Diplomatic Digs

By Robert S. Merrillees

A frank personal account of experiences in diplomacy

In Diplomatic Digs, Robert (Bob) Merrillees gives a frank personal account of his experiences in diplomacy and as a Foreign Affairs Officer who served Australian Governments for 34 years until his ousting by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer in 1998. It includes striking

• Language: English
• Publisher: Echo Books
• Release date: Aug 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9780994624673

Book preview

CONTENTS

Abbreviations

Acknowledgements

1. Past Histories & Present Tenses

2. The Department of Foreign ‘Affairies’

3 Britain: The Mother Country Knows Best

4. Security: Better Safe than Sorry

5. Cambodia : Khmerisation and Calamity

6. The United Nations: Pulling Apart Together

7. The Whitlam Years: Labor's Pyrrhic Victory

8. The Middle East: Going West

9. Cyprus: Love's Island Lost

10. Geographical & Other Embarrassments

11. ANZACS & Anniversaries

12. Greece: A Diplomatic Marathon

13. Travelling: What a Way to Go

14 A Roof Over Your Head

15. The Family Comes First - and Last

16 Dressing Up and Dressing Down

17. Sustainable Hospitality

18. The United States: ‘Old Foggy Bottom’

19. Reds Under the Bed

20. Deutschland (nicht immer) über Alles

21. Bibliomania

22 France: A Gallic ‘Retraite’

23. Ruminations on a Misspent Career

24. The Last Hurrah

Appendices I - V

Bibliography

ABBREVIATIONS

A-based—Australia-based

AC—Companion in the Order of Australia

A & C—Administrative and Clerical

ACOA—Administrative and Clerical Officers’ Association

ACT—Australian Capital Territory

AD—Anno Domini

ADAB—Australian Development Assistance Bureau

ALP—Australian Labor Party

ANU—Australian National University

ANZUS—Australia, New Zealand and United States Security Treaty

AR—Albanian Resolution

ASEAN—Association of South East Asian Nations

ASIO—Australian Security Intelligence Organization

ASIS—Australian Secret Intelligence Service

ASO—Administrative Service Officer

ASPAC—Asian and Pacific Community

AWOL—Absent Without Leave

B & B—Bed and Breakfast

C & A—Consular and Administrative

CAP—Common Agricultural Policy

CAARI—Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute

CIA—Central Intelligence Agency

CMD—Corporate Management Division

DEA—Department of External Affairs

DFA—Department of Foreign Affairs

DFAT—Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

DK—Democratic Kampuchea

DR—Dual Representation

EAO—External Affairs Officer

EC—European Community

ECOSOC—United Nations Economic and Social Council

EEC—European Economic Community

EFTA—European Free Trade Area

EOKA—National Organisation of Cypriote Fighters

ESCAP—United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific

ESF—Exchange Support Fund

EU—European Union

FAO—Foreign Affairs Officer

FCO—Foreign and Commonwealth Office

FRG—Federal Republic of Germany

FYROM—Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

GDR—German Democratic Republic

HOM—Head of Mission

ICRC—International Committee of the Red Cross

IDEA—Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance

IQ—Important Question

KPNLF—Khmer People’s National Liberation Front

KRC—Kampuchean Red Cross

LES—Locally Engaged Staff

MFO—Multinational Force and Observers

MP—Member of Parliament

NE—Non-Expulsion

NSW—New South Wales

PASOK—Panhellenic Socialist Movement

PLV—Post Liaison Visit

PPQ—Possible Parliamentary Question

PRC—People’s Republic of China

PRK—People’s Republic of Kampuchea

PRPK—People’s Revolutionary Party of Kampuchea

PSB—Public Service Board

QC—Queen’s Counsel

RAAF—Royal Australian Air Force

RAN—Royal Australian Navy

RAF—Royal Air Force

ROC—Republic of China

RSL—Returned & Services League

SES—Senior Executive Service

SOC—State of Cambodia

SOCOG—Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games

SWP—Spouses Working Party

TPS—Tall Poppy Syndrome

UK—United Kingdom

UN—United Nations

UNCTAD—United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

UNDP—United Nations Development Program

UNEP—United Nations Environment Program

UNFICYP—United Nations Force in Cyprus

UNESCO—United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organization

UNGA—United National General Assembly

UNHCR—United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

UNICEF—United Nations Children’s Fund

UNSCOM—United Nations Special Commission

US—United States

USA—United States of America

USSR—Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

VIP—Very Important Person

WASP—White Anglo-Saxon Protestant

WEOG—Western European and Others Group

WOG—Worthy Oriental Gentleman

