Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian (1869-1955) and Alexis Leger (1887-1975) met in the second half of the 1920-1930 decade. They would soon discover that they shared very refined tastes, in what might be called an existential solitude that each claimed as a character trait. Both loved not only nature and the great outdoors, landscapes, gardens, plants and birds, but also the silent contemplation of the works and objects of art of which Calouste Gulbenkian had assembled an extraordinary collection, which he had begun to install in his building on Avenue d'Iéna in Paris.
At the end of 1948, Calouste Gulbenkian, believing his friend to be ill, sent a telegram to enquire about his health. Leger was living in Washington. His letter of reply began with a sort of biblical verse, chanted with a solemn poetic allure: "To you, and to you alone, I break at last all this silence into which I had descended as into an abyss". This marked the start of more regular contact between them, which continued until 1954. The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation archives in Lisbon contain 44 handwritten letters from Leger between 1948 and 1954. The 23 letters from Calouste Gulbenkian are fewer in number and are all typed.
At the time, Alexis Leger was surviving in Washington on a $350 monthly grant from the Bollingen Foundation. Gulbenkian realized that the poet's financial situation was not brilliant, and offered to help him with an annual stipend of at least $6,000 for two years, discreetly paid through Morgan's Bank. The poet accepted, expressing his deep gratitude.
A few dominant themes were to be frequently repeated and intertwined in this correspondence: a changing and highly complex international situation; the development work on the estate "Les Enclos" that Gulbenkian had bought in Deauville; Nature, landscapes, plants and travel; the old billionaire's state of health; his precious collection of objects and works of art; a certain moral superiority on both sides, haughtily claimed over their contemporaries, sometimes asserted by Leger in a tone perhaps a little too flattering for his wealthy friend but which, it must be admitted, did not displease the latter.
In his analyses, Leger had the opportunity to examine a whole range of burning issues at the time, such as German rearmament, European unity, the industrial and geostrategic interests of the Allied countries, the likely dynamics, stakes, risks and dangers of the Soviet and Chinese positions, the role of ideology, the Korean War, the lack of courage or hesitation of foreign policy in America and Europe, especially on the part of France and England, oil production, the situation in the Middle East and the inextricable confusions that threatened to arise..The poet was in a privileged position to provide Calouste Gulbenkian with the analyses the latter needed for the strategic conduct of his business, in a particularly confusing and unstable period, especially as regards developments in the Middle East and oil production in general.
