PERSONAL COLUMN

My secret file

DAVID WALDER

Somehow or other all that range of activities from espionage to its respectable but distant relation, diplomacy, manages to stay with us, both in fact and in fiction. Callan and Le Carre, secrets trials, interviews with Philby, a book by Maclean, spies released and spies exchanged; Mr Houghton and Miss Gee, diplomats stoned and diplomats kidnapped; the CIA, KGB, MI5, 6 and 9. The telly offers little else in the late evening but men in overcoats with stubby revolvers and syringes. Political novels are made nonsense by blackmailed Home Secretaries, and detective stories are disfigured by microdots.

Alas, I can take none of it, fact or fiction (especially fact), seriously. I think that there may be reasons for this personal reaction. Certainly under interrogation I would have to admit to a 'background'. For all I know, in some secret whitewashed cellar I may have a file.

For the truth is that many years ago I tried to enter the Foreign Office. In my own defence I can say that the atmosphere of Ox- ford in the early 'fifties, and especially of my own rather snobbish college, was conducive to that sort of behaviour. (I thought of the Colonial Service as well, but one of my tutors said quite firmly, 'people from here don't go there.') It seemed at the time a fairly harmless thing to do. A number of my. friends also saw themselves in the old-fashioned phrase as 'reading for the diplomatic'. We dipped into Harold Nicolson and Daniel Varre and had visions of ourselves eventually knighted, in knee breeches, our gold-frogged tailcoats bedecked with the KCMG, and the Order of the Seraphim, or the Redeemer or St Xavier with palms, making our dignified way up some wide staircase. 'I see Fido's got Rome', we would murmur when we crossed each other in London.

Strangely, it never entered our heads that we should be refused an opportunity to sip the Embassy martinis while we read the deciphered telegrams. My only moment of doubt was when an elderly and frank ac- quaintance said, 'You'll never make it. You haven't got Foreign Office hair.' Undeterred, however, by what proved to be a very perceptive observation, I duly presented myself with my friends and we did a number of tests involving squares and triangles, primarily for those suffering from a high degree of illiteracy.

This system of selection was (I learned later) foisted on Ernie Bevin by some warped official in the interests of social justice. What it did in that cause I cannot tell, but it did remove from the lists most of the really intelligent competitors.

Not being in their class, I survived the pat- terns and the children's games and went on to the interviews. I can still recall the ques- tion-and-answer sessions, round a large, Curzonesque table, with a feeling of com- pletely unsullied pleasure.

QUESTION: Mr Walder, what was your basic function during your National Service in Malaya?

ANSWER: To kill communist terrorists.

Q: But surely there were other considera- tions, peace, rehabilitation—? A: Yes, of Cburse; but you said 'basic'. Later, Q: Mr Walder, have you considered any other careers, such as industry or com- merce?

A: No. (A lie.) Q: But they are both vital to our well-being as a nation.

A: So are drains, but—

Childish, maybe, but utterly satisfying. Anyhow, it was not as bad as the performance of one of my friends, who fiddled nervously with the table and ex- tracted an unreturnable, foot-long piece of wood with brass attachments which he placed neatly on the polished surface before making his exit. Both of us had said farewell to diplomacy, the martinis and the xcmci long before the sad but firm letters arrived.

Then I met a man in a pub; I can't remem- ber his name now; as a matter of fact I couldn't remember it then. Our paths had crossed in the Army. He was in the Depart- ment of Government Organisation or some- thing. I was no wiser. It was part of the For- eign Office and would, he thought, like to in- terview me. Someone would write, ,he said.

I doubted it, but he was right and I was wrong. Someone did; and accordingly four men, all in spectacles and blue suits, turned up, rather appropriately, at one of the more obscure Oxford colleges. I can only assume, for it was all a bit secretive, that they in- terviewed others in addition to myself. I can only hope that they had better luck with them than with me, otherwise it must have been an unproductive little day.

QUESTION: Mr Walder, would you like to join our department?

A: I don't know, because I don't know what you do.

Q: We can't tell you that, but if you have any other questions—?

A: (or Q): Would I go abroad? Q (or A): We can't really say ...

I think one of them, his reflexes sharpened in many a tight corner, no doubt, managed to shake my hand before I got to the door.

The cocked bat, the dress sword were already out; so, now, quite obviously, were the collapsible aerial and the Minox camera. So I took my undoubted facility for question and answer work off to the Bar where it was much appreciated, I gather, by honest but confused and tongue-tied witnesses.

Now, like Edith Piaf, I have no regrets, but just now and then the odd question does

occur to mind. Who did go into the Depart-

ment of Government Organisation? What sort of man, and perhaps more interesting, why and how? In an age of deterrence, when the Soviet Union trundles its most fearsome weapons through Red Square annually for all to see and when everyone gleefully an- nounces the explosion of their latest nuclear device, what secrets do they seek to preserve? Once upon a time the recovered plans would be quickly thrust by the Countess Maritza down the bosom of her dress; now they have already been broadcast by the Ruritanian press and radio to keep the Fantasians in awe and fear. Perhaps those blue-suited men are all out of a job.

On the fate of my contemporaries who became conventional diplomats (in-

cidentally, they all had sleek Foreign Office

hair), I need not speculate. While in the service most of them tended to be absent

from their embassies when I had the oc-

casion to visit the countries to which they were accredited. This, I like to think, was mere chance, but in any event it is of no im- portance now, for nearly all have given up their chance of being His Excellency and moved off into the presumably more vital fields of commerce and industry.

Doubtless because of this sizeable wastage of talent, the Foreign Office was last year, I noticed, advertising for recruits. 'Mature en- trants' or some similar phrase was used. Men in their thirties and early forties were re-

quired, presumably those they had mis- judged or missed all that time ago. Ex- perience was desirable, in almost any field apparently, journalism, administration, publicity; politics was not actually forbidden.

I know times have changed. No longer does the chef de protocol hang a ribbon round your neck : he rubs glue in your hair. No longer the drink pressed into your hand, but the thoughts of Mao stuffed up your shirt. Nevertheless, I sent for a form.

It was just the same as before. The size of a bed-sheet. Bantu or Bulgarian could be 'offered'. There were a number of spaces im- possible to fill. 'Employee—I haven't ever really had one. Recommendations from 'Headmaster' and 'Company Commander or equivalent'. After more than twenty years does my headmaster remember me or do I remember my company commander or equivalent? Might not their opinions be ever so slightly out of date? 'Previous Ap- plications'—the mind boggled. I shall watch with interest the progress of those mature, experienced persons who have kept tabs on their headmasters and company commanders or equivalents over the years.

For myself, I tore up the form. It had a number which I have forgotten, but doubtless by a process of elimination it can be ascertained. I say this in the hope that my file can now be closed.