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book could not have been written without Helen (Fig 1). She not only shared all the trials and tribulations of my diplomatic career but urged me on and perceptively foreshadowed the critical comments made by professional editors on my original concept and draft. Every time I thought I had come to an end and exhausted what I felt worthwhile or interesting to say, she dredged up yet another strange episode in our lives that I had forgotten or tried to forget and set me to recalling related incidents. This led to the composition of several more chapters and many more paragraphs than originally planned. I do not know whether to be deeply grateful or resentful for her unceasing care and encouragement, but in truth I feel both.

Antoinette and Dolla followed their mother's lead and never lost an opportunity to remind me of my duty to posterity, the family and myself, to put my experiences on record. In particular Antoinette came up with the title for this volume after much inconclusive cogitation by the family on the best way of describing its contents, and Dolla, herself the author of an equally frank and personal memoir (Merrillees 2007), was able to look at mine through the eyes of an experienced popular writer. Much of the revision was done while staying with Antoinette and her family in Tel Aviv. I am greatly beholden to Antoinette, Dolla and their families for all their support, and hope never to be harassed by them this way again.

Jane Merrillees rendered me a special service in keying in what the family considered to be the tedious papers now mostly relegated to the back of the book in the Appendices, but without that help I might not have got on with the rest of the narrative. I cannot thank her enough.

I am no less grateful to Pandanus Books and the anonymous reader commissioned by them to comment on an earlier draft of these memoirs. He or she wrote a thoughtful and constructive review of the work, with some pointed observations about the author which I am not prepared to contest, and encouraged me to believe that with a substantial re-arrangement and revision, the book would appeal to a variety of readers, not just those named in the text. Recognising how thin-skinned Australian public figures tend to be, the reader also emphasised the need to avoid vexatious defamation proceedings which might be occasioned by my more ‘acerbic’ remarks. I needed no reminding.

Dr George Georghallides, professional historian and articulate exponent, also read through an advanced draft of this work and cautioned me about publishing it. If I have not followed his advice, I mean him and his reservations no disrespect. Indeed I have tried to address his concerns, and the present content and its arrangement owe not a little to his guidance. Only time will tell if I have been successful. Some have looked at individual chapters and been acknowledged in the appropriate places. Others have helped in various  ways and would no doubt prefer not to be named. To them all I am equally beholden.

Despite its lack of commercial potential, this e-book has received from Ian Gordon and his team at Barrallier Books the same meticulous care and attention to detail as their other hard-copy volumes. The publisher’s initiative and enterprise have my warmest appreciation. Cottages industries like this don’t come any better.

The opinions expressed in these memoirs, where not specifically attributed to another author, are entirely my own, and I alone am responsible for them. They in no way commit the present Australian Government, of which I am no longer an employee, and any co-incidence they may have with its policies and positions is fortuitous.

1.  PAST HISTORIES & PRESENT TENSES

My family had been urging me to write my diplomatic memoirs for a long time before I finally decided to put them down. My reluctance to accede to their bidding stemmed from a variety of factors, which did not include the circumstances of my enforced retirement from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in 1998 before I had reached the compulsory retirement age of 65. Having passed that milestone, there seemed no further reason to allow my other inhibitions to get in the way of committing my experiences to paper, as others of my colleagues had done. Up until then I still had certain reservations about describing events, situations and personalities because of my status as an employee of the Australian Government. My own middle ranking position in the DFAT hierarchy also meant that I, unlike more senior, especially political appointees, had not played a significant role in many of the major foreign policy issues that kept the Australian Government, Foreign Minister and the Department busy during the 34 years of my service from 1964 to 1998. I was not therefore in a position to give the inside story on subjects likely to interest the specialist reader. And finally, though I kept a diary on certain formative years I spent overseas acquiring my archaeological knowledge, I made no record of my diplomatic activities, not because they were less important to me professionally, but because it was not necessary to retain a detailed account of what I had done in order to help me confront new challenges. Diplomacy is basically learnt by accumulated experience, and nothing practical can afford to be forgotten, especially lessons learnt the hard way.

