The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #170885 Message #4133109
Posted By: keberoxu
20-Jan-22 - 10:02 PM
Thread Name: BS: who will buy the Vanderbilt cottage
Subject: RE: BS: who will buy the Vanderbilt cottage
FINALLY. I thought I would never find an explicit claim in favor
of that "selling point" in the original post.
". . . Henry White, who had been the U.S. Ambassador to Italy and France and a member of the American Commission negotiating the peace after World War I. Shortly after the war, the "Elm Court Talks" were held at the mansion to plan the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations. In 1919, under the elm [tree], White hosted a meeting of President Woodrow Wilson, Neville Chamberlain, Joseph Pershing, French Marshall Ferdinand Foch and other world leaders to discuss the formation of the League."
The preceding assertion is embedded in an article with the byline of Joanna Fribush, Editorial Staff, the newsletter of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Berkshire Community College in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Issue dated Winter 2011, page 4.
!!
I think a large grain of salt ought to be taken with that assertion.
At the very least, SOMEWHERE there really ought to be a better documented, critically edited version of the preceding, so it does not sound utterly fantastic.
1919 was to be sure a VERY busy year, with the 1918 armistice newly agreed to, and all the events that led up to the Treaty of Versailles, and the founding of the League of Nations.
Having said that, this incident, if a truthful one, must be recorded somewhere or other.
I may not be the person to hunt down something more substantial
to either prove or disprove this statement.
But it begs for attention, in my opinion.
I'm presently at the website Office of the Historian, Department of State, USA (gov),
using its search function.
There is a heck of a lot there about the Paris Peace Conference.
About Elm Court in Lenox, Massachusetts, I don't find a darned thing.
But if I Do find something,
you all will be the first to hear about it.