Part I: NORTH
Austria
‘The average modern Austrian only thinks about his Schnitzel’
SIR ANTHONY RUMBOLD, HM AMBASSADOR TO AUSTRIA, APRIL 1970
Sir Anthony Rumbold was a diplomat of the old school; aristocratic (the 10th Rumbold, Bt) and patrician. Judging by his valedictories he took an often dim view of foreigners. Diplomacy was in his blood – in Austria he followed in the steps of his grandfather, the 8th Rumbold, Bt, who had joined the embassy in Vienna under Queen Victoria. Sir Anthony’s father, Horace Rumbold, was ambassador in Berlin when Hitler came to power. Anthony Rumbold’s own career took him to Thailand (see p. 71) as well as Austria. He found the Austrian capital a ‘rather sad and mean’ place. ‘There is no longer much raison d’être about Vienna,’ he wrote, in his first despatch back to the Foreign Office. ‘To the small extent that it still exhibits a smiling countenance it is … because it no longer has any muscles in its face.’
… [M]ost Austrians have become steadily and uninterruptedly better off … One would have expected their success to have strengthened their patriotism and their self-confidence. But it has hardly had any such effect. On the contrary, the Austrians still talk about their country in a deprecating way. The fact of being Austrian does not particularly stir them. It is only when ski-championships are involved that they show the slightest signs of chauvinism. They do not know the words of their national anthem. Their attachments have become more and more local and the interests increasingly private … I am afraid that the average modern Austrian only thinks about his Schnitzel and his annual holiday …
… And in addition to the normal sources of human discontent there are one or two specifically Austrian ones. One is the obsessive preoccupation of the Austrians with questions of professional and social distinction. Very few of them are genuine egalitarians. They are always uneasy about whether they are being treated with proper respect by those whom they regard as their inferiors and they fuss endlessly about questions of precedence and correct forms of address. The result is that many of them live in a state of perpetual frustration or offence. Nearly every Austrian would like to be either a professor or the president of some recognizable institution so as to be called Herr Professor or Herr Präsident. If he is a civil servant he aspires to be a Ministerialrat [senior ministerial advisor] or a Hofrat [privy councillor] (this in a country where there is obviously no court and where in theory it is a penal offence for a man to call himself even ‘von’). The disease is universal. It affects waiters and street cleaners no less than academics, politicians and industrial leaders. It is smarter, though often less lucrative, to be an employee (Angestellter) than to be a worker (Arbeiter). There is nothing new in all this. Trotsky was flabbergasted when he came to Vienna to find that Viktor Adler1 was referred to as Comrade Herr Doktor.
1. Viktor Adler: The father of Austrian socialism. Once a medical practitioner, he turned to egalitarian politics shortly before the First World War after witnessing the poverty in the slums of Vienna.
The Netherlands
‘A tough inner core’
SIR PETER GARRAN, HM AMBASSADOR TO THE NETHERLANDS, JANUARY 1970
The Dutch are a complex people. Their thought processes and reactions are not always easy to fathom, either for us or for themselves. There is an odd mixture in their make-up of directness and occasional inscrutability, of hard-headedness and emotionalism. They love discussing among themselves how complex and complicated they are and, when a former Spanish ambassador, the Duke of Baena, wrote a rather inferior book about Holland called The Dutch Puzzle, the Dutch – most of them – lapped it up. For me, part of the explanation is that the Dutch have a sensitive outer skin and a tough inner core. The complexities and complications are in the outer skin. But the important thing is the tough, sound inner core. That is what makes them such splendid friends and allies. But we must remember the sensitive outer skin and expect difficulties from time to time because of it.
