A Little History - An Actress Takes Maurice Pate to Lake Success where Ludwik Rajchman Hooks Him : Tom McDermott

The actress

Helenka Adamowska was born into a family of well-known famous Polish musicians living in the US. She first appeared on stage at age 17 in play intended to raise funds for Polish civilian victims of World War I.

She soon went on to take roles in the silent films of the 1920’s, appearing in True Grit, Second Fiddle, Half-Caste, and others - playing opposite famous actresses of the time such as Mary Astor.

She became a well-known ‘society woman’ of the time on the New York, Boston and DC scene. In 1935 she married a prominent New York lawyer, Guido Pantaleoni, Jr. son of a famous Italian economist of the same name. Guido was already a widower with three children.  Soon two more children were born to the new couple.

The humanitarian worker

In 1939 Helenka began working for the Polish Relief Commission (PRC). In theory the PRC was headed by former President Hoover, but it was actually run by PRC's Vice-President, Maurice Pate. Hoover and Pate both had extensive experience of aid to civilian victims during WWI and in the famines and epidemics that swept Russia and eastern Europe after the war. At the end of 1941 when the US entered WWII, the Commission lost all access to Poland and ceased to function.

Maurice Pate then began work with the Red Cross, where he was responsible for tracing prisoners of war and putting families in touch with loved ones captured or missing. Helenka followed Pate into work with the Red Cross.    When Guido went missing in December 1943, she turned to Pate for help. All he could learn was that Guido was ‘missing in action’ somewhere in the Mediterranean.

They only learned the story of Guido’s fate after the war had ended. 

A former German sergeant traveled to New York to meet Helenka. The sergeant explained that Guido had been captured by the sergeant’s unit somewhere behind German lines near Palermo in Sicily. Two days later, while Guido was being transported to another unit for interrogation, the vehicle hit a landmine, killing Guido and others. The sergeant had only known Guido for two days, but told her that he found Guido to be one of the most remarkable men he had ever met. He then gave her a hand-written note from Guido, asking that, in the event the sergeant was later captured, that the sergeant be given the same courtesy and consideration that had been given Guido.

Helenka Pantaleoni was now a war widow with five children. 

Helenka takes up the story in an interview she made with Columbia University's Oral History project in 1977.

Maurice Drops by for Dinner

"Maurice Pate was a man who was never really quite happy unless he was saving humanity by the millions. He went with Hoover into Belgian relief and Polish relief. In 1945 I was asked to organize something called Women United for the United Nations, a loose assembly of sixty or seventy of the large women's organizations that accredited themselves at the UN to see how we could interpret the work of the United Nations to our respective constituencies.

When UNRRA was expiring in the spring of 1946 there was some talk about efforts to start an action on behalf of child victims of the war. There were several persons prominent in public life who recommended that an action be started on behalf of child victims of the second world war. One of these was mayor LaGuardia who was then the head of UNRRA. Another was President Hoover who in a speech in Toronto Hoover called for an international organization on behalf of children be formed.

That takes us to September, 1946, when the United Nations was meeting at Lake Success. Maurice Pate was coming for supper one night, and I asked him, “ Have you ever been to the UN?” He said, no he had barely heard anything about it.

A Fishing Expedition to Lake Success

So we drove out with the top down to Lake Success and went into the Third Committee, which was the social, cultural, humanitarian, educational committee, where Eleanor Roosevelt was the United States delegate. 

We had sat there a little while when one of the delegates fished Pate out, saying he had something important to talk to him about. Well, that delegate happened to be the Polish delegate, Ludwick Rajchman, a well-known doctor in international Public Health. He said he had been thinking about Pate and wanting to see him, because he wanted him to organize a fund for the benefit of children - war victims chiefly. Pate had not been thinking about anything along these lines, although Mr. Hoover, who Pate called ‘the Chief’ had raised it. No, Rajchman’s proposal came completely out of the blue.

