Sir Alexander Cadogan and Lord Halifax's ‘Damascus road’ conversion over the Godesberg terms 1938

The article challenges the recent perception that Lord Halifax was the hero of the Czech crisis in 1938, when in fact the real credit for his revolt against the Godesberg terms belonged to Sir Alexander Cadogan, the Permanent Under‐Secretary at the Foreign Office. It does on to argue that Halifax was ill suited by nature to be Foreign Secretary and that his subsequent record shows him to have been a natural appeaser, still loyal to Chamberlain, who argued for an accommodation with Hitler in the summer of 1940.     

Sir Eric Phipps,the British Government,and the Appeasement of Germany, 1933–1937

This article argues that Sir Eric Phipps’ reputation as an “anti-appeaser” of Germany during his Berlin embassy 1933–1937 is not accurate. While Phipps was not in favor of placating Hitler by making territorial concessions, he had much in common with those who had sought a rapprochement with Germany in the 1920s through a policy of inclusion and reconciliation. Particular importance is placed on Phipps’ attitude towards the League of Nations, with detailed consideration also being accorded to his relationship with the British Foreign Secretaries and Foreign Office officials of the period, as well as his views on the Entente Cordiale.     

Sir Eric Phipps, the British Government, and the Appeasement of Germany, 1933-1937

This article argues that Sir Eric Phipps' reputation as an “anti-appeaser” of Germany during his Berlin embassy 1933-1937 is not accurate. While Phipps was not in favor of placating Hitler by making territorial concessions, he had much in common with those who had sought a rapprochement with Germany in the 1920s through a policy of inclusion and reconciliation. Particular importance is placed on Phipps' attitude towards the League of Nations, with detailed consideration also being accorded to his relationship with the British Foreign Secretaries and Foreign Office officials of the period, as well as his views on the Entente Cordiale.     

Sir George Clerk and the struggle for British influence in central Europe, 1919-26

During the Great War, Sir George Clerk was a senior Foreign Office official, strongly sympathetic to the cause of the 'oppressed nationalities' of Austria-Hungary and the liberal ideals associated with the journal, The New Europe. In 1919 he was granted a unique opportunity to shape the face of the New Europe when he embarked on his mission to Hungary. As British minister to Czechoslovakia in the early 1920s, Clerk harnessed his idealism for the Czechs to his ambition to make Prague a centre of British influence and power in central Europe. Though this policy ultimately failed, Clerk showed a greater rapport and sympathy for the Czechs than any of his successors.     

Austen Chamberlain and the continental balance of power: strategy, stability, and the league of nations, 1924-29

As foreign secretary from November 1924 to June 1929, Austen Chamberlain dominated British foreign policy. Central to his diplomatic strategy was the maintenance of the European balance of power and, in this circumstance, pursuit of a leadership role for Britain within the League of Nations. The foundation upon which Chamberlain based his European strategy lay with his determination to have Britain play the vital role of stabilizing relations between France and Germany, whose mutual antipathy after the Great War, compounded by the severity of the Treaty of Versailles, threatened continental security. By October 1925, his work bore fruit with the conclusion of the Locarno agreements. For the remainder of his tenure at the Foreign Office, Chamberlain used Locarno - and Germany's membership in the League that was part of that settlement - as the diplomatic mechanism to underwrite his strategic conception of the balance of power. This article addresses the neglected issue of the strategic base of Chamberlain's European policy and addresses three criticisms of his record as foreign secretary.     

Sir George Clerk and the struggle for British influence in central Europe, 1919–26

During the Great War, Sir George Clerk was a senior Foreign Office official, strongly sympathetic to the cause of the ‘oppressed nationalities’ of Austria‐Hungary and the liberal ideals associated with the journal, The New Europe. In 1919 he was granted a unique opportunity to shape the face of the New Europe when he embarked on his mission to Hungary. As British minister to Czechoslovakia in the early 1920s, Clerk harnessed his idealism for the Czechs to his ambition to make Prague a centre of British influence and power in central Europe. Though this policy ultimately failed, Clerk showed a greater rapport and sympathy for the Czechs than any of his successors.     

Putting Principle into Practice: The Role of Human Rights in Foreign Policy

This commentary by Robin Cook reflects upon what was accomplished during his four years as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs after the new Labour government in 1997 placed the promotion and protection of human rights at the heart of its foreign policy. The paper emphasises this partnership by introducing a programme of exchanges and secondments between human rights NGOs and the Foreign Office, focusing on the pursuit of human rights in both principle and practice. While discussing the role of the British government the author provides an overview of many of the most important examples of attempts at ethical foreign policy over the last five years. It is argued that that national interest is promoted, not hindered, by a commitment to human rights and suggests new rules for when the UN can intervene to keep peace within states rather than among states.     