Iceland
‘They are not a comfortable people to handle’
AUBREY HALFORD-MCLEOD, HM AMBASSADOR TO ICELAND, AUGUST 1970
CONFIDENTIAL
BRITISH EMBASSY
REYKJAVIK
12 August 1970
Sir,
In preparing this, my final despatch from Reykjavik, I have had to scrap several drafts and in doing so I have reluctantly reached the conclusion that this exercise in itself sums up far better than any words of mine could describe the nature of the major problem facing one of H.M. Ambassadors to Iceland (and probably those in other small countries also). There is so much to say; there is so little likelihood that anyone in London will have the time to read even the little that he says …
The first comment I venture to make concerns the relative importance of Iceland to us. I believe that the Office’s computer rates Iceland in the same bracket as Ethiopia and Malawi … [W]e take so little trouble about Iceland because we believe that she has no choice but to be on our side. This I submit is a very mistaken view.
There is a great reservoir of goodwill towards Britain in Iceland, fed by decades of personal contacts and commercial exchanges. Like all reservoirs, however, in the highly competitive world of today, this reservoir needs topping up frequently … It is true that, alongside their many positive sterling virtues, [Icelanders] suffer from strong xenophobic tendencies, are grasping and opportunist, unjustifiably conceited and ashamedly suppliant in the same breath. They are not a comfortable people to handle and there is probably little we can do to change them. But insofar as we need them at all, we can and should, as a major power with the ambitions and capability to influence world affairs, be ready to meet Icelanders rather more than half way. To paraphrase Guicciardini; it is to be expected that a great prince should treat his lesser allies more generously than they him.
Let us examine for a moment our attitudes towards Icelanders. The general public in Britain still labours under the Eskimo/polar bear image … The attitude of [Whitehall] would generally seem to be one of indifference … I cannot escape the impression that the British official attitude has always been grudging and ungracious … The Americans, Germans and French … are actively cultivating their links with Iceland and seeking to increase their stake in the country. But so also are the Russians and the other Eastern Europeans. I submit that as Iceland’s nearest neighbour and one of her major trading partners we should be something more than spectators …
If, as may well be objected, the foregoing picture of Anglo-Icelandic relations seems unnecessarily gloomy, I would reply that during my service in Reykjavik I have received very little positive guidance to assist me in trying to brighten it. I should have welcomed much more overt support from London. As some of my senior colleagues now leaving the Service have remarked, it is not sufficient that H.M. Ambassadors should enjoy the confidence of H.M. Government; it is also necessary that they should be seen to enjoy it.
Switzerland
‘Pharisaical self-satisfaction’
HENRY HOHLER, HM AMBASSADOR TO SWITZERLAND, APRIL 1970
CONFIDENTIAL
BERNE,
20 April, 1970
Sir,
In a despatch which I had the honour to address to you on 7 October, 1969, I have attempted to compare the Swiss of today with the Swiss as I had first known them more than 20 years ago. I concluded that, although the Swiss had become richer and more sophisticated, their national character had remained basically unchanged, as indeed it had through the centuries. They have created a modern industrial State, despite their lack of natural resources and, with the lamentable exception of Lausanne, they have done this without destroying the charm of their cities or the marvellous beauty of their land. Nevertheless, the Swiss have their problems and the malaise suisse reflects a conflict between pharisaical self-satisfaction and an uneasy awareness that their well-being is at the mercy of forces which they cannot control. Until comparatively recently Switzerland has been a poor country and the Swiss hav
e remained thrifty and hard-working, even though these qualities may not be as essential as they once were.
The Swiss attach great importance to getting good value for their money. Twice a week the square in the centre of Berne, enclosed by four banks and the Parliament building, is bright with the stalls of the peasants who have come in from the neighbouring villages to sell their produce and there you will meet everybody from the wives of the Federal Councillors downwards doing their own shopping. The Swiss are often generous to their friends and munificent patrons of the arts, but their poverty-stricken past comes out in funny little economies and even meannesses. A Swiss politician, who lives on the Lake of Morat, told me he had been horrified by the way the peasants behaved to each other and these, after all, were rich peasants who did not have to split pfennigs. Many Swiss get to their offices at 7 a.m. and it is not until 6.30 p.m. that you have the rush-hour in a Swiss town. People wish you a pleasant Sunday, not a pleasant week-end. Even if your friend from Geneva comes to Berne for dinner and spends the night, he will catch the 6.43 a.m. train, so as not to arrive too late at his work. It took a week to pack up my effects when I left London; it has just taken the Swiss packers three days to do the same job.
