bout de papier, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2001) — Summer 2001 // Été 2001, pp. 24–26
When Plans Go Astray — by Bill Cockburn
Visits by Ministers and other VIPs can be the bane of a diplomat’s existence at an overseas post – so many things to go awry, so little appreciation when things go right. Murphy’s Law usually takes over. One incident, forever etched in my memory, occurred on my first posting, to our embassy in Bonn. It involved a visit by a Very Senior Official for high-level discussions on scientific cooperation. He told us by telex that he wished to you make the visit on a certain date. I warned him with some urgency that this date presented major problems, since huge environmental demonstrations were expected to coincide. Thirty-five special trains and fleets of chartered buses would be bringing close to 300,000 demonstrators from other parts of Germany, doubling the city’s population. Our VIP thanked me for the warning but insisted this was the date he had planned on and any change to his schedule would be very inconvenient.
The day turned out hot and sunny. All the embassy cars being otherwise occupied, I had to use my own car to meet our senior boffin at the airport, across the river and about 25 kilometres from Bonn. He arrived on time, complete with his luggage. So far, so good!
However, just as we left the airport road, my muffler developed a catastrophic leak. Nothing daunted, we set out – noisily – on the road to Bonn and immediately encountered scattered groups of protesters wending their way on foot towards the city. They blocked the entire carriageway and showed no inclination to allow us to pass. We crawled along behind them for about a kilometre, then were stopped completely. I realized resolute action was needed. Unfortunately, there were no turn-offs nearby, only an on-ramp some 200 metres behind us. Showing the steely-nerved initiative for which the Canadian foreign service is rightly renowned, I reversed rapidly to the junction and started to back cautiously up the ramp. A mistake! Almost immediately, a police car materialized fromnowhere.
The nice policeman proceeded to deliver a cutting explanation of German traffic laws, threatened to confiscate my licence and finally sent us ignominiously back to the autobahn to crawl along to the next legal exit. Did I mention that it was hot and that my car was not equipped with air conditioning? We finally managed to get off the main highway with its impenetrable crowds of demonstrators, drove up the east side of the Rhine past Bonn and crossed the river by ferry some considerable distance south of the city, then doubled back towards the city centre. The 20-minute trip took us three-and-a-half hours altogether.
When we got to within two blocks of the hotel, we were stopped again by the police and told we could take the car no further, nor was I permitted to park there. So my distinguished visitor got out of the car, perhaps thankfully, grabbed his two heavy suitcases and finished the journey on foot. To give him his due, he turned round as he left me and said ruefully, “Well, you told me not to come!”
Would that all distinguished visitors were so understanding. Would that more of them stayed home!
Trudeaumania — by Bill Warden
By the 1980s, even if Trudeaumania had largely evaporated in Canada, its traces lingered on abroad.
In October of 1983, Mr. Trudeau arrived in New Delhi for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. The conference happened to coincide with one of the Prime Minister’s major peace initiatives and his plan was to stop for a few hours in Delhi, meet with Mrs. Gandhi, and then carry on to China for two days before returning to India.
I met Mr. Trudeau at the airport and accompanied him and his two sons to the government-owned Ashoka Hotel. In the lobby, the Indian Protocol Department had assembled some 20 lovely young ladies whose job it was to act as hostesses during the meeting. As we entered, the young ladies spotted Mr. Trudeau and there was something of any unholy rush as they charged into the centre of the lobby, asking for a photograph with him. Mr. Trudeau, of course, complied with alacrity. After depositing his bags in the suite and holding a brief meet-sly ing with Mrs. Gandhi, Mr. Trudeau then suggested to me that we find a ’folksy’ restaurant for dinner prior to returning to the airport and departing for China. I asked him how folksy, and he said,
“Very!” “Well,” I replied, “in that case, there is always the Moti
Mahal.” The Moti Mahal in Old Delhi specialised in all kinds of chicken and was about as folksy as you can get. This appealed to him and so I sought out the Indian security people and informed them of his plans. They were absolutely aghast. He can’t go there, they said. No security. Dutifully, I reported back to the Prime Minister whose response was, “Well, I’m going anyway!”
Off we headed to Moti Mahal. By the time we arrived, all the usual patrons had been hurriedly removed and replaced with rather obvious male and female security officers affecting familial bliss while enjoying a good meal at government expense. Towards the end of the meal, one of the PM’s aides came up and whispered to him: “Those girls you had your picture taken with … they’ve all been fired.” Off we went to the airport. Just as he was going up the steps to the aircraft, Mr. Trudeau said to me: “I’d like you to get those girls reinstated!”
By around three in the morning, I managed to find a protocol officer and explain the situation. He was quite adamant. They broke the rules and they had to suffer the consequences. I appealed to his sense of pride. “Look,” I said, “the only better greeting you could have provided for him would have been to have 50 beautiful women ask for his photo instead of 20!” “Besides, .” I said, “the first thing he is going to ask me when he gets off the plane on return is, ’What happened to those girls?’” The gentleman held out little hope but promised to get back to me the following day. The next day the Chief of Protocol called to say that, as a special favour to Mr. Trudeau, the women had been rehired.
Right on cue, Mr. Trudeau on debarking the aircraft two days later asked, “What happened to those girls?” He was delighted when I told him that they had all been reinstated. We returned to the Ashoka. The same young women were all lined up in the lobby. This time, however, they didn’t so much as budge or flicker an eyelash. Mr. Trudeau stopped for a moment and surveyed the scene as if he had just walked into Madame Tussaud’s. Then, with a mischievous twinkle in the eye, he sidled up to one of the ladies and whispered, “How did the photo turn out?”