These memoirs were never therefore going to be a chronological, blow-by-blow account of my work and experiences in several foreign countries and cities around the globe, not excluding Canberra, that surreal epitome of the average Australian’s ideal social environment (cf. Pilger 1992, p. 298). Nor did I want it to be a medium for a message that I failed to get across in the course of my public service. Rather, with the benefit of hindsight, it seemed best to recount the attempts I made to analyse and influence those situations where I had a modicum of responsibility and insight, and to place these efforts in a lifetime’s perspective, not simply as a function of individual postings and placements in the Department. What prompted me to adopt this approach was the accumulation of papers I had written during my diplomatic career which never became part of the official record. They comprised think pieces, draft reports, personal submissions and other informal documents which I composed for circulation amongst colleagues, for my own edification, or for clearance by my superiors but which never made the grade. As such they embody my own personal opinions or reactions, and only one of those reproduced in this volume, which was any case all my own work, went through official channels. Consequently this collection is arranged under chapter headings where each subject or theme is treated sui generis, giving the background to certain papers I authored while still a diplomat but leaving out many others that were once compelling, at least to me, but have since lost their edge and longevity. The select few, where not reproduced in the body of the text, are to be found in the Appendices.

Looking back on my diplomatic and archaeological careers I realise that I never stopped writing—applications, articles, briefs, cables, communiqués, despatches, e-mails, lectures, letters, memoranda, Ministerial submissions, minutes, monographs, policy planning papers, possible parliamentary questions, press releases, records of conversation, references, reviews, reports, savingrams, speeches, talking points, etc. Nearly all my archaeological works have been published in books and periodicals in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, France, Greece, Israel, Lebanon, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and United States, and in 2003 a compilation of these was brought together in an honorary volume published in Partille, Sweden, under the title, On Opium, Pots, People and Places. Selected Papers. It also included my bibliography up to that time. This was the result of an initiative taken by Helen and our daughters, who felt some recognition was due my academic achievements. No more touching or gratifying gesture could have been imagined or undertaken. It was generously published in Sweden by the late Professor Paul Åström, my longest standing archaeological colleague and friend, and launched at a surprise party on 5 December 2003 in the 17th century apartment in central Paris generously put at our disposal by our colleague and neighbour, Annie Caubet (Fig. 3). It included amongst its subscribers the Hon. Gough Whitlam AC, QC, former Prime Minister of Australia, the Hon. Gareth Evans QC, former Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Hon. Barry Jones, former Minister for Science and Technology. It was reassuring to see that all had acknowledged the obvious truth that an interest in the past is not necessarily incompatible with an occupation in the present.

However, little of my diplomatic production ever appeared in print, at least under my own name, with the notable exception of my letter of 11 July 1997 to Mr Downer which was leaked to the press, though not by me (see below). Following the Westminster principle that the Minister took the responsibility for his/her Department’s activities, there was little encouragement or even inducement for individual officers to express their own views publicly, though the scope for creative bureaucratic presentation was well illustrated by the role of Richard (‘Dick’) Woolcott, widely and reverentially known as the ‘official leak’ (Woolcott 2007, p. 196), whose first book, The Hot Seat, appeared in 2003 and the second in 2007 (see below). Woolcott’s own diplomatic stories are only amongst some of the more recent in a series of volumes which have appeared since the Second World War and purport to have something new or original to say about the conduct of Australia’s overseas relations in the second half of the 20th century A.D. Beginning with Sir Percy Spender, Exercises in Diplomacy (Sydney 1969), they tend to dwell, not surprisingly, on the growing awareness of the importance to Australia of Asia which Sir Robert Menzies used to fly over as Prime Minister to get somewhere more interesting (cf. Scott 1999, pp. 237 f). Spender put it more diplomatically when he remarked that Menzies' ‘interests were focused principally upon Europe’ (Spender 1969, p.54).

