How interesting!

Trying to make heads or tails of this two-on-one? It was was taken at the Windsor Hotel in mid-September 1944, during the second "session of the council" of the UNRRA (more on that soon, but here's some speech). We figurez it looks like you have two international delegates on the left, and a local craft huckster (with friends in security) on the right.

Now before you go thinking the United Nations was up to something kinky in Montreal, this happened before the UN even existed. The FDR-backed conference was all pie-in-the-sky, love-you-long-time planning about what the Allied powers were going to do if and when they beat Hitler, Tojo, Mussolini and the Mitford sisters.

We like to think the father of twelve or so on the right made a sale that evening -- but probably not in this room. That's 'cause Mr. PhD. White Sox on the left there was only making happy for the camera before scheming to pull that hottie for some Mai Tais and blackjack at Harry Shipp's Stanley Street front just a block away, and then ... who knows, Bluenose?

The UNRRA, or United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (which was reorganized into something else by '49), was a precursor to the Marshall Plan. And believe it or not, this '44 Montreal session actually figures as some kind of historical European-integration episode (click the speech link in the first paragraph if you have nothing better to do).

Anyway, the UNRRA ended up helping something like eight million displaced persons in Europe after the war. Montreal, with Camilien Houde out of the way in '44, was sort of an international player back in those days. Maybe that's why we ended up with the UN airplane-deodorizing department, though they probably still want to get outta town.