The diplomatic muse

JEFFERSON CHASE

Why it is impossible to represent a nation and serve the republic of letters at the same time

Unlike Justice, the muse who inspires diplomatic literature is not blind-folded; instead of a bandage, she wears rose-tinted spectacles. Like the wise monkeys of the East, she permits herself to speak no evil, whatever she may pick up in the way of gossip. Philosophically, she is a devotee of Professor Coué and repeats daily the creed, that we are growing better and better in every way. She is not silent. On the contrary, she is positively garrulous, but the moment she begins to say anything which makes sense, she is muzzled. Of all the fallacies, the idea that it is possible to combine the pursuit of literature with the practice of diplomacy is the most fatally unfair. It probably originated, in this country, with the late practice of granting ministerial appointments, honoris causa, to such eminent literary obstetricians as Dr. James Russell Lowell, Thomas Nelson Page, Henry Van Dyke, Motley, and Walter Hines Page. On the other hand, it is all but impossible to name any diplomat—any real, honest-to-God practising diplomatist—who has ever made a real reputation for himself as an author.

That is not to say that diplomats do not write books. On the contrary, they write far too many of them, but their books are either dull or, if interesting, inaccurate. They contribute nothing to history except soft soap, nothing to literature except pomposity.

A conscientious diplomat is helpless at the outset. He cannot praise the scenery of Czechoslovakia, for example, without enraging the politicians of Hungary and the hotel-keepers of Switzerland. He cannot create a villain unless he is of Russian nationality or of "Red" political complexion. He cannot reveal the inordinate imbecilities of the world's foreign offices without breaking the seal of the confessional. He cannot report his conversations with important statesmen, without betraying confidences. He has to go on tiptoe through tulips of protocol, with a lily in one hand and an aide-memoire in the other, until he is permitted, at the end of a long and pleasant career of eating public banquets, to give vent to two volumes of memoirs, letters and political observations on defunct controversies.

Even then he has no choice of the sort of memoirs he may write. The British appear to have an Act of Parliament, making it mandatory on every diplomat who has lived long enough to become an Ambassador to produce a two-volume account of himself, complete with photographs and an admirable index. Not even an Act of Congress could prevent any American who served for as long as two months in the capacity of chief of a diplomatic mission from letting the public know all. So the British struggle bravely along with their Curzons and their Balfours, their Buchanans and their Barings and Moriers, while we, for our part, have our Gerards, our Morgenthaus, our Gibsons and our Henry Whites, not to mention the translucent Mr. Walter Hines Page and the ineffable Colonel House.

Of the two, the British model is safer, if not quite so gay, and has produced the standard Britain diplomatic autobiography, along the following lines: Forty Years, Forty Posts, the Diplomatic Recollections of Sir Arnold Rockbottome, Viscount Dregakeg, K.C.B. In {he latter's work there are pictures of the Viscount with a string of snipe in Moravia, with a dead aurochs in East Prussia, with a dead moufflon in Bulgaria, a dead fox in Ireland, a dead stag in Italy, a dead wild boar in Russia, with pet armadilloes in Brazil and pet Congressmen in America. Still other pictures show Sir Arnold, surrounded by his respective and obviously bored staffs, in uniform on the steps of the Legation at Athens, Bogota, Berne and Montevideo, and a view of the compound at Peking. There are, moreover, no less than fifty remarkably fine views of negro women in a state calculated to emphasize the fact that they are mammals, taken when Viscount Dregakeg (an old Scottish title) was detailed as Vice-Governor of Swastikaland. There are also views of Dregakeg Castle; Eton College; and Magdalen College, Oxford.

If you have the heart to read Forty Years, Forty Posts, you will be pleased to discover (page 43) that "the year I spent in America was one of the most pleasant in my career and I number many Americans among my dearest friends." On page 67, you will read that "the year I spent in Brazil was one of the most pleasant in my life and I number many of my dearest friends in Rio de Janeiro." On page 143, you make a similar discovery about Swastikaland, and so on through Cuba, Greece, Switzerland, China and Berlin. The books conclude with a chapter which announces, without equivocation, that Lord Roseberry was Foreign Minister when young Rockbottome entered the diplomatic service, that Curzon was a remarkable person, that Balfour was a bachelor, and that British diplomats ought to receive higher salaries.

The American variant is rather breezier in tone, consisting chiefly of letters, diaries and accounts of interviews. It is published one or two times a year under some such title as The Life and Letters of Joseph R. Peters, Ameri- can Ambassador to Great Britain (or France, or Germany, or Italy, or Japan), from 19— to 19—. This book, in two volumes as a rule, contains fine photographs of the White House, of the Embassy, of the Houses of Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, and, to fill in, of Joffre, Foch, Ludendorff, Haig, Wilson, Taft, Roosevelt, McKinley, Clemenceau, Colonel House, Lloyd George, Sonnino, Lenin and Trotsky, and of Mrs. Peters, Miss Peters, and the SS Leviathan on which they crossed. At the risk of plagiarism, a few passages must be quoted:

"Tuesday, June 15th. Called to-day at the Foreign Office and had a long intimate talk with Foreign Minister about World Peace. He agreed that we—England and America— ought to do something about it. I assured him that the President was a great big man and felt that way about things. I asked Sir Thomas if I might call him 'Tom'. He said 'no', but later reconsidered and said he would let me call him 'Thomas' when nobody was listening, if America would reduce her tariff on wool. I agreed, as I believed in teaching these Old World aristocrats the meaning of shirt-sleeve diplomacy. Sir Thomas is a very fine man and fully shares the President's ideals.

"Friday, June 25th. Received an idiotic telegram from Washington telling me I ought not to have given up the wool tariff. Went right over to the Foreign Office and asked Sir Thomas what we had better do about it. He laughed and said: 'Peters, I am relying on you to help me stop a great war this week, so I suppose we'll have to humor your government'. We talked it over and agreed that the most practical compromise was for the United States to build no more warships for ten years, if Sir Thomas got me elected to the Jockey Club and was photographed standing with me at Ascot.

"Saturday, July 3rd. Photograph at Ascot a great success. Appeared in all evening papers, entitled 'Foreign Minister Consulting Bookmaker'—a rather witty reference to my previous career as a publisher. Unfortunately, the camera-man snapped Sir Thomas just as he was bowing to Royalty, with the result that the Foreign Minister's features were partially obscured by his pearl-grey topper, but the Bystander promised to mention this incident in 'Social Chit-Chat and What Not'. Washington wires that they can't understand why it is necessary to sink the American Navy. They simply don't understand practical politics at home. I wrote the President to-day and told him so.

"Monday, July 12th. Told Sir Thomas today that I had been recalled. His eyes twinkled sadly and a spasm of real emotion crossed his face as he said he hoped that my successor would do as much as I had done to cement international friendship and to prevent wars. I was sorry to say good-bye to Sir Thomas. He is a very fine gentleman, although he is a little too naive and unsuspecting to cope with American diplomacy."

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Amusing though this type of diplomatic literature may he, it is our only contribution of recent years to the diplomatic muse. The fate of the diplomat who creates real literature or who writes the truth is swift and painful to contemplate. It is safer to shout "To Hell with the Pope!" in County Cork than it is for a diplomat to write an important hook. On completing his most brilliant hook Portrait of a Diplomatist, Mr. Nicolson resigned from the British Diplomatic Service, in which he had served with distinction for many years, to devote himself more exclusively to literature.

In the American service such accidents are rare. In the first place, the American service attracts few men with original ideas. In the second place, few American diplomats can write anything which anybody would pay to read. In the third place, they haven't got the nerve to do so. In the fourth place, they would be fired if they had.