‘The Swiss love regulating each other’
ERIC MIDGLEY, HM AMBASSADOR TO SWITZERLAND, FEBRUARY 1973
(CONFIDENTIAL) Berne,
26 February, 1973
Sir,
A despatch bidding farewell to the stable, deeply rooted Swiss is likely to read much like the first impressions of one’s predecessor but two …
… Political institutions reflect a state of general stability … The Federal Councillors are … as much civil servants as they are Ministers and their style is befittingly modest. A day or two ago, for instance, after I had taken my final leave of the President outside his office, he climbed into an old Volkswagen and waved me away ahead in the Rolls.
At the lower level, Swiss institutions may seem excessively authoritarian. The police are tough. Suspects go straight into solitary confinement for questioning … Up till recently [unmarried] cohabitation in Zurich was a criminal offence and still is so in some cantons when it is shown to be a cause for scandal. The Swiss love regulating each other. On missing a traffic sign you may find yourself stopped, not at all in anger, and given a moral lecture ‘to make sure you don’t do it again’. I recall with some whimsical pleasure the occasion when, after ditching my car in the snow and bursting into a small café to telephone for help I was sent back to wipe my feet and shut the door …
… Swiss attitudes are moulded by Swiss institutions and if these often inhibit they also foster and protect, abroad as well as at home. Citizenship is primarily citizenship of the commune and the population of the average commune is 16,000. The scene is parochial. ‘Diplomats are not allowed to reside in our commune,’ said a friend who lives in one of the Berne suburbs. There are picturesque ancient privileges. I sometimes meet a respectable Swiss gentleman drawing a small cart full of logs out of the wood which surrounds my house. He is a member of the Bourgeoisie of Berne exercising his right to cut down one tree every year.
‘Neither the prettiest of people, nor the wittiest’
DAVID MCCANN, AIR ATTACHÉ, SWITZERLAND, APRIL 1978
Air Attachés represent the Royal Air Force overseas, ‘attached’ to diplomatic missions. During his stint at the British Embassy in Berne, Wing Commander McCann was also expected to drum up arms sales.
… [I]n many ways the Swiss are an unattractive lot. They are neither the prettiest of people, nor the wittiest, and the German dialects most of them speak are among the most cacophonous of languages. Life is as serious a business in the highly affluent Switzerland of today as it was no doubt in the mountain communities from which the country originated.
The best Swiss qualities – their integrity, for example, and their conscientiousness, zeal, thrift and self-discipline – are more likely to attract admiration in foreigners, or even envy, than affection. Their parsimony is a byword; it was entirely in character that, when I arrived at the hospital with my wife in labour, we were first asked for the Sfr700 [about £400 today] deposit, before any medical attention was contemplated! However, one soon forgets these general faults when, in time, individual Swiss accept one into their homes and into their hearts …
One of the first things that strikes one about the Swiss is how industrious they are, and professional in the best sense; they tend to be perfectionists. Their working hours are the longest in Europe; even parliament begins sitting at 8 a.m. But when it comes to national defence – and, to a certain extent, to politics – the ‘professional’ approach is dropped and anyone can participate. Indeed they must, if they are fit and male, because service in the militia army is compulsory … However, the Army itself, and the few who follow a full career in it, are not held in high esteem. Although some officers are undoubtedly able, others who reach the top ranks would never progress so far in most other armies, let alone in other branches of Swiss life. Swiss ‘generals’ have a disconcerting habit of not looking like generals, perhaps because they have so little opportunity to behave as such. Swiss soldiers, sadly, are the scruffiest in Europe.
