492 J.-A. PEMBERTON
relations ‘within departments of political science’ is the ‘correct
solution’.^218
According to Long, another possible reason why the reputation of
the ISC foundered was that it was tainted by the ‘elitist approach inher-
ent in League-era intellectual co-operation,’ as reflected, in Long’s view,
in the exchanges between the ‘great and good’ in the context of the
‘Conversations’ and ‘Open Letters’ sponsored by the ICIC’s Permanent
Committee of Letters and Arts.^219 We have seen that a similar charge had
been raised in relation to the ISC by some of those actually participat-
ing in it in the pre-World War II years: too many formal speeches, too
many big names and too much stifling protocol. In relation to this, it is
worth noting that just before the 1935 session of the ISC in London,
the IIIC’s Chalmers Wright asked Margaret Elisabeth Cleeve, the librar-
ian and chief administrator at Chatham House, editor of the RIIA’s peri-
odical International Affairs and secretary of the BCCIS, whether he
should wear a top hat at the conference’s inaugural meeting. Cleeve’s
response was that this was ‘not in the least necessary,’ that it was ‘most
unlikely that a single British “topper” would appear at the proceedings,’
and that the advice of the secretary of the BCCIS was to wear ‘ordinary
things’. Nonetheless, the fact that Chalmers Wright thought fit to make
his inquiry is itself telling.^220
Following the much-criticised 1937 session of the ISC in Paris and
under the careful watch of Condliffe, the ISC was subject to substantial
reform. It was due to its reform, and not only to the sombre political
situation, that its last study meeting before the war, that is, its session
in Bergen in 1939, was a rather austere affair. At the study meeting
Bergen, as with the study meeting in Prague in the previous year, mem-
bers remained focussed on the subject at hand; the windy speeches that
often book-ended previous sessions and even intruded on the meet-
ings supposedly dedicated to serious discussion were not in evidence.
Nonetheless, the reputation of the ISC as a forum charactersed by too
much oratory and too little discussion, obviously lingered. As evidence
(^220) Margaret E. Cleeve to Fergus Chalmers Wright, May 17, 1935, Conférence perma-
nente des hautes études internationales, 16 mai–30 juin 1935, AG 1-IICI-K-I-1.s, UA.
(^218) ‘C. A. W. Manning, ‘“Naughty Animal”—A Discipline Chats Back,’ International
Relations 1, no. 4 (1955): 128–36, 134.
(^219) Long, ‘Who Killed the International Studies Conference,’ 606–7n.