“How did you manage that?”
When Prime Minister İsmet İnönü arrived at the Grand National Assembly on June 4, 1962 to participate in the CHP group meeting, he began talking to the journalists surrounding him.
Among the topics was the challenges he faced in Lausanne. Upon one journalist’s question on how he adapted to Lausanne as a soldier that had just come out of the war, İnönü shared the following anecdote:
I went to Lausanne out of naïveté. I thought diplomacy was uncomplicated. I did not even know how many civilian outfits were needed. I had heard that I was supposed to wear a different suit for dinner. I asked what kind of a suit was needed and they laughed. “Wear whatever you like,” they said.
We had gone there in October. The chief delegate of France saw me. I asked him, “When will this thing end?” and he replied, “It should all be over by the New Year.” “What do you mean?
Are you giving us the country?” I asked. “No, we’ll make some arrangements and then give it back,” he replied. When the conference ended in our favor, the chief delegate was screaming, “How did you manage that?”
Diplomacy is just as difficult as military service. The day after I spoke to the chief delegate, I convened our delegation. “You will work as you did at the front,” I said and we did.
