Storm Signals : More Undiplomatic Diaries, 1962-1971 (9781551996806)

by Ritchie, Charles

  She dreams, she says, of the next world, “a cold, immense emptiness in which I wander.” “But then,” she added brusquely, “I pay no attention to such thoughts. It’s all nonsense.”

  A few hours later when I left her she seemed to have recovered from her gloom, because when I asked her how she felt she said, “Fine. I could knock you down.”

  27 August 1963.

  Return to Washington. The private world of the family in Halifax is already beginning to recede. The pain over my mother’s tragic state will become calloused over. That last evening in Halifax I spent wandering about the streets in the centre of town, past old houses once the homes of family friends, now run-down, decayed, some divided or replaced by parking lots or office buildings. I paused at street corners, seeking for landmarks and seeing the new city which is springing up on all sides and which will be identical with every other city in North America. I was composing in my mind a requiem for shabby, memory-laden old Halifax.

  Back here I am switched abruptly into the present by the Prime Minister’s voice on the telephone. Mike is in one of his querulous moods. He asks my advice, brushes it off as irrelevant, then circles back to it, picks up a point I have made, turns it inside out, and makes something of it. What emerges more clearly every day is that the Hyannisport honeymoon is already over. Things have never been the same between us and the Americans since Walter Gordon’s Budget.

  28 August 1963.

  Sylvia has not yet returned. This big house is empty, apart from the servants, and very empty it feels. It was like a Victorian sentimental engraving today when Popski found his way to my lonely side and licked my nose. It is a long time since I have lived alone and I agree with what other solitaries have told me – that the loneliest moment is the early evening, about six o’clock. Also, there is being in bed alone. On the other hand, I rather like having the morning to myself.

  Today I went into the town to watch the civil-rights parade, which is, of course, mainly concerned with civil rights for blacks. Washington seemed a ghost town. The population, thoroughly scared of some outbursts of violence, had almost shuttered themselves in their houses. The only other ambassador who had ventured forth was my Greek colleague, Matsas. He says that the other one hundred and three ambassadors have barricaded themselves in their embassies. He himself seemed as debonair and carefree as usual, and takes a very frivolous view of the colour problem.

  29 August 1963.

  Farewell frivolity. Abandon dreams of visits to New York. A non-stop stream of official visitors from Ottawa is impending – Cabinet ministers and their acolytes, senior and less-senior civil servants – and I must plunge into a crash course in interest rates and the levels of North American rivers. What is going on in my own Department? None of my friends there write me about the real state of play. They won’t put an indiscreet word to paper, but over the second post-dinner drink it all comes out. What do the young men in the Department think of the Old Boys like myself? What do they think of Norman Robertson? Who will succeed him as Under-Secretary? At one time there was a movement on foot “in certain quarters” to drag me back into the job. It seems to have died away. Mike sometimes implies in his half-joking way that I am not “close enough” to the President – what ambassador is? But on the whole, he seems to like having me here. He appreciates that I am not trying to carve myself a place in the limelight – also he knows that I know what he wants done without his having to spell it out.

  Dinner with the Inter-American Bank Board. Best food in town, but when I retire, no bank will invite me to be on its Board and I can’t blame them.

  In the evening the first diplomatic party of the new season. Do these functions at which the diplomatic corps take in each other’s diplomatic washing serve any purpose? Certainly not that of pleasure-giving. Perhaps they reinforce the feeling that “Here we are, all in the same boat” – as though diplomats were embarked together on a cruise ship in foreign waters, unable to get away from each other, jealously comparing each other’s accommodation, the places allotted to them in the dining saloon, and their relative precedence at the captain’s table, and united in their insistence on their rights as passengers – on such voyages friendships are formed, usually transient but sometimes long-lasting, confidences are exchanged, alliances are consolidated and dissolve or reform before the voyage is over.

  Here in Washington there is a latent sense of grievance in the diplomatic corps. They complain that they rarely have access to the President – even in some cases to the Secretary of State – that U.S. authorities do not attach enough importance to ambassadorial rank, that the important U.S. Senators rarely accept their invitations to dinner, and when they do, often excuse themselves at the last moment.

  Today it was a National Day reception. If the number of sovereign nations increases at the current rate and if all are represented in Washington, there will soon be one of these every day of the year. Now some countries are cheating and in addition to celebrating the day they acquired independence or the birthday of their monarch or the glorious revolution when they got rid of their monarch, they give receptions to memorialize any episode in their histories that takes their fancy – a military victory or a transient coup d’état. Other people’s National Days are regarded by the corps as a public nuisance and a public duty. They are taken with deadly seriousness by the newcomers on the international scene, particularly the Africans. Maturer nations view them with fatalism, like a woman’s attitude to the monthly curse. We have ourselves been delivered by a stroke of diplomatic skill on the part of my predecessor, Hume Wrong, who convinced Ottawa that, as there is no “Canadian colony” of any number in Washington, it was a waste of money for the Embassy to have a National Day reception. It was clever of Hume, because the other embassies in Washington are in the same position as Canada in having few of their nationals here. Apart from bored State Department officials and a handful of senators and fellow diplomats, most of the other guests at these functions are the members of Washington society who do not rate an invitation to a meal. As someone said to me today, “Perhaps we could fit Mrs. X into our National Day. We must have her inside the embassy.” A few ancient dames of this breed still survive from the days when I was first in Washington in the 1930s and they have been eating their way like termites through the free embassy refreshments ever since.