Given the plethora of publications and publicity which have attended the development of official Australian policy in the general field of foreign affairs, most accounts by former Ministers and officials approach their subject from a personal perspective partly to explain, partly to extol and partly to justify their own part in the response to significant events and the formulation of appropriate (or inappropriate) government decisions. Spender’s own volume is a classic example as he has recounted in great and authoritative detail the history of the negotiations leading up to the ANZUS Treaty, which remains the bedrock of Australia’s security, and the Colombo Plan, which he correctly described as ‘one of the most fruitful operations in this century in mutual assistance and understanding between nations’ (Spender 1969, p. 9). He, like several of his successors, went on to serve as Head of Mission in some prestigious post, though whether they ever became diplomats is another matter. Spender himself served as Ambassador to the United States from 1951 to 1958 but wrote nothing of his experiences, though his wife, Jean Spender, dealt with their posting at length in her memoir, Ambassador’s Wife, published in Sydney in 1968.

Political appointees to Head of Mission positions overseas were always resented by the career policy officers of the Department and their representative associations, because these newcomers to the diplomatic service not only reduced the number of such positions available to them but usually went to the plum, that is large and comfortable postings, and left the hardship ones to the professionals (cf. Henderson 1989, p. 13). The fact that some of these outside appointees brought particular skills, knowledge and connections to important assignments like Washington, seems to have been overlooked in the general condemnation of ‘jobs for the boys’, which it certainly was, but from my perspective former Parliamentarians in particular were at least more gifted public speakers than the often tongue-tied public servants who supported them diplomatically and administratively in Australian Embassies and High Commissions around the world. Still, even if the non-professional Heads of Mission often had the gift of the gab, they were as a rule no linguists and either went to English speaking countries or used English instead of the national language in other foreign parts. There were, of course, notable exceptions, and some of these have written of their experiences as one-time Heads of Missions, including their attempts to learn the local lingo. Appearing as chapters or episodes in more comprehensive surveys of their lives and interests, Bruce Grant, Henry (‘Jo’) Gullett and John Menadue have written lively accounts of their times serving the Australian Government in New Delhi, Athens and Tokyo respectively and provided fresh insights into practices, situations and mentalities which the career officers were inclined to take for granted.

All three were struck by the arcane and anachronistic protocol that applied to the presentation of their credentials, initial calls on their diplomatic colleagues, and in the cases of Grant and Menadue, by the fusty kinds of address used in formal and informal diplomatic communications and exchanges. Though they all claimed to have enjoyed good working relations with the Foreign Affairs and attached staff at the post, they were often bemused by the Department’s attitudes and reactions, and it is striking that none had evidently had much prior contact with Australia’s foreign service during their own professional careers. They certainly knew little about the Department itself beforehand, and since their livelihoods did not depend on it, they had made little effort to cultivate its senior officers. Grant was aware of this bureaucratic imperative for he perceptively observed that ‘years of experience had taught those gathered around the table [the Australia-based staff in New Delhi] to serve their department first and the Government second …’ (Grant 1982, p.15). Most tellingly, all thought service overseas representing Australia taught them as much about the country that sent them as accredited them. Menadue, in fact, unselfconsciously gave the chapter on his time in Japan the title ‘Learning about Australia and myself’ (Menadue 1999, pp.186ff) and described with much frankness and sincerity the liberating effect of seeing Australia through other (Japanese) eyes. All three recorded meeting and greeting Australian VIPs, most of whom they would rarely have encountered at home, and certainly not have had the opportunity of entertaining. For most of them it was a revelation, generally of a positive kind, but none could match Gullett’s story of his talk with the future Nobel Laureate, Patrick White, when he called at the Embassy in Athens in 1963 accompanied by a Greek youth (Gullett 1992, pp. 295f).