Pate and Rajchman disappeared for a couple of hours. On the way home, he was thoughtful and then said, “I just been asked to organize a fund for the benefit of children.”

Of course I went into high G. It was the most marvelous thing, because it was like an answer to an unwritten prayer - some place where all the people could work together in an effort to ameliorate conditions for children. But he said he wanted to discuss it first with the chief, before he gave an answer. I think he went right away to talk with Hoover who gave him his blessing.

He recruited some of his associates from the Hoover days and they received some residual funds from UNRRA to get started on. As usual, the developed countries were skeptical. They took the line that the war was over, the war-torn countries would gradually get back on their own feet and that there was no emergency anymore. The UK was reluctant.

Looking for Money

UNICEF from the beginning depended on voluntary contributions. In those early days we could not be sure how much or for how long governments would contribute, so we needed a combination of public and private contributions. The UN established something called UNAC, the United Nations Appeal for Children. The situation became very confused. Hundreds of organizations collecting for their own beneficiaries were involved, but were also afraid that the appeal would cut across their efforts and spoil their fundraising. The campaign was not a success in the US. World-wide it was better, raising $8 or $9 million. In Australia they raised quite a bit.

The problems began when the US government began giving larger sums to UNICEF. Then the isolationists and the crackpots, the rabid ones, started attacking UNICEF and the US Committee.

Our US Committee was founded on December 23, 1947 under the US State Department. The idea came from Katherine Lenroot, Chief of the US Children’s Bureau. She foresaw the need for the US to provide the initial funding needed by UNICEF, but to get an appropriation through Congress, there was need for a separate group of concerned citizens.

Mary Lord (Mrs. Oswald B. Lord) was the first chairman: a dynamic woman with many connections, especially among Republicans. Maurice Pate and I discussed it from the beginning, He had approached prominent persons, like Catherine Nimitz and Charles Taft, but they couldn’t or wouldn’t.

As we were still ‘under the State Department until 1952, there was not much we could do to lobby Congress or raise private contributions. So in 1951 we started the Citizens Committee for UNICEF. This carried us through some of the most politically difficult times when the debate was raging over whether UNICEF should continue beyond its original emergency mandate. By 1953 that was behind us and we could dust off the US Committee again and get going independently of the State Department. "

......

By 1953 UNICEF was on much firmer footing. The 'emergency mandate' under which UNICEF had been established 1946 was long gone and the US State Department had largely given up on earlier efforts to move its resources into other organizations like WHO and ILO. The Citizens Committee had successfully lobbied Congress for continued funding. At the UN two resolutions had made clear the solid international support for UNICEF as a permanent part of the UN system.  It was time for the Citizens Committee to fade away and hand back to the US Committee the responsibility for maintaining US political and financial support. 

A new problem soon arose, however, with President Eisenhower's decision to appoint Mary Lord to succeed Eleanor Roosevelt as the US delegate in the Human Rights Commission.  Suddenly, the US natcom needed a new chairperson. 

Pate and Pantaleoni agreed that it needed to be a prominent person, as Pantaleoni put it - "a big name". Pate sent her off to try to recruit either David Rockefeller or John McCloy (then US High Commissioner for Occupied Germany and former World Bank President). Pate followed with phone calls to both. In the end they and other 'big names' declined.

Pate finally asked Helenka Pantaleoni to take on the job. She agreed but stipulated that it was only on an interim basis.

The 'interim basis' ended up lasting 26 years. Helenka Pantaleoni served as the unpaid volunteer Chairperson of the US National Committee from 1953 through 1978.

Helenka died in January 1987 at age 86. Her son, Anthony, is a lawyer and serves as Chair of the Board of the US Fund for UNICEF. Her granddaughter, Téa Leoni, is a well-known actress and producer who has also served as a UNICEF Goodwill ambassador.

Next week - more from Helenka, including gossip about sabotage in Congress, how greeting cards got started, and .....well, let's see.

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