  A new form of torture is the National Day reception prolonged into a National Film Showing. Unless one is very nippy at getting through the exit, one is herded into a hall in the embassy, parked on a little gilt chair, and subjected to a film portraying some sanitized version of life in the Host Country. These films feature everything from folk-dancing to dam-building, with a lot of boring scenery thrown in – majestic mountains, broad rivers, and vast plains, the latter populated by herds of wild animals stampeding Hell-for-leather for the nearest water-hole – and making one long to stampede oneself.

  31 August 1963.

  I lunched today with John Sharpe of our Embassy. I have come to have a great liking for him. He was just developing flu, so had an extra drink or two and talked more freely than usual. He tells me that many of the wives in the Department of External Affairs are complaining about diplomatic life abroad because it “unsettles” the children. Why is everybody so frightened of being unsettled? I think it’s the best thing that can happen to a growing boy or girl or, indeed, to their parents. It seems that the young-middle-aged lot want to get back to Canada. They have seen through the illusion of exotic adventure abroad and adopted another illusion, that life in Canada has become “tremendously exciting” and that the country is “on the move.” Well, it may be so, but I did not notice it in Halifax.

  Bob Farquharson, our Press Attaché, since his stroke is always searching for words. The meaning is in his head but the right speech symbol is mislaid. How distracting that must be, always to be looking for words that one cannot find. It’s bad enough looking for things about the house – lost spectacles and lost money.

  1 Septe
mber 1963.

  I am putting on a belly. That’s what comes of trying to develop a “philosophy of life.” Meanwhile, there is the question of my future. I think they may leave me here for eighteen months or so. They won’t want to appear to change me so soon after the change of government, as it might look as though they were replacing me because I was a Conservative appointee and this would not look good from the point of view of our Foreign Service. Jules Léger, I hear, may be going to Paris. Heaven help him if he has to have dealings with intractable de Gaulle.

  2 September 1963.

  I am going to switch from drinking rye whisky to drinking Scotch, as I like the latter less and hope I may drink it more slowly. This resolution has been brought on by a long evening, indeed almost a night, since it lasted until 4 a.m., drinking and talking with Scruff O’Brien, the No. 2 Canadian naval man here and a good friend of mine. A restless, intelligent, adventurous man, very Irish and very Canadian, and I like him.

  3 September 1963.

  I dined with the Australian Ambassador and Lady Beale. They are about the best company in town. Howard Beale says that someone said to him, “President Kennedy is a bore.” This revolutionary statement gave us all food for thought, especially Lady Beale, to whom it was particularly welcome, as the President has certainly “un-charmed” her. On the other hand, Alice Longworth, the oldest of all old White House hands, said to me the other day, “Jack Kennedy is a broth of a boy and I love him.” I am amused by Alice Longworth, the doyenne of all Washington hostesses and the daughter of Teddy Roosevelt, but I do not love her. I sat next her the other day at lunch. She looked like a witch, in her big black shovel hat. She is amusing in a gossipy, bitchy way, but not, I find, very funny or congenial.

  The Kennedys are given to inviting groups of philosophers, musicians, actors, and writers to the White House. This is a welcome change but I don’t know how deep this Camelot culture goes … not very far, I fancy.

  8 September 1963.

  Our new Minister of External Affairs, Paul Martin, arrived on Sunday evening to stay in the house for two nights. I much enjoyed his visit and his company. He is French enough and Irish enough to like a warm, pleasant social surface, and is good company. He is very serious in his approach to his new job, and is widely read and informed about international affairs. He is very much the inheritor of the Liberal tradition in which he was raised – “progressive” but basically cautious and realistic. The first evening we sat and talked. The next morning we had a breakfast party. Colin was in his full glory, deeply gratified to have a Foreign Minister staying in the house. He produced an enormous breakfast in the English-country-house tradition, with numerous side-dishes over flames. The guests included U.S. Senator Morse, who talked absolutely non-stop throughout breakfast, entirely and exclusively about himself.

  15 September 1963.

  A new officer, Michael Shenstone, has arrived at the Embassy and came to see me today – quick-witted, quick-moving, highly intelligent, ruffled hair, dark eyes gleaming behind spectacles. What must it be like to be a junior officer with me as an Ambassador? My eyes used to be sharp for the absurdities and pretensions of those under whom I served. No doubt theirs are equally so. I don’t mind being thought absurd by my juniors, but I should not relish being thought pretentious. What do I, for my part, expect of the people on my staff? Obvious things – intelligence and hard work. What do I chiefly deplore? Long-winded wordiness in speech or on paper. Also, I am embarrassed by incurable stupidity, especially if combined with a conscientious devotion to duty. It is difficult to know how to report on such cases when they come up for promotion; one cannot name any remediable faults, but one cannot conscientiously recommend advancement. Then I don’t like fluffiness of mind which cannot get to the naked point. That is not so much stupidity as superficiality, often accompanied by self-esteem. Or, as Anne-Marie Callimachi used to put it: “He is thinking too much for the amount of brains he has.”