"The Quest": The Strange Life of W. J. Garnett

This article investigates the career of a British diplomat, William Garnett, whose unusual life has until know been neglected by historians. Garnett's papers, held at Lancashire Record Office, are a particularly rich source for historians of British diplomacy, the British Foreign Office, and overseas travel in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Garnett was often outspoken and indiscreet in his private correspondence and his archive, on which this article draws, provides valuable insights into British representation and British policy in the countries to which he was posted in the period 1902-1919.     

Confessions of a South African ambassador

Prepared originally for presentation at a biennial conference of the Australian Historical Association, this article is a retrospective on the author's term (1988-92) as South African Ambassador to Australia in the twilight of white rule. Apartheid South Africa was firmly fixed in Australian public demonology. The author conceived of it as his role to use the media to project a more realistic image of his country than the demonic stereotype then prevailing. While achieving some success, he found himself the target of ambitious colleagues at home. Thus, besides examining what an individual diplomat did in given historical circumstances, the article touches on the nature of the former South African Department of Foreign Affairs.     

Confessions of a South African ambassador

Prepared originally for presentation at a biennial conference of the Australian Historical Association, this article is a retrospective on the author's term (1988–92) as South African Ambassador to Australia in the twilight of white rule. Apartheid South Africa was firmly fixed in Australian public demonology. The author conceived of it as his role to use the media to project a more realistic image of his country than the demonic stereotype then prevailing. While achieving some success, he found himself the target of ambitious colleagues at home. Thus, besides examining what an individual diplomat did in given historical circumstances, the article touches on the nature of the former South African Department of Foreign Affairs.     

High and Low Tide: Sino–American Relations and Summit Diplomacy in the Second World War

Studies of Chinese involvement in Allied relations during the Second World War tend to focus on the Cairo Conference of November 1943 and see it as the high point for China’s wartime diplomacy. This analysis argues that the Moscow Foreign Ministers’ Conference, held just prior to Cairo in late October–early November, was more important for the achievement of China’s longer-term interests. The participation at Moscow of Cordell Hull, the American secretary of state, was unique as the State Department was absent from almost all the Allied wartime summits. President Franklin Roosevelt liked to conduct his diplomacy personally. In Moscow, however, Hull represented the United States, and his patience and persistence led to the inclusion of China in the Four Nation Declaration that resulted from the meeting. That, in turn, meant that China was eventually included as a permanent member of the eventual United Nations Security Council and seen as a post-war Great Power. It was a more significant outcome than those resulting from the Cairo Conference.     

T. Tamman (2011). The Last Ambassador: August Torma,Soldier, Diplomat,Spy

ABSTRACT

This article recounts the author’s experience as a junior diplomat in the British Diplomatic Service in the late 1960s handling the file of Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s ex-deputy serving a life sentence in Spandau prison in Berlin. As the only Nazi leader still imprisoned there after the release in 1966 of Albert Speer and Baldur von Schirach, his fate as 'the lone prisoner of Spandau’had become an international issue. Sentenced at the Nuremberg trial of 1946, his fate was a matter for the four powers still occupying Berlin. Moscow was determined that as the last remaining symbol of the Hitler regime Hess should die there. In the West, however, and especially in Britain, there was a press campaign for his release that put pressure on the Foreign Office by way of letters from the public and parliamentary questions. As a desk officer for Germany, it fell to me to handle this by writing or drafting replies to the effect that as Hess was a prisoner of all four powers the decision required consent, that Moscow was adamantly opposed, and that Britain could not act unilaterally. But the real target of the press campaign, spearheaded by the Beaverbrook press through the Daily and Sunday Express, was Harold Wilson’s Labour Government. Anything that could demonstrate his alleged ‘appeasement’ of Moscow was grist to its mill. The now weeded file in the National Archives gives little hint of this politically-motivated agenda.     

The Role of the Practitioner-Scholar: Johan Kaufmann's Contributions to Scholarship on Decision Making in the United Nations System

The significant role that practitioner-scholars can play in research on the UN system is illuminated through analysis of the contributions of Johan Kaufmann who represented The Netherlands as Permanent Representative to UN agencies in New York and Geneva and to OECD in Paris. He combined scholarship with practice throughout his thirty-eight years in the Foreign Service and until his death in 1999. He was a keen observer of the impact on UN decisions of different negotiating styles, psychological and cultural characteristics, and professional backgrounds, as well as the significance of the diversity of roles played by representatives of states, elected officers of UN bodies, UN Secretariats, regional organizations, and NGOs. He had a penetrating awareness of the importance of the physical surroundings of conference diplomacy. He was a systemic thinker, continually placing activities near at hand in the larger context of the UN system and beyond. His scholarship most certainly reveals that practitioner-scholars can make vital contributions to international studies.     

Rival Foreign Office Perceptions of Germany, 1936-39

This article examines the charge that, especially during the period when Sir Robert Vansittart was Permanent Under-Secretary, the Foreign Office was anti-German in its orientation. It also analyzes the role played by three successive ambassadors, Sir Horace Rumbold, Sir Eric Phipps and Sir Nevile Henderson in influencing the Foreign Office perception of Germany, and examines the Foreign Office's attitude to the anti-Nazi Germany opposition. Finally, the article looks at the evidence for continuity between the Vansittart period, and that which followed under Sir Alexander Cadogan, before concluding that the latter was more inclined to accept the appeasement of Germany.     

