The making of a diplomat
Geoffrey Furlong
The New Diplomacy and its Apparatus (Plume Press/Ward Lock £2.95)
In a disarming introduction to this rather diffuse book, the author expresses the hope that it will be read by " the intelligent layman " and also by those " whose ambition it is to become diplomats." The scanty annual intake of the diplomatic service suggests that his hopes must in fact be pinned on the laymen. Certainly many of them, intelligent and otherwise, are interested in foreign affairs. Some may even seek to know more about those who conduct them and the methods by which they are conducted. There was thus probably room (as the meagre bibliography suggests) for a book describing the various facets of ' diplomacy ' and the composition and operation of Foreign Services, illustrated by examples of international conflicts and the manner in which they have been, are being, or might be handled.
The book fulfils some of these needs. It lists the various world organisations and comments on the more important of them. It portrays the diplomatic scene, and analyses. compares and assesses the different Foreign Services — American, British, Russian and others. By way of illustration, it chronicles the careers of real, and typical-imaginary, British diplomats, and relates a reasonably authentic-sounding story of how an imaginary crisis is handled by the British, American, French, and Russian Embassies on the spot and by their respective Foreign Offices. Its last chapter contains a list of proposals for improving the British Diplomatic Service.
So far so good. The author has, however, attempted to broaden the scope of hiswork in two respects: first by indulging in lengthy disquisitions_ga v_arious aspects of contemporary inteptatlonal relations, and secondly by makinIVe book the vehicle for the thesis which dgives,it its name, i.e., that' old-fashion ed cliplofnat,tc'techniques are out of date and that modern Wor1c1 conditions require to be dealt with.bneW ' methods if our best interests are to be served and disaster avoided.
The first of these interpolations suffers from two serious drawbacks. One is that the six-month time-lag between writing and publication results in many of the statements and opinions expressed being out of date, and therefore confusing, before they are read; the author's ' postscript ' is inadequate to remedy this. The other is that a survey of international affairs, to be of value, require a deeper perception, a wider range of knowledge, and a more objective approach than the author seems able to command. Much of his analysis might fairly be described as a catalogue of self-evident truths; but some passages — e.g. the insistence on the need to abandon the British nuclear deterrent, the apparently approving quotations from Mr Wedgwood Benn on the futility of Diplomatic Services, and the confident prediction that Ulster will be part of what Mr McDermott describes as Eire ' by 1985 — read more like a party manifesto than a balanced appreciation. The recurrent insistence on the need to increase financial aid to the developing countries makes no mention of the main difficulty confronting dispensers of such aid, namely that of ensuring that it reaches deserving recipients.
As for the new diplomacy,' the author would seem either to have been unfortunate in his former colleagues and chiefs, or to have underrated their intelligence and ability; for much of what he advocates has long since become standard practice. The rest boils down mainly to an eulogy of Dr Kissinger, whose restless activity has undoubtedly pro duced results in the peculiar circumstances in which he has been operating, namely the mu
tual fear of two super-powers and the consequent anxiety of both to mend their fences with the third, but are certainly not of universal application and could not be imitated by the representatives of lesser powers, The author's own account of the Wilson Government's inept meddling in Vietnam cogently demonstrates this.
The proposals for the reform of the Diplomatic Service (where not already in force) are for the most part sensible. The author is, for example, undoubtedly right in urging that postings of Diplomatic Secretaries should be prolonged from the present two to three years to five or more, at least in those parts of the world, such as the Middle East, where an officer's usefulness increases pan i passti with his familiarity with the local scene. Even here, however, he is unable to avoid mounting that cherished hobby-horse of Labour politicians, the " broadening of the basis of the Diplomatic Service," which is apparently based on the grounds that that Service can only hope to present a faithful image of the United Kingdom abroad if its composition is drawn equally, or as equally as possible, from all strata of our society. Whether foreigners will be more inclined to respect, listen to, or trade with us because some of our representatives in their countries come from a lower class-stratum than the traditional Eton-and-Magdalen seems singularly doubtful. In the reviewer's experience, the qualities which make for an effective officer — and the defects which make for a bad one — are confined to no one class or educational product.
Sir Geoffrey Furlong retired from the Diplomatic Service in 1961. He has been our Ambassador in Jordan, Bulgaria and Ethiopia.
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