Finland
‘Flat, freezing, and far from the pulsating centres of European life’
SIR BERNARD LEDWIDGE, HM AMBASSADOR TO FINLAND, OCTOBER 1972
The letter of thanks from the Head of Department that a valedictory may trigger (often the last official word an ambassador would receive before retirement) ranges from the perfunctory, to the polite, to the genuinely admiring. This last is well illustrated by the note placed on the file quoted below, reading: ‘I always expected – and my Department has been taught to expect – a certain stamp of the first-class from Helsinki. Your last despatch was no exception; indeed, I found it a splendid crystallisation of impressions and thoughts. We shall miss the Ledwidge style!’
Finland was Ledwidge’s penultimate diplomatic post. Upon leaving Helsinki he was made Ambassador to Israel, which one imagines he found an altogether warmer and more exciting prospect.
(CONFIDENTIAL) Helsinki,
19 October, 1972
Sir,
It could plausibly be argued that it is a misfortune for anybody but a Finn to spend three years in Finland, as I have just done. Even the Finns who can afford it are happy to make frequent escapes to sunnier climes. Finland is flat, freezing, and far from the pulsating centres of European life. Nature has done little for her and art not much more. Until yesterday the country was inhabited only by peasants, foresters, fishermen and a small class of alien rulers who spent most of their money elsewhere. The rich cultural past of Europe has left fewer traces in Finland in the shape of public and private buildings of quality and the objects of art which adorn them than anywhere else in the Western world save perhaps Iceland. Finnish cooking deserves a sentence to itself for its crude horror; only the mushrooms and the crayfish merit attention.
I came to all this after four sybaritic years in Paris; and I have at times turned with a new sense of fellow feeling to the odes of lamentation which Ovid addressed from Tomi to his friends in Rome. Yet it will be with a distinct sentiment of nostalgia that I shall leave Finland this evening for Israel … I have come to appreciate the rare beauty of this remote land, to like its inhabitants, and to admire what they have made of their meagre inheritance since they achieved independence in 1917 …
Finland today is of course subject to the same social pressures as other Welfare [Socialist] States, but she suffers from them in a less marked degree than most. The climate and the proximity of the Russians are both factors which, in their different ways, impose realism and discourage extravagant visions of what life can and should offer to the individual citizen. Moreover the Finns have a cohesion which is tribal rather than national. Their unique environment and their unique language set them apart. They feel at home nowhere else in the world. I referred … to the rich who enjoy holidays in sunnier climes. They do, but they
always come home again; and Finnish women married to foreigners often persuade them to come back and live here. The charm of Finland is difficult to define, but it exists. Some of it certainly lies in the natural surroundings. The broad horizons; the countless islands dotting the Baltic coast; the expanses of nearly empty lake and forest; the ice and snow which prove to be so varied in colour and contour throughout the long winter, all these make their strong appeal to the Finn; and now they appeal to me too.
‘It is a full time job trying to get to know the Finns’
THOMAS ELLIOT, HM AMBASSADOR TO FINLAND, SEPTEMBER 1975
(CONFIDENTIAL)
Sir,
Helsinki,
15 September, 1975
President Kekkonen, when I first called on him to present my credentials, was kind enough to inform me that the first British Ambassador to Finland had been murdered … [H]e implied that I should deserve not much less savage treatment if I did not apply myself to learning about the peculiar Finnish attitude to politics and to life, and instead took Finland for granted …
… I have come to realise that there was a serious point behind President Kekkonen’s typically paradoxical warning … It is a full time job trying to get to know the Finns. The least arrogant or ostentatious of peoples, they have a self-sufficient reserve that the foreigner cannot easily penetrate. When confronted by what is unexpected or unfamiliar, as well as by the unreasonable, they take refuge behind the barriers of silence or (what is much the same to most people) the use of their language. (Though they make a show of pleasure when foreigners start the daunting task of learning Finnish, they also convey the impression that you may be wasting your time, as well as a little presumptuous, in trying to break their own private code.) It would be right to conclude that all this makes them elusive; but it also gives them as a people an admirable strength.
Parting Shots Page 3