  I fear that it is not a liberal education, or any education at all, to serve under me. In my own young days I was indeed educated by senior men in the Service. Despite all those years passed as a student at universities, that was the only effective education I received – education as fitting one for action as distinct from acquiring knowledge. Hume Wrong was Counsellor in Washington when I was first posted here in 1937. I can still see him going through my draft dispatches with his red pencil, looking up across his desk at me with something between amusement and despair or leaning back in his chair stroking the back of his head with a rapid gesture of controlled exasperation at some muddled sentence or sloppy thought. (A morsel of praise from him would make my day, for he was no easy praiser.) Style and content he would scrutinize with impatient patience. He would annotate my text in his precise, elegant script, and put a stroke or an exclamation mark of horror beside some solecism. To accompany him on a visit of official business to the State Department was another kind of education. He would arrive for an interview with his arguments and the facts marshalled in his mind in impeccable array, and on his return to the Embassy he would dictate his account of the meeting – a model of clarity and verbatim recall – accompanied by his succinct comments and recommendations. Looking back, I now realize that in those days Hume was an unhappy, frustrated man. For although he had such a realistic grasp of policy questions, he was not able or willing to accommodate himself to politicians. He had fallen into disfavour with his peculiar Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King. In addition, he could hardly curb his contempt for the intellectual shortcomings of his own Head of Mission. Perhaps he was always better in dealing with those under him than those above him. I not only admired Hume, I came to love him as a friend. His cool perfectionism was only the surface – he was warm in his affection. I still often wish that I could turn to talk to him, to hear his acute and biting comments on personalities and events, and to know that here was one man who had never known the meaning of subterfuge or subservience.

  22 September 1963.

  When I was a young bachelor in Washington my mantelpiece was piled high with invitations to dinners, luncheon parties, and dances. I attributed this to my social and conversational charms. Now I realize that anyone in trousers serves the purpose in the desperate hunt for a spare man for dinner in this widow-populated city. When an apparently case-hardened bachelor takes it into his head to get married, there is lamentation among the hostesses as they cross his name off their lists: “How could he be so inconsiderate?” Death among the elderly single men is unavoidable, but marriage is unforgivable. Among the remaining bachelors my old friend Sammy Hood15 is undoubtedly the pearl of price. Not only is he charming, with looks of infinite distinction, but he loves dining out and gives delightful parties in return. And on top of all this, a diplomat and a Lord. Sammy is made for Washington. He blossoms here, surrounded by affectionate friends, amused and interested by everything and everyone. He makes one suspect that there is a lot to be said for bachelordom, provided one puts friendship before passion. For in a gossipy small town as Washington is, there is no place for lovers. In this and in many other ways it resembles Ottawa. Indeed, Ottawa might be described (in oyster terms) as Washington on the half-shell.

  2 October 1963.

  To a concert of chamber music at Dumbarton Oaks. Mrs. Bliss greeted us with regal affability. It’s a miracle! She hasn’t changed in the twenty-five years since first I crossed her threshold – the same tall, svelte figure and erect carriage, the same eager interest in all things cultural, from modern Brazilian poetry to pre-Columbian art. Heaven knows what her age must now be. Washington hostesses are notoriously ageless – they remain embalmed in their own image till one day they crumble into dust, untouched by decrepitude. Artistic hostesses, intellectual hostesses, social hostesses, political hostesses – reigning deities of the Washington stage! There are still a few survivors of those I knew in my youth – Alice Longworth, terrifyingly sprightly, and dear Virginia Bacon, the best-hearted, most downright of the lot, whose dark old
house with its family portraits and long gallery still echoes the politics and gossip of half a century. But where is Mrs. Truxton Beale, whose soirées were so famous? And where Miss Boardman, of simple, unassailable dignity? And musical Mrs. Townsend? And where bustling, worldly Mrs. Leiter? And handsome, clever old Mrs. Winthrop Chanler, who had stepped from the pages of Henry James? Washington still abounds in hospitality and there are plenty of cultivated, decorative ladies who in a variety of styles keep the tradition going. I could name a dozen at this moment. But they lack one attribute of their predecessors – they are not formidable. Those old girls could dish out a magisterial snub and crush a social or political offender with the raising of an eyebrow. Manners have become milder.

  Of course now, as then, there are hostesses and would-be hostesses. To an old Washington hand it is both funny and pathetic to see the struggles of some newly arrived political wife or aspiring ambassadress attempting to surprise with novel entertainment or calculated unconventionality. Old Washington, which has seen so many such ambitions blossom and fade, looks on with a basilisk stare.