The Africans as a whole are “not only not averse to cutting off their noses to spite their face; they regard such an operation as a triumph of cosmetic surgery.”
The Arabs are worse than most people at linguistic flatulence.
The average Nicaraguan is among the “most dishonest, unreliable, violent and alcoholic of Latin Americans”. The ‘Icelanders are ‘xenophobic, grasping, opportunist, unjustifiably conceited and ashamedly supplicant'.
These observations – and many more in similar vein - are from classified Valedictory despatches written by Her Majesty's Ambassadors and High Commissioners around the world.
The Valedictories, a centuries-old tradition which, to the regret of many, was effectively ended in 2006 by the then Foreign Secretary, were exceptional because they gave the Ambassador the opportunity to be even more wide-ranging, critical and self-indulgent them usual. They were brutally frank – the Foreign Office sought “full, frank and hard-hitting advice” and not always complimentary to the host government or people. They were, for that matter, equally unsparing towards the home government. They were valued because the honest assessments were felt to be critical in enabling re-think and reform in policy and implementation.
This compilation, Parting Shots , edited by Matthew Parries and Andrew Bryson, ( Penguin ), is the follow-up to a BBC Radio 4 series broadcast in 2009 in which the editors aired the Valedictories and also interviewed several Ambassadors on their contents. The editors had managed to get 40 Valedictories – they had sought some 60 pertaining to 1979-2006 period - released under the RTI. The quality of the Valedictories, as the editors acknowledge, are not always even; generally though they are of exceptionally high standard.
The diplomatic life is often trivialised as “Protocol, Vitriol, Alcohol.” Diplomats, particularly of the developed world, can hardly be blamed if they consider that ‘distance, dirt and danger' (as a former British High Commissioner to India put it) are more the norm than champagne buckets at breakfast. The world has become an increasingly dangerous place. The diplomat was never immune from targeted violence; irrational or accidental violence in this age of terrorism has opened up new risks.
Proximity to VIPs dictated by protocol can be heady but, at times, also disastrous. In 1981, the then British Ambassador in Cairo, was two rows behind Anwar Sadat when he was assassinated; he escaped (the Belgian Ambassador seated near him was badly wounded) by diving under the chairs!
More insightful
Diplomats often have a more insightful analysis of their own country's strengths and weaknesses as they see their country from the others' eyes. Several Ambassadors, at different points, warned of the impact of the decline in British economy, the inward focus of the people and the parties, the consequent attacks on and reductions in the aid budget, the need for effectively discharging Britain's historic responsibilities to the peoples of colonial possessions by imparting adequate training in institutions of governance being left behind, inability to use the British Council and other tools of ‘soft' diplomacy etc.
On a wider scale, they lamented the nationalism and isolationism of Britain vis-à-vis the continent; some made a similar point about the EU's and the US' neglect of each other. They complained of ham-handedness of the officialdom in London in trotting out mindless rationalisations for actions that could be otherwise justified. There are warnings of the deleterious consequences of the inability to lead — the British reluctance to become an active participant in the integration of Europe conceding space to the French and the Germans. Sir Nicholas Henderson's 1979 valedictory on the eve of Margaret Thatcher sweeping Labour out of office calling for a “new sense of national purpose” lamented lost opportunities which led Britain to lose out on the benefits of European integration to the French and Germans; the malaise had made Britain not just “poor but un-proud”.
Errors of judgement
The Valedictories reveal striking errors of judgement. Peter Jay, a political appointee — he was Prime Minister Callaghan's son-in-law — as the Ambassador in Washington predicted a second term for Carter and that Edward Kennedy wouldn't run against Carter. The Ambassador in Moscow, Sir Bryan Cartledge, forecast the continuance of the Soviet system into the 21st century barely a year before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the events that it triggered leading to the collapse of the USSR. The then Ambassador in Tehran, Sir Anthony Parsons, got it all wrong all through 1978 about the continuance of the Shah forecasting that he would be “able to govern, as he is at present, without any genuinely dangerous opposition from any quarter.”
The inability of the Embassy to foresee that which was ‘blowing in the wind' remained a major embarrassment to the Foreign Office and left a powerful imprint on succeeding generations serving in the region. The error, however, did not do much harm to his professional reputation as a diplomat. He moved to New York as the British Permanent Representative to the UN and later as the personal adviser on foreign policy to Margaret Thatcher. David Owen, the former foreign secretary, subsequently noted, the “worst public servants are those who never take risks, who always hedge their bets;” the best, he wrote, “pose the right questions, but are also ready to give wrong answers.”
Little from China
It is a pity that only a couple of Valedictories from China have been included. One dating to 1974 speaks of the ‘sufficiency' of food, of ‘so much confidence' ‘so little fear'.
One can only surmise with the benefit of hindsight that that was influenced by the still-fresh ‘opening' to China engineered by the US and a reflection of the Western approach to build up China as a counterpoise to the USSR – an approach which made Moynihan complain that everyone was speaking of the absence of flies in China, but none about the absence of liberties. The Chinese themselves have judged that period otherwise.
Back in 1969, the British Ambassador in Rio (then the capital of Brazil) was pointing to its rich natural resources, hydro potential, demographic advantage and, in consequence, an ‘irresistible propensity' to be rich and prosperous.
If that was not so, the Ambassador mused, it was because the country was badly governed, had a bloated bureaucracy and corruption was rife.
At about the same time, the Ambassador in Uruguay was pointing to similar infirmities citing the staff strength of over 800 of the national airline which had but four or five aircraft and could put none in the air. In the three years that he had served there, he concluded, ‘materially the country had galloped ahead, but its politics had gone backwards.'
On India
We do not know whether there was a similar assessment regarding India. The two Valedictories from India (1982 and 1998), included in the book, refer to political stability, democracy, of being ‘best administered' of all developing countries (this last might be seen also as patting one's own back).
There is reference, too, to India being a “cacophonous cauldron”, ‘high and growing' level of corruption, “slow and precarious” law-and-order systems, media's “abuse” of the freedoms it has and ‘colossal amount of humbug' instead of substantive discussion of national issues or long-range programmes — assessments which might be said to have stood the test of time!
The book should be essential readfor diplomats.
(The author has served as India’s Ambassador to Algeria, France and Germany. He is now a Visiting Professor in the Academy of International Studies, Jamia Milia Islamia University, New Delhi.)