Read Online Julia Child Rules by Karen Karbo - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Karen Karbo
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Bill” Donovan, attorney, soldier, and football star at Columbia, the agency was staffed mostly by Ivy Leaguers and educated eccentrics with an adventurous streak. Donovan liked to hire people of independent means, under the adorable assumption that the rich were less likely to be bribed than someone who needed the money.
Julia worked in the Registry, where she functioned as an elevated file clerk, keeping track of classified information. Even this is less glamorous than it sounds; basically, she worked from morning ’til night typing index cards.
One day some gossip reached her that the agency was preparing to open an office in India, and Julia, who had never been out of the country except for a day trip to Tijuana, was desperate to go somewhere, anywhere, and India seemed like as good a place as any. Julia was a perfect fit for the OSS. Not only was she a Smithie of means, she was also someone who, as we know, was down on Suggestions and Regulations. They saw her as someone who would be willing to do whatever was necessary.
In March 1944, Julia crossed the Pacific aboard the USS
Mariposa,
with three thousand men and eight other “crows,” as the women were called. Their mere presence caused pandemonium, which Julia partially suppressed by spreading the rumorthat they were all missionaries. It took thirty-one days to travel from California to Calcutta, during which Julia played enough bridge to last a lifetime and volunteered as a reporter for the shipboard newspaper. She also had her eyes opened.
Julia knew she was undereducated more or less by choice, but was still throttled by the sheer brain power and sophistication of the “eggheads” she met, first on the ship and then at her eventual postings in Kandy and Kunming, China. Social scientists, psychologists, biologists, historians, and journalists; anthropologist Gregory Bateson, then married to Margaret Mead, became her shipboard drinking buddy. Julia didn’t know it yet, but she’d found her tribe.
The moment the
Mariposa
docked in Calcutta, Julia received word that she was going to be transferred to Ceylon, where a new outpost was being established in Kandy, under the leadership of British Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten. Julia would be in charge of setting up the Registry there. She lived in dark, dank quarters that flooded a foot and half every time it rained hard (every afternoon), with a small refrigerator in the living room, on top of which sat a two-burner hot plate.
The longer she did her job, the less she liked it, but she was a trouper. She was her father’s daughter; she believed in leaning into the task at hand. She believed in toughing it out.
She claimed that her long hours left her no time to “scintillate.” This wasn’t quite the case. There was actually plenty of “scintillating” going on; in the small community there were forty males for every female. It was paradise for every single woman butJulia, who was popular in the way she had always been: a good sport who knew how to have fun, but never a romantic prospect.
Despite her cushy upbringing, Julia possessed a hardy constitution. Before joining the OSS she spent her stamina on the usual upper-middle’s pursuit of entertainment and pleasure. Once she was assigned to head the Registry in Kandy, she discovered that she also possessed a remarkable ability to tolerate monotony and discomfort, often working ten hours a day, six days a week.
Her job was at once critical and murderously dull, tasked as she was with handling, cataloging, indexing, and filing every piece of intelligence that passed through the outpost. The OSS didn’t just gather information, it also carried out myriad clandestine operations that included spreading misinformation, infiltrating local political organizations, acts of counter-espionage, and pretty much everything we’ve come to expect from spies vis-à-vis Hollywood movies; to do all this, the operatives needed sometimes speedy access to material, which
Julia worked in the Registry, where she functioned as an elevated file clerk, keeping track of classified information. Even this is less glamorous than it sounds; basically, she worked from morning ’til night typing index cards.
One day some gossip reached her that the agency was preparing to open an office in India, and Julia, who had never been out of the country except for a day trip to Tijuana, was desperate to go somewhere, anywhere, and India seemed like as good a place as any. Julia was a perfect fit for the OSS. Not only was she a Smithie of means, she was also someone who, as we know, was down on Suggestions and Regulations. They saw her as someone who would be willing to do whatever was necessary.
In March 1944, Julia crossed the Pacific aboard the USS
Mariposa,
with three thousand men and eight other “crows,” as the women were called. Their mere presence caused pandemonium, which Julia partially suppressed by spreading the rumorthat they were all missionaries. It took thirty-one days to travel from California to Calcutta, during which Julia played enough bridge to last a lifetime and volunteered as a reporter for the shipboard newspaper. She also had her eyes opened.
Julia knew she was undereducated more or less by choice, but was still throttled by the sheer brain power and sophistication of the “eggheads” she met, first on the ship and then at her eventual postings in Kandy and Kunming, China. Social scientists, psychologists, biologists, historians, and journalists; anthropologist Gregory Bateson, then married to Margaret Mead, became her shipboard drinking buddy. Julia didn’t know it yet, but she’d found her tribe.
The moment the
Mariposa
docked in Calcutta, Julia received word that she was going to be transferred to Ceylon, where a new outpost was being established in Kandy, under the leadership of British Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten. Julia would be in charge of setting up the Registry there. She lived in dark, dank quarters that flooded a foot and half every time it rained hard (every afternoon), with a small refrigerator in the living room, on top of which sat a two-burner hot plate.
The longer she did her job, the less she liked it, but she was a trouper. She was her father’s daughter; she believed in leaning into the task at hand. She believed in toughing it out.
She claimed that her long hours left her no time to “scintillate.” This wasn’t quite the case. There was actually plenty of “scintillating” going on; in the small community there were forty males for every female. It was paradise for every single woman butJulia, who was popular in the way she had always been: a good sport who knew how to have fun, but never a romantic prospect.
Despite her cushy upbringing, Julia possessed a hardy constitution. Before joining the OSS she spent her stamina on the usual upper-middle’s pursuit of entertainment and pleasure. Once she was assigned to head the Registry in Kandy, she discovered that she also possessed a remarkable ability to tolerate monotony and discomfort, often working ten hours a day, six days a week.
Her job was at once critical and murderously dull, tasked as she was with handling, cataloging, indexing, and filing every piece of intelligence that passed through the outpost. The OSS didn’t just gather information, it also carried out myriad clandestine operations that included spreading misinformation, infiltrating local political organizations, acts of counter-espionage, and pretty much everything we’ve come to expect from spies vis-à-vis Hollywood movies; to do all this, the operatives needed sometimes speedy access to material, which
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