Dear George . .
WE last discussed foreign affairs seriously some ten years ago. It was when you were rather tired after successfully making Nikita Sergeyevich reveal himself in his true Tory colours. Even at that moment you expected that the Transport and General Workers' Union, in your person, would one day regain the office which is its traditional right under a Labour government. But you were modest enough to say, as I recall, that when the great day came—and how long it has been in coming—you hoped that someone would give you a few tips about foreigners and the Foreign Office. Now the time has come to redeem my promise. It seems better- to write you a letter because it will be more than usually difficult for you to manage meetings in the next few weeks.
As you know so well, no craftsman can work without good tools. In your new job I can't recommend you too strongly to start by buying a good modern atlas. It must be one with a gazetteer so that you will not be foxed by tele- grams from, say, Tegucigalpa or Bamako. You will remember that Ernie Bevin himself found it at first difficult instantly to recall where Guatemala was—and that's a piece of knowledge that you, too, will need by all accounts. In techni- cal diplomatic language, plus ca change . . . Then, if there's room at Carlton Gardens, a nice big globe would look well; it helps to remind one that the world is round and impresses the foreigners.
The Foreign Office will give you plenty of pencils and red ink for writing rude bits on other people's work. But I should buy a new pen. One of those huge ones like a crayon would be best. Then, however little you write, it will look a lot and there won't be room to say what you really mean. Obscurity is the diplomatist's first defence. Your writing paper will be thick and deeply impressive but quite impersonal. I should get some with your name on. After all, you are a lot bigger than the job. Then what about some personalised matches? With your initials, it's nearly as good as being called de Gaulle, and a happy pun can often break the ice with foreigners.
And while we're on the subject of immortality, do insist on having your signature put back into the passports. New ones last for fifteen years. Besides, if they have to change them when you go, it will make it more expensive for Harold to switch you after eighteen months. Why, you might even get Jim wanting you to stay on!
Then there's your own office. I know the Ministry of Works will say the place is coming down and so you can't spend any money, but the building will last you out and George III really must go. If Harold won't give you one of his own portraits, you could always get an allegorical work—the Labour Movement struggling with the mists of time, perhaps, or the Common Man cross- ing the Channel with ISO but no passport. Lastly, photographs of yourself. You can't have too many. The Foreign Office will pay and with enough of the right sizes on you, you need never give tips when you go abroad—not even staying in your own embassies. If I were you, I should try to get colour snaps: no Foreign Secretary ever has before, but the President always gives them out.
Once you're kitted up, the next thing is the people. There may seem to be rather a lot at first—with thirty-one departments—but, then, it isn't as though we still had an empire. I wouldn't try to get rid of them all at once. On the whole, they are quite easy to deal with, and anyway they are the best foreign service we've got. It's not right to be down on their clothes either. A chap like you probably doesn't realise at they wear the uniform because it's cheaperlIP stands to reason if you think about it. A jacket outlasts a pair of trousers, but two pairs of trousers outlast one jacket. So you buy three pairs of trousers and two coats at a time. But then you find you are bored with the suit. The Foreign Office has got round that one by actually making it smart to wear trousers that don't match. You've got to hand it to them. I am sure you'll get along with them very well in no time. Just remember to call the Foreign Office the Office—not the lesser office, by the way—and learn a few Chris- tian names. If you can't get the names off pat, choose a general-purpose Christian name and call everyone you don't know by it. The idea has undertones of Pratt's Club and will estab- lish you as a character.
You really ought to start by giving your chaps a bit of a lift. They're feeling rather low just now, what with listening to the French lecturing them, amalgamating with the CRO and Harold's little local humiliations in Moscow and Washing- ton. So why not show them that you're on their side and haven't lost your old skill at dealing with the bosses? I suppose you can't very well raise their pay, although you ought to. But there are always the fringe benefits to go for. The Plowden Report produced a lot of good ideas and look how popular they were. Some more on the same lines are about due. I would suggest a decent insurance for accidental death in the service: it is a human thought and cheap into the bargain.
You should find the work easy enough as long as you don't try to read all the telegrams. They come in some very pretty colours. The most amusing are the pink ones. They go out in your name, but you will not have seen most of them before dispatch. You'll find a lot of minutes coming up to you. Remember Winston's tip about them: if you read alternate paragraphs consecu- tively, you get a fair statement of each side of the case. Then there are the briefs you'll get whenever you have a meeting. Be careful with these: they always belie their name. If you use them, you won't recognise yourself or your policy : if you just throw them away, you'll make everyone very unhappy. Much the best is to re- write them yourself, but there's no time for that. You must just find someone who can do it for you. The speeches are rather the same, although you will find that the Foreign Office do at least know that the speeches of politicians are acts of policy. Presumably you will have to endure a general foreign affairs debate in the House from time to time. Do stop your speech sounding like a universal vote of thanks with every corner of the world getting an honourable mention.
Then I expect they will want you to go on trips abroad if Jim lets you have the money! The sad thing is that you will only be welcome where you don't want to go. Irrelevant and dull places like getting visits—and this applies to the British embassies as much as to the foreigners. Equally, it's no use forcing yourself in where you're not wanted. So it means that you have somehow to persuade the people you want to visit that they want you to come.
This leads me to the last and most difficult point. Do you want to have a foreign policy? There's no real need to, of course, and a lot of Foreign Secretaries have had none at all. And even if you have one you will probably not get far with it. Still, you may want to feel that you are trying to do something besides just staying in your job. I heard a rumour the other day that you want to help ordinary people everywhere to understand each other better. That's a splendid election slogan, but it is not a foreign policy.
As this is a personal letter, you won't mind my rubbing in that Foreign Secretaries don't deal with foreigners in the mass but with foreign governments—and that's a very different thing. In fact, appealing to the people over the heads or behind the backs of their governments was a favourite Soviet technique at one time. But it's like talking to the lads without the union. It's unpopular and usually doesn't work. And if you deal with governments you have no chance of carrying through agreements they dislike on a wave of personal enthusiasm.
No, you'll have to think of a policy. Europe would be one line—although it worries me to think of you trying to jolly the General. Another thing worries me, too. Why do you suppose Harold made you Foreign Secretary? He knows you as a European, everyone does. Of course, he knew you were an expansionist when he gave you the DEA—and look what happened there! So I just wonder whether he has given you the Foreign Office to let you take us into Europe or to give him an alibi for keeping us out. All the same, Europe is what you believe in and it's probably the best policy to go for. It would be quite a turn-up for the book if it came off There are lots of other points that you might find useful. The way the Japanese think it polite to smile when they are sad, for example, or the objections which Moslems feel to their wives being embraced by other men. However, I have written long enough for your first week. It re- mains for me to wish you the best of British luck, which I do very warmly.
As your admirable private secretaries will un- doubtedly open this letter, you will understand if I sign myself, Yours fraternally, W. S. LANDOR JUNIOR
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