he has been one of the most unconventional, figures in the Diplomatic Corps in London. Envoys are usually referred to as the Such-and-Such Ambassador. The Czechoslovak Minister has always been simply “Jan Masaryk.” Shrewd, farsighted, witty, musical and disconcertingly direct on occasions, an indication of his wide-mindedness was to be ■found on the bookshelves in his old room at the legation. Between Oppenheim’s “International Law” and the “Statesman’s Year Book” was the “Dictionary of American Slang.”- (

He rises early, retires late, and all his working hours are devoted to the Allies’ common struggle and the restoration of Czechoslovakia.