Old-fashioned guy
Sir: In your view (The end of diplomacy', 29 August) the fact that Lord Carrington is 'the sort of old-fashioned Englishman who keeps his word and expects others to do the same' made him unsuited for the job of EEC mediator in Yugoslavia. God protect the Yugoslays — and the rest of us — from some new-fashioned Englishman who would neither keep his word nor expect others to keep theirs.
I worked with Lord Carrington at the EEC Conference on Yugoslavia from Jan- uary until the London Conference in August. Contrary to your curious assump- tion, honour and gullibility are independent attributes. As mediator, Lord Carrington had not necessarily to believe everything he was told by his interlocutors — but it was of the essence that his interlocutors believed everything he told them.
Jose Cutileiro
Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Largo do Rilvas, Lisbon, Portugal
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