The first of the memoirs published by a career officer was Walter Crocker’s ‘personal account of international relations during the quarter century since the War as seen through Australian eyes’ (Crocker 1971, p. v). It is symptomatic of the perceptions of the time in which he wrote that he should immediately have had to defend his credentials against any charge that he was not sufficiently Australian because of the extended periods during which he had lived outside Australia and served the British Government abroad. For eighteen years, from 1952 to 1970, Crocker was Australian Head of Mission in several posts before retiring and being recycled as Lieutenant-Governor of South Australia in 1973. Australian Ambassador was not however, his only autobiographical composition as he subsequently produced Travelling Back. The Memoirs of Sir Walter Crocker, which contains a chapter headed ‘Ambassador’ (Crocker 1981, pp. 178 ff). Though constrained by the terms of his employment from addressing certain controversial issues, as well living personalities, he still managed to make his account frank, incisive and witty. These qualities were much in evidence in a series of broadcasts he gave on the ABC in 1965 when Helen listened to him in Canberra. They were for her some of the most educational as well as entertaining programmes she heard as a newcomer to Australia.

Crocker's descriptions of the countries he served in, especially Indonesia, would make today’s generation of politically correct diplomatic apologists squirm with embarrassment, but his pungent observations were acute and prophetic. In addition his trenchant criticisms of almost every aspect of contemporary diplomatic life ring just as true now as they did forty years ago, as nothing has basically changed. However, Crocker never served as a ‘diplomat’ in the Department of External Affairs in Canberra, and while his comments on the staffing and priorities of running the Ministry were astute, he showed little awareness and less interest in one of the main imperatives in formulating foreign policy in Australia, the close and inseparable nexus between overseas relations and domestic concerns. His ideological views, even prejudices, which were entirely in keeping with and redolent of the imperial times in which he lived and worked, are tempered by an idealism and realism which give his memoirs lasting validity and value, and he is suitably modest about his achievements as a government servant. In fact he claimed to have had no effect whatever on Australian foreign policy (Crocker 1971, p.1) and to his credit maintained this modest assessment even after a decade’s further reflection on his own life and career. A remarkable character who lived until he was 100 years old and was never muzzled by political correctness, he earned many eulogies on his death in 2002 as much for his personal achievements and integrity as for the lost times which gave him latitude to be forthright and outspoken.

Crocker pays tribute in his work of the accomplishments of Sir Alan Watt who became Secretary of the Department of External Affairs in 1950, describing him as principled and cultured man with ‘an enviable capacity for expression’ and ‘a gift for witty verse’ (Crocker 1971, p.64). None of these attributes is much in evidence in Sir Alan’s own memoirs, Australian Diplomat, published in 1972. In plodding and pedestrian prose, he recounts ‘the life of an Australian diplomat from the inside during what can be called the ‘developmental’ stage of an Australian foreign office, as it passed from infancy to maturity’ (Watt 1972, p. viii) but tantalisingly elects to omit all reference to the wives of political leaders on their travels overseas, tartly reminding them that ‘they are not themselves ministers of the Crown, and that interests and activities natural and permissible at home are not inevitably appropriate abroad’ (Watt 1972, p. ix). Co-incidentally, there are a number of parallels in our respective early years. My Scottish great-grandfather arrived in Australia in the 1850’s, for reasons unknown, just like his (Watt 1972, p. 1). Watt, like me, graduated from Sydney University with a Bachelor of Arts degree and proceeded to England for further education, as was the custom in those days. I, however, chose to enrol for a post-graduate degree at London University whereas Watt studied for another undergraduate degree at Oxford University. Watt recalls the magnanimous treatment he received from Oriel College upon graduation (Watt 1972, p. 9), and I shall forever be grateful to University College London for their enlightened generosity.

