Parting Shots

by Matthew Parris

  Until very recently diplomats had to retire at sixty – at the height (many thought) of their powers. Women – admitted to the Diplomatic Service since 1946 but under special rules, limited to 10 per cent of the intake – were paid 20 per cent less than men doing the same job and they had to resign when they married. Equal pay was conceded in 1955 (fully implemented only in 1961) and the marriage bar was rescinded only in 1972.

  ‘There is an outside vision of diplomacy and of ambassadors,’ Sir Christopher Meyer told us, ‘that is impossible to eradicate from the public imagination and particularly from the imagination of journalists, whose Pavlovian default position when they write about ambassadors is to write about envoys quaffing champagne and sucking on cherries dipped in asses’ milk and that they are all living the most glorious life. Now, let’s not beat about the bush – when I was entertaining Americans, they did not expect fish fingers; if I was going to influence members of the American cabinet or White House I didn’t serve them fish fingers. I enjoyed a high standard of living when I was ambassador to the United States but the balance to that was having two tours in our Embassy in Moscow in the depths of the Cold War when Russia was the Soviet Union and Moscow in those days was quite clearly a hardship post. It was a hardship post for all kinds of reasons.

  ‘A hardship post is a place where the material and psychological conditions of service are particularly arduous. The pressure put upon you by these circumstances actually makes it difficult for you to do your job. You get paid a bit more money for serving in a hardship post and I think it gains you some extra pensionable years.’ In Moscow, said Meyer, hardship meant: ‘difficulty in getting fresh fruit and vegetables and decent food to eat on a daily basis; it meant a highly restricted movement because the Soviet authorities didn’t like diplomats travelling around the country, or even far beyond the city of Moscow, so you were in a claustrophobic bubble from the moment you arrived. And then there was the psychological pressure, which was unrelenting, of the old KGB constantly up to tricks to ensnare you in some embarrassing blackmailable situation, as they tried several times on me. I actually found that type of hardship stimulating and terrifically exciting, but for some people it was terribly oppressive and they didn’t withstand it very well.’

  Lord (Chris) Patten seconded that view: ‘I’ve seen over the years the Foreign Office subjected to one round of cuts after another and I’ve seen it put in the dock again and again to demonstrate that it’s useful; and I think it’s completely absurd. I’ve always believed that part of the problem is that you get some of the Stakhanovites in the public-spending division of the Treasury going home from Waterloo on a wet cold Tuesday night in February, with papers in their box including the latest public spending bid from the Foreign Office. They sit down in their little corner of the compartment, damp and cold, at half past eight or quarter to nine in the evening and have this vision of diplomats – of their equivalents in the Foreign Office – slipping into swimming pools in tropical climes with butlers in white bumfreezers waiting on the edge with crystal cut glass with gin and tonic clinking away. And it’s a complete nonsense. Of course ambassadors very often live in nice houses and have staff, but they are also just as likely to be living in pretty difficult places with junior staff who are having a tough time. And they do a very, very good job.’

  Denis MacShane told us that ‘I stayed recently since I stopped being a minister with an ambassador in one of the most important posts in Europe. I was given one of the guest bedrooms and I froze that night because he didn’t have enough money to fully heat his embassy … I don’t think the Foreign Office, as part of the Whitehall machine, is anything other than quite mean and quite hard.

  ‘There’s an endless argument: should we maintain the splendid embassy in Paris? Well, should we maintain Buckingham Palace or Lancaster House? I think on the whole yes. Ambassadors are only there for a short time, and if we sold the embassy in Paris for a little fortune now and shunted the fellow out to the suburbs and put him into an anonymous office block somewhere I just don’t think anyone would come to see him.’

