I Chose Liberty - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Bettina Bien Greaves 129
to the Bureau of Economic Warfare with offices in the U.S. Embassy. BEW’s task was to
purchase in Bolivia tin, tungsten and cinchona (tree bark used to produce anti-malarial
medicine) for the war effort. My contribution to the war consisted of typing and filing
letters and memoranda, each with multiple carbon copies.
I spent two fascinating years in Bolivia, an exotic nation of extremes, snow-capped
mountains and tropical jungles, barefoot Indians lugging produce to market in packs on
their backs and wealthy mining operators living in elegant homes. By rooming and eating
meals with a Bolivian family, I learned something about how Bolivians lived and, along
with their three-year old son, how to speak Spanish. I enjoyed life, drinking and dancing
in the evenings and sightseeing on weekends. The altitude didn’t bother me, except when
skiing at 17,500 feet or swimming in Bolivia’s 12,506-foot high Lake Titicaca. I had had
my fill of books and studying in college and did no reading during my two years in Bolivia
except for a few murder stories or mysteries.
On June 6, 1944, Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy and, although the
war was by no means over, we began looking forward to its end. I decided I wanted to see
first-hand how the Europeans lived and had survived the war. So I resolved to seek a transfer
to Europe. I had forgotten almost all the German I had learned in two years at college so
I started taking lessons from a German-Jewish refugee in Bolivia.
In the fall, I returned to Washington and asked to join BEW’s post-war mission to
Austria, which was to be headed by a friend of my old boss in Bolivia—at that time I knew
nothing about Austrian economics or Ludwig von Mises. While waiting for the transfer, I
was assigned to BEW’s Mexican export-import licensing division, consisting of four men
and two girls. I had so little work to do that I spent most of the office hours painting my
fingernails and making scrapbooks for my one-year-old niece. However, I did type up the
division’s budget request for the following year—for an appropriation sufficient to double
the division’s staff to eight men and seven girls! I don’t know how their request fared, for I
left Washington in March 1945 to join the Austrian mission. But I had had a lesson in
Bureaucracy 101.
The Austrian mission was to assemble in Italy. The flight to Europe took many hours
and many stops. Our plane had bucket seats along the sides and mail bags on the floor. I
hadn’t slept at all the night before and was dead tired when we took off. I slept on the
mailbags throughout the entire flight: to Newfoundland where we lunched; across the
Atlantic to the Azores where we were fed again; and to Casablanca where I played chess
with a GI while waiting for our next flight to Naples, our destination.
Our offices were in Caserta, a suburb of Naples, in an old medieval stone palace which
had been taken over by the U.S. military. We took advantage of our time there to visit the
traditional tourist sights in the Naples area: Salerno, Pompei, and the Isle of Capri. We
were in Caserta when Roosevelt died on April 12, and young Italian newsboys, recognizing
us as Americans, approached us on the street with their newspaper EXTRAs. It was in
Caserta on April 29, 1945 that the German forces in Italy surrendered to the Allies.
After a few weeks, the office staff was flown en masse over Rome to Florence, where
we spent another few weeks. We worked regular office hours, of course, but otherwise
socialized, and strolled in the hills overlooking the city. While in Florence, we gave blood