Citizen Diplomacy

Extract

One wonders what the ghosts of Talleyrand and Franklin would say were they to visit the diplomatic conferences of today. Where is the suave approach, the graceful phrase concealing bloody warnings dropped by a king to the music of a minuet or passed by an ambassador to a minister of state over the after-dinner port? How surprised they would be at the blunt Bevin with his frequently unconcealed ill humor, at Molotov, rude and blustering, at Byrnes publicly changing his course in midstream, at Marshall announcing state policy in speeches rather than to plenipotentiaries or through official documents.

How surprised Talleyrand and Franklin would be to think of international relations carried on pursuant to slogans such as “open covenants openly arrived at.” How their shrewd eyes would have twinkled at the credulity of people who believed that they had democratized foreign affairs through such a slogan. The old school diplomats would scarely have confused headlines which report in large black type the speeches of the diplomats, or the political gossip columns which purport to repeat the whispered asides of statesmen, with covenants democratically negotiated.

The fact is that although we have gained publicity for foreign affairs, and that in itself is important, we have not democratized foreign affairs. They are still the business of technicians. They remain the preserve of foreign offices.