  Warming to his theme (though in fact the Office pays boarding-school fees for many British diplomats posted abroad) Mr MacShane continued: ‘The question of how you educate your children is a huge problem. The French have a network of international Lycées in every major capital city, we don’t … You can’t seriously expect a man to go to Afghanistan or Iraq, places where ambassadors have been kidnapped or diplomats have been killed – and have his children tootling around on the pavement playing hopscotch.’ MacShane has a point, certainly – though one is tempted to ask if, in this case, it is not the minister who has gone a little native.

  ‘A really good man for Bogotá’

  SIR ANDREW NOBLE, HM AMBASSADOR TO MEXICO, OCTOBER 1960

  The first post abroad in which I served was Rio de Janeiro, almost thirty years ago. In those days the Diplomatic Service regarded Latin America as a jungle, better perhaps than Central Africa, but no more important in the scale of world values. We paid lip service to the importance of the A.B.C. countries, Argentina, Brazil and Chile, largely because of the important British investments, and therefore dividends, to be protected; to be sent to any other Latin-American post was banishment. The Service view was aptly parodied by a small picture hanging in the room of Mr. Collier (now Sir L. Collier), the Head of the Northern Department. This reproduced one of his father’s problem pictures, which showed an older man sitting behind a desk in serious pose; opposite him was a young man clearly struggling with tortured apprehension. The caption below described the older man as the Diplomatic Private Secretary, then master of our postings, and put into his mouth the ominous sentence: ‘We want a really good man for Bogotá.’

  ‘My first experience as Her Majesty’s Ambassador was to shave out of a kettle’

  ROGER PINSENT, HM AMBASSADOR TO NICARAGUA, JULY 1967

  More from Pinsent can be found on p.106.

  Perhaps it may be useful at this point to give some comments on the personal aspects of life at Her Majesty’s Embassy in Managua, Nicaragua. Managua is undoubtedly a difficult post, both from the point of view of climate and amenities, and because the staff position is always critical, leaving virtually no margin for leave or sickness. Fortunately, we now have an air-conditioned office … The main problem from our point of view has, of course, been the necessity of living in a totally inadequate Embassy Residence without proper room for entertaining or living, or even basic facilities such as hot water – my first experience as Her Majesty’s Ambassador was to shave out of a kettle …

  In spite of the difficulties, unpleasantness and even violence to which we have been subjected at times during our tour in Managua, I must admit that we leave the country with some regret. Not, I may say, for Managua itself, but paradoxically for the sunny Nicaraguan climate as experienced in the mountains above the two great lakes and among the hundreds of little volcanic islands on Lake Nicaragua with their palms, mangoes and other tropical fruit, to which spice is added by the presence of sharks.

  ‘I hope that my successor will unearth no such skeletons of mine’

  SIR DENIS WRIGHT, HM AMBASSADOR TO IRAN, APRIL 1971

  I now leave Tehran with much sadness but feeling that after eight years it is time to go. In the 160-odd years since regular diplomatic relations have existed between the United Kingdom and Persia only Charles Alison (1860–72) served longer than I have done as Her Majesty’s Representative. Alison left behind him an illegitimate daughter, patriotically named Victoria; a packet of trouble arising from his purchase of land in what is now part of our Gulhak compound; and his own grave in the old Armenian church near the site of our original ‘Mission House’. While I hope that my successor will unearth no such skeletons of mine, at least he will find a new and well appointed Protestant Cemetery …

  ‘Each slice of smoked salmon being folded round a gold half-sovereign’

  THOMAS SHAW, HM AMBASSADOR TO MOROCCO, NOVEMBER 1971
>
  A glimpse here of the high life; and its dangers. The spring party which Shaw describes was certainly lavish. The ‘later birthday-party at Skhirat’ however, to which he refers at the end of this extract, was in fact the scene of an attempted coup. Hundreds of soldiers stormed the royal palace, where the diplomatic corps had assembled to mark the King’s forty-second birthday. The Libyan-inspired plot failed, but only after five hours of desperate fighting, in which the Belgian ambassador was killed by a bullet. Shaw told a newspaper reporter afterwards: ‘Bullets were whizzing all around us. Back at the swimming pool, I found the Yugoslav ambassador, who had long partisan experience in World War II, lying on the floor with a chair over his head, so I lay down beside him and did likewise. Then I saw a hand grenade come flying over the wall.’ The soldiers had apparently been drugged, and tricked into storming the palace, believing the diplomats were holding the King hostage. Upon his appearance, they cheered and threw down their arms. King Hassan told foreign press the ringleaders were unlikely to divulge much information in prison: ‘I am afraid it may no longer be possible to interview them as they will probably be executed by firing squad.’

