Wrong Sets
One or two pointers may perhaps be made about security from years of onlooking in em- bassies and Behind Curtains. Retired service officers, with their strict and Haig-like notions of society, may not be the best choice for em- bassy security officers. Even retired police officers are accustomed to dealing with a certain kind of villain, especially the kind that has been careless enough to be caught. A wider, even a more raffish knowledge of the world may be needed to recognise the faults of character that make men and women vulnerable. A preter- naturally vain man or woman is at the mercy of pressures that would seem childishly crude to a more calculating and stable mind. Especi- ally, the vain man who cannot admit a mistake to a superior is dangerous. In the context of British class-consciousness, this is important. The gap in political knowledge between senior Foreign Service people and their junior ranks is stunning. Typists go to Moscow without the least idea either of the difference between Com- munism and the Tawney Socialism of Britain; or of what may be expected of them there. Do these young people get no modern history teach- ing in school? They are frightened by the grandness and kindness of those above them, and because of the rancid class-consciousness of our society this breeds an automatic but hidden resentment. This in its turn breeds Vassalls.
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