Their imperial Excellencies

George Gale

My first encounter with an overseas representative of the United Kingdom was

nasty, brutish and short. It took place at Gottingen University in the autumn of 1949. I had gone there as a research student from Cambridge, the first such to be . admitted to a German university since before the war. The distinguished university, like everything else in the British zone, came under the Control Commission; and it was suggested to me that I make myself known to the officer in charge of the university. He turned out to be an ignorant fellow not fit to be in charge of a primary school, an army major, I think, who disliked and despised all Germans and all academics. He saw it as his duty to eradicate all trace of Nazism; and thus the former Rector of the University, who, in order to preserve its valuable library intact from the ravages of the SS and Nazi party censors, had formally joined the party, was removed not only from his office as Rector but also from his chair, his institute and the materials of his research. I know this because I lived with the ex-Rector and his wife for over six months; and a more civilised and Anglophile pair of Germans I have not met. During that period I mixed entirely with Germans — mainly students older than I, back from the war. The British officers and soldiers in the town huddled together in particular bars, not mingling, and regarding me with suspicion. I flatly refused to have any conversation with the Control Commission man.

Now this was nothing to do with the Foreign Office (although I had had to 'get their permission to go to the university, and carried with me their authorisation); still, my first impression of the official representative abroad was bad. My opinion of our representation was somewhat, but not greatly, improved a few years later, when I accompanied Attlee, Nye Bevan and Cp on their trip through Chinain 1954, a trip which took them first to Moscow. Although Attlee was a former Prime Minister, accompanied by senior ex-Cabinet men, none of our embassy staff at Stockholm (where we changed planes and spent the night) helped him through Customs and Immigration: several of them were around, in their pin-stripes, but Attlee had to fumble his way through the Swedish officials like anyone else. At Helsinki, our next stop, two of our number were thrown out of their booked seats in favour of a fat and noisy South American woman who turned out to be catering manageress of the Brazilian embassy. and therefore possessed diplomatic status. In Moscow I first met top diplomatic brass, in the shape of Sir William

Hayter. The ambassador and his wife were entertaining the Attlee group; later, we would leave while the Hayters dined the delegation along with Malenkov, Khrush chev, Molotov, Vyshinsky and others. They had never been in a western embassy before; the Hayters were therefore hon oured and flattered, especially when the Russians ordered that the floodlighting of the Kremlin be switched on, so that they could see the view from the embassy windows. The Pakistani chargé d'affaires, who was at the dinner, later described it: 'They got into huddles. Lots of huddles...Yes, Malenkov drank. They say he's the goody goody, who brought in earlier hours and turned the bar-shops into soft-drink stalls. . .It'll be a great blessing for your election of course. The Labour Party must have done well. . .Malenkov gives up two days of his holiday to meet them. But of course it's the line now. Make friends. Split Labour and Conservative. America and England. Drive in your wedge. . .Me? I take no part in any of this. . .1 do nothing at all, except look nice at receptions.'

This was my first real exchange with a diplomat. Mr Baig (for such was his name) had uttered some fundamental truths. In

Peking's airport waiting room stood a huge portrait of Mao; alongside was an empty space. In thq corridor outside stood a por trait of Stalin, which had occupied that space. By the time we left Peking, that empty space was filled with a portrait of Malenkov. No man is indispensable; and the closest alliance can change into the bit terest hostility: this is another diplomatic truth, obvious enough, but not always grasped by diplomats. In Peking a Swedish diplomat also increased my young under standing: 'Orwell is banned here not because the Chinese dislike him but because his books are much too valuable as Government textbooks to be bandied about among the public.' On the whole, illuminations such as this infrequently proceed out of British diplomatic mouths.

It so happens that my most recent diplomatic encounters were also in the Far East, this time with Mrs Thatcher, earlier this year. In China, the ambassador, Sir Edward Youde, proved himself to be a most expert guide to the Ming tombs: and second secretary John Gerson jumped at the opportunity of the Thatcher visit of seeing something of China outside of Peking. He was good at telling us the current Peking witticism: referring to the great pro liferation of Mao-like portraits of China's new chairman. Hua, he said 'We expect to see any day now Mao's wart grafted on to Hua's chin.' Mrs Thatcher herself was

bothered about the exchange of entertainment. The vice-premier gave her dinner one night: two nights later she responded, giving -a dinner back. But the place of the dinner was the same, the food virtually identical, and the guest list also. The only . novelty was provided by Mrs Thatcher, who had brought a batch of 'At Home' cards to serve as invitations: thus she was At Home 'for a banquet in the Great Hall of the People'. In Japan, as in China, embassy staff spoke and read the language; and in Japan, in particular, they were exceptionally helpful to the press, which is not at all normal. Since the Japanese were, on the whole, extremely unhelpful, Tokyo's British embassy — one of our biggest — struck us particularly favourably; although if it is actual service you want, then the Gov , ernment Information Service in Hong Kong (like its equivalent in Belfast) would be hard to beat.