  The dinner-party which the King gave for the Diplomatic Corps in the spring was characteristic of his taste for lavish display regardless of growing popular criticism. The occasion – I forget whether it was his second son’s first birthday or his elder son’s circumcision – was not impressive, nor were the guests, principally ourselves and our wives, in need of being impressed. A Russian choir was flown from Paris to entertain us; we were lavishly fed, each slice of smoked salmon being folded round a gold half-sovereign; and to conclude we were taken on to the Palace roof for an hour’s breath-taking display of fireworks activated personally by the King from a console of press-buttons and accompanied by a ‘Son et Lumière’ commentary in Arabic. I am told that Messrs Brocks going rate for an hour is about £10,000. As the spring night was cold, the luckier guests were provided with scarlet cloaks taken from the backs of the Royal Guard on duty as lantern-bearers in the gardens below. The rest of us shivered while flocks of pigeons and storks wheeled distracted above in the pyrotechnic glare – altogether a party which was a worthy predecessor of the later birthday-party at Skhirat.

  ‘The Embassy staff have kept up their water-skiing despite the proximity of explosions’

  ANTHONY WILLIAMS, HM AMBASSADOR TO CAMBODIA, JANUARY 1973

  … [A] tribute to the succeeding generations of this Embassy’s staff, during my time, comes specially appropriately. I am glad to record that no member of it – or of the community – has suffered death or even injury during the fairly regular rocket, plastique and commando attacks which have punctuated the whole of my sojourn in Phnom Penh. But it has always, of course, been at the back of our minds that it could happen – and to ourselves. The enterprising cheerfulness with which this Embassy at all levels has ‘carried on as usual’ – and indeed got a lot of fun out of this life under siege – has caused admiring remarks, not only from more pusillanimous colleagues, but from the Khmers themselves … The fact that we have never, like most missions here at one time or another, started shipping out our families or stopped children coming out for holidays … even the fact that the Embassy staff have kept up their water-skiing despite the proximity of explosions – all these have, I think, genuinely helped the Khmers to hold on and believe in themselves.

  ‘ “You aren’t paid for doing things: you are paid for being here” ’

  SIR PATRICK HANCOCK, HM AMBASSADOR TO ITALY, JUNE 1974

  A lot is written nowadays about the job of an Ambassador. To my mind, the most unsatisfactory thing about the job is that it is often not clear what an Ambassador ought to be doing or what he is trying to achieve. Is he being sufficiently active? Or, on the other hand, is he bothering people unnecessarily? Does he report too much or too little? Does he know the right people? Does he travel too much or not enough? And so on. Most Embassies have slack moments, when an

  Ambassador wonders if he is earning his keep. At such times, I take comfort from the scene in a long-forgotten play by Maurice Baring, in which the staff of an Embassy complain to the Ambassador that they do not have enough to do. The Ambassador dismisses them with the remark: ‘You aren’t paid for doing things: you are paid for being here.’

  ‘Our specific calling’s snare is drink’

  RALPH SELBY, HM AMBASSADOR TO NORWAY, MARCH 1975

  Ralph Selby’s career valedictory from Oslo was the starting point for Parting Shots. Back in 1975 it passed through my hands as a junior desk officer (see the main Introduction to this book). My signature can be seen on the cover sheet, along with the handwritten comment ‘I think this is a very good despatch.’ The image of the ambassador creeping along corridors late at night to collect shoes for polishing certainly sticks in the memory – as do his views on alcohol.

