Diplomatic Silence

Matthew Parris and Andrew Bryson, Parting Shots (Viking, 2010), 386 pages, $24.95.

In 2006, Britain’s Labour government abolished a venerable institution, the art of the diplomatic dispatch. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in London could only acquiesce with another hasty and misguided political edict. Stung by their infelicitous commentary, they killed the message and its messenger. Blame an easily rattled Foreign Secretary in Margaret Beckett. After a document was leaked, Sir Peter Ricketts, a former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, “halted” the tradition of ambassadors writing farewell dispatches.

Governments can be badly damaged by leaks. It is one thing for an envoy to bag a foreign state and its ill-governed people. However, it is often embarrassing when Her Majesty’s senior representatives level their criticism against their own headquarters, and by direct implication, the current government itself. Charges against head office make for uneasy night reading. Truth inside the tent can be uncomfortable when so assigned from the outside. In Whitehall, traditions are everything. Change often comes without progress. As it did. At one level diplomacy invites candour. At another and higher level, style and substance were also dispatched. The genre found its own cachet with the history of diplomacy and literature itself.

Throughout the history of the diplomatic corps, the farewell dispatch was a time-honoured rite. Ambassadors and High Commissioners, and their equivalents, were delegated a simple task. Apart from their daily reporting responsibilities, concurrent with the management of their post, it was expected of them that they would write a series of “think-pieces” throughout their tenure. It was also given, at the conclusion of their posting, that they were afforded a valedictory dispatch. This was done at two levels—that is, on being appointed elsewhere (to another mission or the FCO) or as a last cri de coeur on retirement. The former were more restrained. For the latter, spleens could be, and were, well vented.

The best of the farewell dispatches lent an informed and serious critique of the state to which they had been accredited. Some generated indulgent rants which, while entertaining, missed the chance. It is easy to display moral courage when your superannuation has been fixed with Personnel.

Parting Shots is a rare gem amidst all the tosh masquerading as current political and social history. The authors have collaborated on a well-organised book of its subject. The accompanying illustrations are evidence that some have been heavily censored. National security implications have been used to veto the most sensitive documents which would exact untold damage on foreign relations. Typically, the work is replete with examples of the craft. Some are whimsically short while others work up detailed analyses on the given theme: whether it is political leadership, economic conditions and the quality (or lack of it) in the national character.

Canberra also entered a rich target environment. In April 1971, the British High Commissioner, Sir Frank Johnston, laid bare his anxieties about the state of Britain’s ties with Australia. It occurred amid Britain’s decision to withdraw its forces from Singapore and the region: 

When we were preparing to give the Australians advance notice of withdrawal in the mid-1970s, one of the reasons discussed in Whitehall for this change of policy was the argument that “white faces” did more harm than good on the mainland of Asia. It was clear that in this country it would have the worst possible effect, and would jangle nerves very deep in the Australian character; after all, if you come to think of it, the Australians themselves are “white faces” on their own mainland. In accordance with this advice, an official communication was made to the Australian Government basing the new policy entirely on economics and finance. At the same time however an authoritative British source conveyed to the Australians the political argument in favour of planning to remove white faces from the mainland. When this message was reported to them, Mr Holt [sic] and his Government simply exploded. I have never known the relations between the two countries more difficult. 

In their preamble to the above dispatch, the authors underscored the effect of Britain’s decision in 1973 to join the European Economic Community. At once, Australia lost much of its butter industry overnight. “To add to the ignominy, Antipodeans arriving in London had for the first time to submit themselves to EEC border controls as ‘foreigners’.” This act carried unconscious irony. As “foreigners”, we can hardly object to having a “foreign” queen as our head of state. She is not with us but of us. That filial fealty should remain. A sense of humour is more important than any faux sovereignty.

That many dispatches have seen the light of day serves us all well. A few horses may have truly bolted but the stables are not otherwise restive. Time and distance can render big problems into little ones. In any spatial range, politics eventually defaults to history. In authentic democracies, public opinion both informs and shapes foreign policy. A government ignores it at its peril. Dispatches were once only sourced from the archives after the expiry of thirty years. Now that arbitrary period has been softened to twenty years in a staged continuum. Of course, leaks achieve a more certain immediacy, as the discomfort of many governments continues to date. Diplomats and journalists have been accused of mutual interference. They need each other to service joint needs. Information is still a marketable commodity. Our people need to speak to theirs.

What did the British think of the Arabs and the Americans? Sir Michael Weir, HM Ambassador to Egypt, sagely observed from Cairo in 1985: 

The trouble in Egypt is that there is too much speech and not enough action. Regrettably the current female generation is suffering from, and indeed embracing, the Islamic revivalists’ view of women’s personal status, and these hard-won gains are being eroded.  

Peter Jay served as HM Ambassador to Washington during the Carter administration. In June 1979, Jay attempted a psychological audit on the shy guy. “To describe him as a man whose heart rules his head is about as apt as calling Aristotle a hysteric or Euclid a pornographer. Politically Mr Carter is failing. He stands low in the polls and could indeed be denied re-election or re-nomination in 1980.” Jay was right. 

When the bad news broke, in foreign capitals, it would be British envoys that would be called in to the local foreign ministry. In 1967, the British Ambassador to Thailand, Sir Anthony Rumbold, made a withering critique on the Thais. When the news broke, much later, the current ambassador dissociated himself from the invectives. He could do little else. Invariably, a hapless envoy would be carpeted by ministry officials over publicly aired discretions which impacted on the relationship. On reflection, some things are better left unsaid. We all live in a digital world, and secrecy has become one more casualty, but never captive to a public outing if availed by those who seek to maximise an agenda. There is also an implicit force within. “Does it matter? Is there still a need for diplomats and embassies, or can it all now be done by computers, the facsimile machine and visiting firemen? It is an old argument” (J.E. Hoare, Embassies in the East). It is also an old answer. There is no alternative.

What ill-chosen comments upset foreign capitals? There should have been none, for the correspondence was drafted on a private and confidential basis. It was none of their business what the British thought of their hosts. Janus wasn’t given two faces for nothing. After all, if other diplomats wrote poorly of Britain, it was not meant for their consumption.

Australian diplomats also favoured the instrument of dispatch. Depending on the individual head of mission, it could be a sole effort or subject to the input of others. Theme dispatches gave leverage to ideas that would be defeated in daily reporting. Call it long-term planning and thinking about issues that continued to bedevil policy-makers in Canberra. Occasionally, they could be patronising, which was more a function of the times and prevailing mindset. “Filipinos are charming but unreliable”; a few Australians can be as well.

Parting Shots is a fine book, despite some omissions. The best dispatches from Iraq, Iran and North Vietnam are notably absent. If the authors included more from H.G. Balfour-Paul (Baghdad) and John Colvin (Hanoi) then this book would be much better. Might our own Mark Colvin of the ABC now honour his late father?

Mike Fogarty is a former diplomat.

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