, I have not myself covered a royal tour, but speaking to someone who has covered several, I was told, 'Of course the embassy people, wherever we go, are absolutely terrified. They keep shooing the press away, as though they never realise that the whole trip is a publicity stunt.' This I can well believe. On the whole, journalists are regarded as very bad news by diplomats, especially Brit' ish ones. The Times may be welcomed, the Guardian tolerated, the Telegraph put up with; but the populars scare diplomats; and they do not want to see themselves on television. There is nothing surprising here: diplomacy is instinctively secretive; and it is also, in fact, diplomatic. Journalism is neither; and a crowd of journalists tends to make a place look a mess. They also go where the news is bad, and stir things up. This said, I have to report, after very many years at it, that British diplomats are usually far less accessible than, say, American or Israeli ones, Generally, were Ito arrive in a foreign capital of a country in crisis. I would seek out fellow journalists first, then (it' available) the oil men, then the Americans, Israelis and Scandinavians, turning to the British as a kind of last resort.

Such a generalisation conceals the very great help I have often received from British diplomats; but such help has always ' struck me as exceptional, out of the normal run of things, an unsuspected bonus. On one occasion when I was in Moscow I called on Ted Orchard, then the Embassy's Russian expert. He subscribed not only to the Moscow edition of Pravda but also to its provincial editions. The first edition of the Leningrad Pravda contained, by mistake, an accurate account of how Khrushchev had been defeated in the Praesidium of the Communist Party and had retaliated by summoning the full Central Committee of . the party, where he had rounded on his attackers in the Praesidium and had them disgraced. The details of this were one of the very few scoops of my journalistic life, and I owed them entirely to the perspicacious diligence of a friendly British diplomat,

Assistance of a different kind was afforded to several of us in the Congo, by the consul in Elizabethville, who issued us with authority to travel to Northern Rhodesia to pick up our supplies of money; one or two of us making the somewhat hazardous cash run on behalf of all our colleagues. Such was the tension of those horrible days that we repaid his kindness by removing his Union Jack, as part of a general game in which we sought to collect such flags much as Red Indians collected scalps.

Our friendly relations with the consul in Elizabethville were not, however, typical of those with the then ambassador in Leopoldville,who, when Dicky Williams of the BBC, Sandy Gall, then of Reuters, and I (Express) were arrested, threatened with execution, held under hose arrest, and, having first been protected by Tunisian troops, and then flown to the comparative safety of Leo by the United Nations, wanted nothing to do with us at all, taking the view that we had been thorough nuisances. Another diplomat, Ralph Bunche of the United Nations, also thought journalists were nuisances. His reports from the Congo were interminably long, and contained material usually about three days old. The New York Times's Henry Tanner and I, on more than one occasion, bribed the friendly Congolese telex operator to break the UN's telex connection and place our calls on the line. When Bunche complained bitterly, Tanner told him not to send such long messages and I advised him that the UN would find it easier and quicker to read Tanner in the Times than obsolescent Bundle.

But this is supposed to be about the British abroad. I must have been to dozens of their cocktail parties and dinner parties and garden parties; and I can scarcely recall one of them, Of all the innumerable drinks I have received from ambassadors and first secretaries and military attaches, I remember only one with absolute. clarity: that was in Belgrade, when Selwyn Lloyd as Foreign Secretary was visiting, and decided to brief us. I arrived late, flustered, hot and thirsty. I was given a large tumbler with a decent scotch in it. I diluted it with what I took to be water, and took a hefty gulp. The water unhappily was vodka.

The grandest party I attended was at the British embassy in Washington, given in honour of the Royal Ballet, and with Camelot on full parade; the grandest of the embassies I have visited is ours in Paris, if Peking be excluded (for we now no longer possess that magnificent complex, and indeed we may not even visit it. The old British consulate on Shanghai's waterfront, itself far bigger than most embassies, is lost, too, but part of it is now a Friendship store: I paid it a nostalgic visit, and the mood infected others of our company, so much so that Katharine Whitehorn began playing 'Drink to me only', while David Bonavia, tears in his eyes, sang the words. Shortly afterwards we were asked to leave the Friendship store). In Paris, incidentally, it is not only the embassy which is grand. One of the most beautiful flats I have been in used, and I dare say still is, to be occupied by a Counsellor, I think. Paris was usually a friendly embassy. Sometimes they would take us aside and show us The telegrams, when the French were being bloody.

And let me not neglect to single out the marvellous help we received from the British embassies in Vienna and Budapest during the Hungarian revolution. For most of the three months or so of' that tragic story, the most reliable source of news was from the British embassy in Budapest. It had a radio link with Vienna, and put out a daily bulletin. This bulletin was read out to the British journalists in Vienna, most generously and most untypically,

I was never based abroad; so I never knew diplomats well. They were intelligent, those I met; this was noticeable when the Foreign and Commonwealth offices merged. Those who came from the Commonwealth Relations Office were decidedly inferior to the Foreign Office chaps, as was made clear to them, what is more. But what was the use of this intelligence? I seldom discovered. What the use of their endless parties, constantly taking in each other's gin and gossip? Manifestly, none, They have lived, and live, in great state, as befitting the representatives of imperial majesty. But where is the imperiurn? It is good to feel superior, drinking sundowners served by uniformed natives in baroque splendour in hot climes; but is it good for Britain? It might be, Locals are snobs, and British embassies are usually good addresses. After all, we bought them when the gorng was good. I'd keep them, but cut down on the diplomats, and open them up to the traders (and even to the journalists). As for the Foreign and Diplomatic Service, why not make it just another department in the Civil Service and share the trips abroad, and the palaces and the free booze ,and the perks around a bit? The nasty spots could be used as punishment — exile for the Treasury mandarins, and the big spenders,