  This was the first valedictory that we unearthed from the vast stacks at the National Archives. Several hundred despatches down the road, its refreshing mix of eccentricity and candour still stands out. (Sadly, Sir John Russell’s final valedictory, to which Selby frequently refers, is not to be found at Kew, although his Brazilian sign-off is a treat – see p. 51.)

  Selby actually wrote two valedictories in 1975, and the record shows 475 copies were printed of his ‘serious’ effort on the political situation in Norway (see p. 213). But the broader Whitehall audience was denied the chance to read these, Selby’s less po-faced ‘animadversions’ on his thirty-eight-year career. They failed to move my then boss, Christopher Hulse, who wrote: ‘On the whole I find these slightly quaint … I doubt if it deserves printing.’ Another officer scribbled: ‘He says a lot of sensible things, though I agree that the style is a little bit “knife and fork”.’

  The Department did make a few copies, for the Personnel Department, Chief Clerk and Permanent Under Secretary (‘very much voluntary reading’).

  RESTRICTED

  BRITISH EMBASSY

  OSLO

  12 March 1975

  The Right Honourable

  James Callaghan MP

  etc etc etc

  Sir

  Two senior members of the Service have expressed the view that the animadversions about the Service, frequently included in retiring Ambassadors’ valedictory despatches, should more properly be incorporated in a separate despatch. As one of the Ambassadors concerned was my boss in my last post, I feel I should follow his advice. I am of course very conscious of my place – specifically, No 109 in the latest Diplomatic Service List, which is no very big advance on No 209 in the 1938 List. Nevertheless I have for some months been able to claim that I have served longer in Her Majesty’s Diplomatic Service than anyone else now in it; and my experience extends over two generations, and indeed in some respects over three, for my wife’s grandfather was, like my father, an Ambassador. My own first post abroad was Cairo in 1921. I was then five …

  … [D]iplomats of the old school … did not have to deal with such a flood of paper. Sir Terence Shone, who was High Commissioner in India when I was posted there in 1947, said that at his first post abroad his Ambassador had refused to allow a typewriter to be used in his Embassy (Lisbon). Any copies of despatches made had to be written in long hand. The flood of paper which has thus grown within a single generation is fantastic. Far too much is copied or repeated to too many posts. Papers containing 40 paragraphs, of which one might be of interest to all, are copied everywhere, without deletion of the 39 paragraphs which might be of interest to a limited number of posts only. Telegrams seem often to be sent because there is still a widespread impression that they are the only form of communication which cuts any ice in the Foreign Office. The summaries of printed despatches are often not summaries at all, but mere catalogues of contents. At the end of it all I do not feel we are always particularly well informed about matters which are of major concern to the countries in which we are serving.

  In this latter context increased contact between ministers and am
bassadors abroad is, as Sir John Russell inferred, very desirable … I am quite sure a conscious effort should be made in London to make Ambassadors visiting the United Kingdom feel that Ministers and Under Secretaries would actually like to see them when they are at home, even if in reality it would, as most of us suspect, bore them to sobs. I am also quite sure, having been exiled for 20 years, that it is a great mistake to leave people abroad too long. It is impossible to be an effective Ambassador without a relatively recent acquaintance not merely with the senior hierarchy of the Office but also with the procedures by which decisions are reached at home.

  What is an effective Ambassador? Sir Patrick Hancock expressed the self questioning on this score which must I imagine occur to most Ambassadors. There seems to be a widespread impression that a principal characteristic of pre-war diplomacy was ‘cookie pushing’1. My father used indeed to tell me that the quality of an Ambassador was determined by the skill of his cook. A friend of his who was ambassador in Paris in the twenties complained that he was nothing but a glorified head waiter. But I often wonder myself whether one is not, and ought not still to be very much the same thing, albeit rather less glorified …