J.M. Keynes and the Personal Politics of Reparations: Part 2

The second part of this article shows that John Maynard Keynes worked closely with the German Finance and Foreign ministries as a supposed neutral expert in October 1922. He supported passive resistance to the French in the Ruhr without regard to its effects on the currency, secretly collaborated in writing the German reparations note of June 1923, and then praised his own work in a weekly that he controlled. Keynes opposed the 1929 Young Plan that re-scheduled the German debt and declined to accept modern thinking on overcoming the transfer problem.     

Rival Foreign Office Perceptions of Germany, 1936-39

This article examines the charge that, especially during the period when Sir Robert Vansittart was Permanent Under-Secretary, the Foreign Office was anti-German in its orientation. It also analyzes the role played by three successive ambassadors, Sir Horace Rumbold, Sir Eric Phipps and Sir Nevile Henderson in influencing the Foreign Office perception of Germany, and examines the Foreign Office's attitude to the anti-Nazi Germany opposition. Finally, the article looks at the evidence for continuity between the Vansittart period, and that which followed under Sir Alexander Cadogan, before concluding that the latter was more inclined to accept the appeasement of Germany.     

Ernest Satow's Early Career as Diplomatic Interpreter

This article is concerned with Satow's seven years as diplomatic interpreter in the Japan of the fateful 1860s. He was sent first to Peking because the Foreign Office in its ignorance thought that Japanese was very similar to Chinese, but this detour did at least enable him to meet there another notable British diplomatic interpreter, Thomas Wade. He soon learned better about Japanese, and once he had mastered it fluently he became a privileged observer of traditional society and culture in the crucial period when it was being shaken by the first rumblings of the Meiji era. He was therefore able to render outstanding service to his head of mission, who was himself an ex-interpreter. Satow went on to enjoy a long and distinguished career in the diplomatic corps, rising from interpreter to ambassador.     

Ernest Satow's Early Career as Diplomatic Interpreter

This article is concerned with Satow's seven years as diplomatic interpreter in the Japan of the fateful 1860s. He was sent first to Peking because the Foreign Office in its ignorance thought that Japanese was very similar to Chinese, but this detour did at least enable him to meet there another notable British diplomatic interpreter, Thomas Wade. He soon learned better about Japanese, and once he had mastered it fluently he became a privileged observer of traditional society and culture in the crucial period when it was being shaken by the first rumblings of the Meiji era. He was therefore able to render outstanding service to his head of mission, who was himself an ex-interpreter. Satow went on to enjoy a long and distinguished career in the diplomatic corps, rising from interpreter to ambassador.     

The General on his Journeys. Augusto Pinochet’s International Trips and Diverging Transnational Justice and Memory Agendas in the Aftermath of the Cold War

Augusto Pinochet, comandante-en-jefe of the Chilean Army, was an avid global traveller in the 1990s. As the former military dictator had developed into a potent symbol of Cold War anti-communism, authoritarianism, and market radicalism, his trips across Latin America, East Asia, Southern Africa, continental Europe, and to the United Kingdom usually made a great stir. This article looks at public reactions, political debates, and legal consequences that were caused by Pinochet’s appearance. It argues that different attitudes towards the Chilean visitor reflected how local groups positioned and envisioned themselves in the transformative period around 1989. Drawing on documents from the Chilean Foreign Ministry, interviews with Chilean generals, and newspaper coverage from four continents, it demonstrates that many anti-communists as well as liberal economists did not see Pinochet as a representative of a criminal past. Rather, his “Chilean model” had become a source of legitimacy of an authoritarian path of modernisation.     

Dealing with the Intractable: A Possible Negotiating Position for the New British Ambassador to Berlin,Summer 1933

Foreign Office diplomats recognised the danger to British security posed by Adolph Hitler’s accession to the chancellorship of Germany in January 1933 but differed on how to meet this challenge. This article reproduces the hitherto unpublished draft instructions prepared by Owen O’Malley, a ranking official at the Foreign Office, for the newly appointed ambassador to Germany, Sir Eric Phipps, on taking up his posting in autumn 1933. Sir Robert Vansittart, the permanent under secretary, who took a sceptical but not entirely hostile view of O’Malley’s proposals, minutes O’Malley’s suggestion of a clear warning to Hitler, accompanied by the opening of negotiations with Nazi Germany recognising its enhanced position and the justice of some of its claims. Vansittart did not forward the draft memorandum to the foreign secretary, Sir John Simon, and there is, as far as I know, no copy of this in the public archives. Included is additional information on the clashes between the two men on how dictators should be treated as well as biographical information on the careers of the three men involved in this debate.