The Legation

Personnel of the United States Legation and Consulate in Cairo, Christmas 1936.

The personnel of the United States Legation and Consulate in Cairo, Egypt. Fish's staff included interpreters, clerks, secretaries, and consular officers.

As Minister, Fish also lead a team of foreign service personnel who worked at the Legation. Many members of his staff were career diplomats who went on have storied careers of their own. Vice Consul Arthur L. Richards was the US Ambassador to Ethiopia. J. Rives Childs, who served in Egypt as Second Secretary, was later the US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, North Yemen, and Ethiopia. 

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An unidentified staff member at the US Legation

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Personnel of the US Legation 

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George V. Allen, Aly, Bert Fish, and Helen Hayes

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Staff pose for a photo in the Legation gardens

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Menu for a dinner given by Bert Fish at the Mena House Hotel

Leland B. Morris, the Consul General at Alexandria, was the American chargé d'affaires in Germany at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. After the United States entered into World War II, Morris and his staff, including George Kennan (who would later work with Fish in Lisbon), were detained for several months. He later became the second United States ambassador to Iceland, and the first United States ambassador to Iran. Third Secretary George V. Allen later served as an ambassador to Iran, Yugoslavia, Greece, India, and Nepal. 

Bert Fish and Leland B. Morris

Bert Fish and Leland Morris, attended by a kavass

Other American foreign service employees in Egypt included Gordon P. Merriam (Second Secretary, Cairo), James T. Scott (Commercial Attache, Cairo), C. Paul Fletcher (Consul, Alexandria), Daniel Gaudin, Jr. (Vice Consul, Alexandria), Horace Remillard (Consul, Port Said), and Robert T. Cowan (Vice Consul, Port Said).

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A posed photograph of Aly watching over Bert Fish at the Legation

Additionally, there were Egyptian citizens on staff, including interpreters and messengers. The legation also employed armed servants called kavasses. Traditionally a Turkish officer akin to a dragoman (who acted as a guide and interpreter for Non-Muslims diplomats in the Ottoman Empire) the kavass is variously defined in English-language sources as an Ottoman police officer, interpreter, courier, or consular guard. A kavass named Aly guarded the US Legation in Cairo for over twenty years. 

The Legation