Bridging the Gap — by Sheila Coutts
It was one of those interminable multilateral meetings. Two texts were on the table; somehow, during the course of that night, a single unified text that everyone could live with had to be forged out of the differing language of the two. Two wordings which, to the uninitiated eye, seemed deceptively similar, but which in their contorted phrasing hid vast differences of intent. Discussion grew stale, circular; no breakthroughs seemed likely. We were in for a very long night.
A Western European ambassador, 60 or so, bluff, no-nonsense, stubborn, scowling, rose to his feet to exhort the rest of us to greater efforts. “The language,” he said, “is really not so far apart. Think. Think back over the last few months. Think of all the excellent ideas you’ve had, that you’ve written down on bits of paper, mulled over, then perhaps put away in a drawer and forgotten. One of those ideas might be the solution to the dilemma that faces us tonight. Think back to those ideas, those phrases. One will be enough to bridge the gap between us. It’s not such a big gap. All it needs is some goodwill, to remember those good ideas now lying forgotten in drawers. Why,” he said, drawing himself up to his full height and thumping his chest, “I’m sure I’ve got something hidden in my drawers that could bridge any gap!”
A stunned silence fell. The junior Canadian delegate, among several others, was then suddenly overcome by a terrible coughing fit and had to flee the room.
The Story of the Silver Tray — by Patricia Fortier
We are diplomats, but we are not born understanding all the nuances of the trade. We learn them, or, if we are lucky, some experienced dip, wise in its ways, tells us something that illuminates the hidden corners. So let me tell you one of the classic diplomatic stories which I offer as a cautionary tale, or even a parable, but is nonetheless true.
It was a dark and stormy night and our dip hero was in his slippers reading when the call came through. The protagonist is a fellow named Stan, who rose to the heights of the Service and now is happy golfing. But before all the glory and the golf, stan was just a Foreign Service Officer on his first posting as an ambassador. Not only was he anxious to fulfill all the arcane requirements of a plenipotentiary but he was also acutely aware of the regional wars and the fragile hopes for peace, since it was the mid-1980s and he was accredited to most Central American countries. So when, shortly after his arrival in Costa Rica, an evening call came from the Head of the Diplomatic Corps for a special emergency meeting, Stan shed his slippers, leaped into his formal togs, and sped through the lightning-slashed darkness to the forbidding castle that is the Residence of the Papal Nuncio and the seat of the Diplomatic Corps.
Stan entered the Residence dripping and late, shed his coat into the hands of a silent nun, hurried into the hall where he found a seat in the last row, sat, and surveyed the assembled ambassadors. They were all wearing suits and serious expressions.
The Head of the Diplomatic Corps, the Papal Nuncio, rose from his place and began to speak with all the authority of the Church and State. He had called together this gathering to deal with a sensitive and important issue. A Latin American Ambassador had been recalled to his native country early to deal with a government crisis. This in itself was a deeply felt loss for the Corps, but it also raised a critical policy issue. The Ambassador had served only one year and ten months as ambassador to Costa Rica.
However, as everyone is aware, according to the rules, only ambassadors who have served two years or more are eligible to receive their farewell silver tray from the Corps. Therefore, given the Ambassador’s high standing in the diplomatic community, the fact that he had served almost two years, and the involuntary nature of his departure, the urgent question which we had to answer tonight was: Should we give him a silver tray anyway?
Much buzzing and weighty nods of heads while thunder rumbled (it was, after all, the rainy season). There were a few legalistic points raised but the matter went to a quick and secret vote while Stan was still absorbing its impact. The vote was counted equally quickly and the result announced: there was a slim margin in opposition to giving the Ambassador the silver tray.
Then, one after another, the Ambassador’s Latin American colleagues stood up to call for a second vote. They expressed their appreciation of this vital issue, their admiration for the Ambassador, and their whole-hearted support for giving him the silver tray. Several of these ambassadors gave very affecting speeches where they talked about the possible trauma the Ambassador might suffer if he didn’t receive his remembrance tray – “There they will be, all the trays from his many ambassadorships, in sequence, but in the middle … an empty space… where the tray from Costa Rica should be.”
At the end of this long discussion, during which almost every representative spoke and Stan sat quiet and a little stunned by it all, the Ambassador in question stood up and gave a graceful speech of thanks for all the kind words. He sat down to prolonged applause and an almost palpable wave of warm feeling. It was decided; on to the second round. Stan, of course, didn’t know the departing Ambassador but, wishing to align himself with the sentiments so clearly expressed by all around him, he voted again to give the Ambassador the tray.
The secret vote took place once more and the result of this second round was announced. It was overwhelming. Every ambassador in the room, with the exception of Stan and one anonymous other, had voted against giving the Ambassador his farewell tray.
The meeting broke up soon after with amicable leave-takings and absolutely no discussion of what had just occurred. Stan rode home in the dark with a lot to think about and just a little wiser in the ways of diplomacy, and he told me this story just before we went out on our first ambassadorial posting.
Don’t Everyone Talk at Once — by Michel Perrault
The scene is a Conference Hall in Seoul, South Korea, in the late 1990s. An impressive array of personalities from government and academic circles from around the Pacific and Asia are gathered for an important international symposium. A competent team of simultaneous interpreters and translators is on hand and ready to ’face the music’
As people take their seats and put on their audio ’earmuffs’ to follow the speeches and presentations, everyone turns to the large screen ahead to find out which channel is carrying the proceedings in his or her language. Here is what they read:
“Channel 1: Korean Channel 2: English Channel 3: All Others…’
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2001) — Summer 2001 // Été 2001, pp. 24–26. Read the rest of this issue →
