Sherard Cowper-Coles - Ever the Diplomat - Confessions of a Foreign Office Mandarin

Ever The Diplomat

Confessions of a Foreign Office Mandarin

SHERARD COWPER-COLES

Dedication Dedication List of Illustrations Preface Chapter 1 - The Third Room Chapter 2 - School for Spies Chapter 3 - Death on the Nile Chapter 4 - Immortal Junior Typist Chapter 5 - Potomac Fever Chapter 6 - Back in the Office Chapter 7 - Chinese Take-Away Chapter 8 - Death on the Seine Chapter 9 - The Gnome Secretary Chapter 10 - Poppies of Palestine Chapter 11 - In the Heart of Arabia Chapter 12 - Afghan Afterword Chapter 13 - Envoi Index Picture Section Also by Sherard Cowper-Coles Copyright About the Publisher

For Harry, Rupert, Minna, Freddy, Myles and Louise

Contents

Title Page Ever The Diplomat Confessions of a Foreign Office Mandarin SHERARD COWPER-COLES

Dedication Dedication Dedication List of Illustrations Preface Chapter 1 - The Third Room Chapter 2 - School for Spies Chapter 3 - Death on the Nile Chapter 4 - Immortal Junior Typist Chapter 5 - Potomac Fever Chapter 6 - Back in the Office Chapter 7 - Chinese Take-Away Chapter 8 - Death on the Seine Chapter 9 - The Gnome Secretary Chapter 10 - Poppies of Palestine Chapter 11 - In the Heart of Arabia Chapter 12 - Afghan Afterword Chapter 13 - Envoi Index Picture Section Also by Sherard Cowper-Coles Copyright About the Publisher For Harry, Rupert, Minna, Freddy, Myles and Louise

List of Illustrations List of Illustrations FCO Letter of Appointment ‘Thatcher’s Thesaurus’ Middle East Centre for Arab Studies. Photograph by a local Lebanese photographer TRH The Prince and Princess of Wales, and President and Mrs Sadat. Photograph by a member of the crew of HM Yacht Britannia Foreign Office Planning Staff. © Brian Harris/The Times/NI Syndication Permanent Under Secretary’s office. Photograph by an FCO photographer Congressman Kennedy. Photograph by a member of his staff Mrs Thatcher. Photograph by a member of Blair House staff Governor Patten. © Roger Hutchings/In Pictures/Corbis Hong Kong Handover Ceremony. © Reuters/Jason Reed President’s House, Jerusalem. Photograph by a member of the President’s staff Crown Prince Abdullah, the Prince of Wales and the author. Photograph by a Saudi court photographer Crown Prince Abdullah, Prime Minister and the author. Photograph by a Saudi court photographer All other photographs are from the author’s private collection and were taken either by him or by friends, colleagues or family members

Preface

Chapter 1 - The Third Room

Chapter 2 - School for Spies

Chapter 3 - Death on the Nile

Chapter 4 - Immortal Junior Typist

Chapter 5 - Potomac Fever

Chapter 6 - Back in the Office

Chapter 7 - Chinese Take-Away

Chapter 8 - Death on the Seine

Chapter 9 - The Gnome Secretary

Chapter 10 - Poppies of Palestine

Chapter 11 - In the Heart of Arabia

Chapter 12 - Afghan Afterword

Chapter 13 - Envoi

Index

Picture Section

Also by Sherard Cowper-Coles

Copyright

About the Publisher

List of Illustrations

FCO Letter of Appointment

‘Thatcher’s Thesaurus’

Middle East Centre for Arab Studies. Photograph by a local Lebanese photographer

TRH The Prince and Princess of Wales, and President and Mrs Sadat. Photograph by a member of the crew of HM Yacht Britannia

Foreign Office Planning Staff. © Brian Harris/The Times/NI Syndication

Permanent Under Secretary’s office. Photograph by an FCO photographer

Congressman Kennedy. Photograph by a member of his staff

Mrs Thatcher. Photograph by a member of Blair House staff

Governor Patten. © Roger Hutchings/In Pictures/Corbis

Hong Kong Handover Ceremony. © Reuters/Jason Reed

President’s House, Jerusalem. Photograph by a member of the President’s staff

Crown Prince Abdullah, the Prince of Wales and the author. Photograph by a Saudi court photographer

Crown Prince Abdullah, Prime Minister and the author. Photograph by a Saudi court photographer

All other photographs are from the author’s private collection and were taken either by him or by friends, colleagues or family members

Preface

This book is really a long love letter to an institution – the Foreign Office – for which I worked for some three decades. From the age of twenty-two until I was fifty-five, I was a British diplomat. Formally, I was a member of Her Majesty’s Diplomatic Service, with a commission from the Queen. But for me diplomacy was much more than a job, or even a profession: it was my way of life. It was what I got up for in the morning, and what I went to sleep at night thinking about. For thirty-three years, I looked forward almost every working day to going into the office, or embassy, or wherever work took me. I was never bored. And I didn’t just enjoy being a diplomat. I also believed that what I did as a diplomat mattered in small but important ways. From Ireland to Israel, and Arabia to Afghanistan, in Paris or Washington, in long hours in London worrying about Europe’s future or Hong Kong after the handover, I tried as a minor cog in HMG’s foreign policy machine to make the world work better. I met the people who helped or hindered our efforts. I went to the places where foreign policy happened. I cared about the issues. And at the end of it all I wanted to share some of the highlights and low points, as I remembered them. I wanted to give the reader a flavour of what diplomats really do, and of what being a diplomat actually feels like. But mostly I wanted to show why I had enjoyed it all so much.

I kept no proper diary. The random private papers I did keep are now buried beyond easy recovery in barns and attics in Britain and France. I have made no use of official documents. But what I do have is memories: plenty of them, good and bad, of the tough times and the bright spots, of the fun I had, but also of the horrors I witnessed and of the mistakes we made. Of the people too, conscientious mostly, committed and often courageous, but some charlatans as well and others with more reptilian qualities. I have set down, place by place, post by post, the best and worst of those memories. All are the truth as I remember it, but not always the whole truth. The story stops at the edge of private turmoil. It alludes only in passing to the disreputable deal-making over top jobs that led me to choose early retirement, five years sooner than expected.

As with my first book, Cables from Kabul,* I have asked myself whether publishing an account of my experiences so soon after I left the public service was consistent with my obligations to my former employer. But Diplomatic Service Regulations state that ‘The FCO welcomes debate on foreign policy … The FCO recognises that there is a public interest in allowing former officials to write accounts of their time in government. These contributions can help public understanding and debate … there is no ban on former members of the Diplomatic Service writing their memoirs … but obligations of confidentiality remain …’

Like Cables, this book is the fruit of a conversation with my future agent, Caroline Michel, at a dinner at the Irish Embassy in London in 2009. It was Caroline who first suggested that I had a book or two in me. It was she who told me to set down my memories and share them. I shall be forever grateful to her for sticking so faithfully to that judgement.

I am also immensely grateful to the team at HarperPress who have given such enthusiastic and wholly professional support to this project: in particular my editor and friend, Martin Redfern, a diplomat if ever there was one, whose quiet judgement has often saved me from error, and who has driven the whole thing forward with determination and discrimination; to project editor Kate Tolley for putting the book together with efficiency and taste; and to Helen Ellis, publicist sans pareil, Minna Fry and the whole of the HarperPress gang.