We both returned to Australia afterwards as welfare officers on a migrant ship, with the main difference that I was also taking care of my wife and daughter who were emigrating with me to Australia. After his return and marriage Watt settled in Hunters Hill, one of Sydney’s oldest and loveliest suburbs, which has special associations for me as my parents and aunt Maud Simpson were living there and first met Helen and Antoinette at ‘St Ives’ when we arrived in 1965. Perhaps the most unexpected co-incidence was Watt’s friendship with an Australian namesake and distant relative of mine, Bill Merrylees, whom he befriended in Oxford. Dr William Andrew Merrylees became very well known in Australia for his advocacy of the establishment of a tertiary institution in the Riverina in southern New South Wales. Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga eventually came into being after his death in 1969 and its library is named after him. So effective and widespread had his campaigning become that one of the first questions Mr Hasluck, then Australian Minister for External Affairs, put to me in London in 1965 was whether I was related to Bill Merrylees. At that time I didn’t realise the connection. Nevertheless, for all the parallels between our formative years, Watt’s career took off in a way mine never did, and he had retired two years before I joined the Department in 1964, though we subsequently met him and his wife in Canberra.

To Alfred Stirling who was several times Head of Mission between 1948 and 1967 and spent nearly the whole of his career overseas, we owe the most ideosyncratic of all the memoirs published, the oddly but aptly titled volume On the Fringe of Diplomacy (Stirling 1973). Consisting almost entirely of addresses and essays, interlarded with poems and quotations and written in no less than four languages (Afrikaans, English, French and Italian), it contains no rationale for its appearance and reads like a Victorian scrap book. While the pen pictures he includes of foreign personalities in the political, diplomatic, scientific and literary spheres were drawn with first hand knowledge of the subjects, he sheds little light on the leading Australian figures of the day except those he got to meet and know overseas. The Department might not have existed for all the attention it receives in his jottings. His ‘thoughts’ on diplomacy (Stirling 1973, pp.168ff.) reflect a more learned and cultured era in global affairs when the professional qualities required were directed much more to negotiation and persuasion than self-advancement though he, like me, did more than his fair share of public speaking engagements. Most unusually he saw a role for diplomacy in medicine, arguing that ‘it is, in my view, a primary duty for an ambassador while abroad to encourage and facilitate the individual visits of leading doctors to and from his own country in order to ensure an exchange of the latest ideas and methods…’ (Stirling 1973, p.153). Whether this novel priority, combined with his literary pursuits, coincided with the objectives or expectations of his masters in Canberra is not stated, but I had no hesitation keeping up my archaeological interests at home and overseas and taking advantage of the opportunities they provided to foster contacts between Australian and foreign experts and institutions. I doubt these exercises in academic diplomacy were much understood or appreciated in the Department or government, at least to the extent they were known (which I did nothing to help), and would scarcely be tolerated today when the approved performance criterion is the only professional measure of achievement.

With the publication in 1980 of The Champagne Trail. Experiences of a Diplomat, Alan Renouf, Secretary of the Department from 1974 to 1976, completed the trilogy of unintentional public relations misfortunes he visited on it during and after his service. The first occurred when he took over the Department and described the body of Foreign Affairs officers he supervised as an elite (e.g. Canberra Times 4 January 1974, p. 2). Nothing could have been better calculated to rile the Department’s detractors in Canberra, and the knives immediately came out, ready to cut it down to size (cf. Henderson 1989, pp. 3 ff.). The amalgamation of the Departments of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Promotion Australia in 1987 gave Peter Wilenski, former Foreign Affairs Officer and then Public Service Commissioner, the opportunity to do just that (see below). Renouf says nothing about this in his memoirs but does record his indignation at the way the Australian media dealt with his second faux pas (Renouf 1980, p. 74). During his time as Secretary he conceived the idea of introducing a home grown diplomatic uniform for the service, and invited an outburst of hilarity and ridicule from the press and the public that killed the initiative stone dead. His case was not helped by the design, a Mao- or Nehru-type suit festooned with wattle, which was modelled by Stuart Hume, one of the graduate entrants to the Department in 1966 and a descendant of the famous explorer, Hamilton Hume. It has never been illustrated in public. The cartoon which appeared in the Sydney Daily Mirror newspaper on 30 July 1974 was only one of the many satirical reactions it engendered.

