20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

482 Alicia Campisixth U.S. Ambassador to Romania. The Embassy officially had opened inDecember 1880, but all the American ambassadors were resident in Athensuntil 1905. ROCKHILL had been Assistant Secretary of State (1896-1897)in Washington and hoped to become Ambassador to China, the area ofhis expertise, but he failed to get this posting for political reasons, andso President William McKinley as a consolation prize appointed himto serve concurrently in Greece, Romania, and Serbia. He arrived in thesummer of 1897 and from the outset particularly did not like Greece, whichhe felt was overrun by archaeologists. 5 On an orientation cruise along theSicilian coast, he got food poisoning and during his time in Athens he wasshocked by the injured and suffering Greek soldiers around the capital aftertheir defeat by the Turks. ROCKHILL refused to go further than one day’sjourney from the Legation in Athens. Feeling bored he utilized his sparetime to translate William of Rubruck’s 6 Latin text of his journey toMongolia, as well as edited Sarat Chandra Das’ account of his Tibetanexplorations and Das’ Tibetan-English dictionary.In the spring of 1898, Ambassador ROCKHILL’s close friend HenryAdams, a famous American journalist, historian and novelist with agrandfather and great-grandfather who were U.S. Presidents, came to visit.This spurred ROCKHILL to journey with Adams to Romania. Accordingto ROCKHILL’s biographer 7 and the diary of his daughter, the Ambassadorwas liked Romania very much, and especially was enthusiastic aboutRomanian Crown Princess Marie, who later became Queen. However, herightly foresaw a troubled future for the Balkans, which would negativelyimpact on European peace.ROCKHILL’s negative attitude about living in Greece was reinforcedby his wife’s sudden death from typhoid fever after accompanying someAmerican officials making a tour of Greece in 1899. Although I shouldalso note that several months after this sad event, he met an American5Peter W. Stanley, “The Making of an Amer5ican Sinologist: William W.ROCKHILL and the Open Door”, Vol. XI, 1977-1978, Perspectives in American History(Harvard University), 417-460. Stanley maintains that ROCKHILL’s time in Athenswas personally and professionally bleak. (435)6ROCKHILL translated from Latin the journals of William of Rubruck tothe Karakorum Mongol Court. See William W. ROCKHILL, The Journey of Friar Johnof Pian de Carpine to the Court of Kuyuk Khan, 1235-55, Hakluyt Society, 1900, 247(London: 1900).7Paul A. Varg, Open Door Diplomat, The Life of W.W. Rockhill (Urbana, Illinois:University of Illinois Press, 1952), 23, who cited the personal diary of Rockhill’s daughter,Dorothy for much of his information.