And finally the title of his memoir, accompanied by a sketch of the author with champagne flute in hand, only confirmed every Australian’s suspicion that Australian diplomats are ‘stripe-pantsed dandies sipping cocktails at endless and meaningless receptions’ (The Weekend Australian 14 – 15 May 2005, p. 22; cf. Henderson 1986, p. 134). While none of these miscalculations was inspired by any but honourable motives, the cumulative consequences were dire for the Department’s reputation.

Writing in a racy and entertaining style, Renouf, whom Whitlam credits with greatly reducing the Department’s ‘hieratic [he meant, he tells me, ‘hierarchic’], secretive and chauvinistic style’ (Whitlam 1980, p. 80), paints a graphic picture of the agency as it began its re-incarnation in the 1940’s and pays particular homage to Paul Hasluck, then a more senior officer, whose restrained and long suffering attitude is contrasted with Dr Evatt’s jealousy and paranoia (cf. Hasluck 1980, pp. 23 ff.; Urquhart 1987, pp. 95f., 117). It is ironical that Hasluck, when he himself succeeded Evatt, became a cantankerous and nit-picking Minister. I was able to follow Hasluck’s conduct at first hand as I was working in 1966/67 to Malcolm Booker, then First Assistant Secretary responsible for Papua/New Guinea, who had to endure Hasluck’s relentless micromanagement of the portfolio and feelingly recorded in The Last Domino. Aspects of Australia’s Foreign Relations the problems he had with the Minister (Booker 1976, p.191). Yet, as Parsons perceptively observes (Parsons 1998, pp. 76f.), Hasluck was a different person overseas, accommodating, unceremonious and affable, and following our initial encounters during a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London in 1965, Hasluck invited Helen and me to a formal dinner at Parliament House in Canberra on 19 August 1966 with Heads of Mission accredited to Australia, as well as Booker and Renouf. These two senior Departmental officers seemed nonplussed to find themselves at the centre of the long table with a graduate trainee and his wife, but managed to remain diplomatic. And despite the title of his memoirs, Renouf did not play up the role of official entertainment in the profession but sensibly put it in its proper context as one of the standard tools of our trade.

The Diplomat who Laughed, Ralph Harry’s quirky little contribution to the Australian diplomatic oeuvre, does not pretend to be anything but anecdotal. It is certainly not very funny. In fact there is quite a serious side to the series of stories, quips and aphorisms it contains, as they show up the frequently ludicrous way in which commonplace activities unfold when invested with more political significance and symbolic weight than they can stand, as well as revealing the human side to even the most exalted personalities, their pronouncements and encounters. Published in 1983, the avowed aim of the contents was ‘to do something to combat the peril of beastly seriousness in the diplomacy of the eighties’ (Harry 1983, p. xii), a far from unadorned reference to the last years of the Fraser Coalition Government before Harry retired in 1978. A veteran career diplomat who served in Canberra and around the world from 1940 onwards, Harry’s observations reflect the experience of many of his colleagues, especially his statement that ‘the severest test for any diplomat is the organisation of a visit by the Head of State, a Prime Minister or Foreign Minister’ (Harry 1983, p. 55). The example he quotes, that ‘early Australian diplomats qualified for promotion if they could survive the ordeal of looking after the Minister for External Affairs, Dr H.V. Evatt’ (Harry 1983, p.55) shows a consistent pattern in the ugly behaviour of Australia’s Foreign Ministers, culminating in the ‘demotion’ of me and John Campbell by Mr Downer in 1998 and 2001 for lèse-majesté when we were serving as Ambassadors in Athens and Santiago respectively. A civilised man, Harry is best remembered as a strong proponent of Esperanto, that hybrid international language intended to replace Latin as the lingua franca of Europe and the rest of the world but destined to join Tocarian in the linguistic scrap heap of history.

Peter Graham Faithfull Henderson’s purpose in publishing in 1986 Privilege and Pleasure, the unfortunately titled story of his diplomatic career, was altogether different. Ostensibly for the benefit of his children and grandchildren, this anecdotal volume, written in the same slightly self-deprecating style as he affected in his conversation, was primarily intended to expose the shoddy way in which he had been pilloried in Parliament and forced into early retirement in 1989. I know how he felt. A career policy officer, Henderson joined the service in 1951 and rose through the ranks to become Secretary of the Department in 1979 under a Coalition Government. Educated at Geelong Grammar and Oxford University, he also had the ‘privilege’ and evident pleasure of marrying the daughter of Sir Robert Menzies, which proved to be both a boon and a curse for his diplomatic career. As he ruefully notes, ‘the practical result for me has been for the Liberals to lean over backwards not to appear to be giving me preferred treatment, and for some elements in the Labor Party to remain always intensely suspicious of me, not only because of Sir Robert, but because of what they see as a privileged background and supposed ‘elitist’ (used in a pejorative sense) attitudes’ (Henderson 1986, p. 184).

These seeming advantages certainly did not help him in his relations with Mr Hayden when the latter became Foreign Minister in 1979. No two people could have been more unalike. I had the impression, from an early acquaintance with Mr Hayden when I accompanied him on a trip to Europe, that he felt very uncomfortable with Henderson as Secretary, not because he distrusted him as a person, but because, coming from a totally different background, he could not count on Henderson seeing and doing things his (Hayden’s) way (cf. Hayden 1996, p. 394; Woolcott 2003, p. 220). To politicians loyalty is of paramount importance. For Mr Hayden disloyalty was a major preoccupation (cf. Hawke 1994, p. 126). Ultimately Mr Hayden served Henderson with the same kind of ultimatum as Mr Downer served me, for the same trumped up reasons, and Henderson reacted as I did, with incredulity and righteous indignation. Henderson had been truly cut down to size and left the Department and government employment well before the statutory age of retirement. Apart from the circumstances of his dismissal, his memoirs are less revealing about Australia’s foreign relations than the oddities of the diplomatic life at home and abroad, and their main novelty in this genre is the author’s pledge ‘never to tell again to anyone any of the stories that appears in this book’ (Henderson 1986, p. [ vi ]).

In 1989 Ric Throssell published My Father’s Son, a poignant and moving account of his life which was closely interwoven in all ways with his gallant father, who took his own life in the Depression, and his pink Communist mother, whose commitment to the cause was matched only by her attachment to her son. Throssell was one of the early recruits to the Department of External Affairs in 1943 and had postings in Moscow and Rio de Janeiro before being grounded in Canberra and denied further promotion on suspicion that he was involved in the Soviet espionage network revealed by Vladimir Petrov’s defection in 1954. Despite the transparent lack of firm evidence that he was a member or fellow traveller of the Communist Party, had ever improperly divulged classified information to representatives of the Soviet Government, or had in any way betrayed his position of trust to hostile foreign powers, he was not again given access to top secret and secret material or posted overseas, until he was appointed Director of the Commonwealth Institute in London in 1980. He retired from government service in 1983. My Father’s Son is less concerned with the development of the Department and Australia’s foreign policy during the post-war period than with the saga of his diplomatic career which fell foul of Australia’s own surreptitious brand of McCarthyism. Judging by his demeanour Throssell did nothing to diminish doubts about his integrity and soundness by engaging in satirical play writing and theatricals. The official documents which interlard the text demonstrate that he had no-one to stand up for him in the Department. Loyalty is an alien word in Australia’s diplomatic vocabulary. Beautifully written, Throssell’s memoirs evoke times and circumstances in Australia and the world which have changed beyond all recognition, but retain a literary merit that transcends the devious manipulation of the truth by the Australian security agencies. Above all they are an eloquent testament to the power of fear over reason.

Without emphasis or exaggeration some of Throssell’s observations on his career provide telling insights into the particularities—and peculiarities—of Australia’s fledgling foreign service. The genesis and even design of Renouf’s diplomatic uniform undoubtedly lay in the prototype produced in the 1930s but evidently abandoned after Dr Evatt ‘decreed that Australian national dress was the lounge suit’ (Throssell 1990, p. 209). According to Throssell’s description of the original uniform, ‘the tunic in dark green featured a high collar trimmed with embroidered oak leaves (or it might have been wattle) epaulettes braided according to rank, and narrow trousers with broad side stripes. It was to