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Ever The Diplomat:
Confessions of a Foreign Offi ce Mandarin
By Sherard Cowper-Coles
Harper Press, 9780007436002, £20
Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles’ witty memoir offers a mandarin’s eye
view of the diplomatic process. When Margaret Thatcher
objected to a speech he had written, she wrote “NO!” with such
ferocity that her pen made a hole in the paper. Tony Blair, by
contrast, was not a man for diplomatic detail. Heading for a
summit, he would stare dreamily out of the aircraft window while
his staff tried to make him focus. Robin Cook, as foreign
secretary, had such an aversion to paperwork (unless it was The
Racing Post) that Cowper-Coles had to ambush him, pen in hand,
on the pavement at his front door to get him to sign.
Cowper-Coles was a natural for the Foreign Offi ce, relishing
the travel and intellectual and linguistic challenges. At the wheel
of his Mini Cooper he drives out to Lebanon for Arabic language
training, and then to Egypt. Servants, suffragis and fi xers are on
hand to smooth the way. After Anwar Sadat is shot in 1981,
Cowper-Coles drafts a telegram which concludes with a Latin
quotation from Lucretius. Alas, Lord Carrington, the foreign
secretary, is not up to translating it. The Cairo embassy’s crystal
ball was not as sharp as its command of dead languages. The
ambassador predicted that Sadat’s successor, Hosni Mubarak,
would not last six months. Oops. He managed almost 30 years.
His fl uent pen and emotional warmth propelled him up the
‘Cowper-Coles was a natural for
the Foreign Offi ce, relishing the
intellectual and linguistic challenges’
Arts &Ideas
53
ladder. Sir Antony Acland hired him as private secretary, hoping
the young man’s Tiggerish character might cheer him up. When
interviewed by Robin Cook to be his private secretary, Cowper-
Coles saw the vulnerability behind Cook’s prickly façade, and
offered to provide him not just sound advice but also affection.
He got the job.
There is more meat in the second half of the book. Cowper-
Coles is caught up in the battle between Chris Patten, the last
governor of Hong Kong who despised the “pre-emptive cringe”
of the Foreign Offi ce towards Beijing, and pre-eminent
Sinologist, Sir Percy Cradock, over how much democracy to
grant the colony ahead of the handover to China in 1997.
Cowper-Coles laments the “bureaucratic pusillanimity” that
ruled in the top echelons of the Foreign Offi ce.
After his stint with Robin Cook, he got three posts which tested
all his reserves of optimism. He served as ambassador to Israel
– the fi rst Arabist to do so – at the bloody height of the second
Palestinian intifada. From Tel Aviv he went to Riyadh, at a time
when Al-Qaeda was waging a struggle to the death with the
House of Saud. And from there to Kabul to front Britain’s mission
impossible in Afghanistan.
The story of how one of Britain’s most talented diplomats quit
the Foreign Offi ce is told in his book Cables from Kabul. Cheated
of a promised ambassadorial post, he resigns, and relates with
undiplomatic passion the folly of British forces marching into
Helmand province behind blimpish generals promising a military
victory which they knew was impossible, but needed to spin in
order to protect their budgets.
Ever the Diplomat is meant to be a lighter read. But still, it cannot
end without some soul-searching. The Foreign Offi ce should stop
being so “politely complaisant” and serving up what its masters
want to hear. He regrets that nowhere in the archives is a minute
warning ministers of the folly of joining the American invasion
of Iraq. In the end, he insists that his 33-year career was like having
Christmas every day. It is hard to imagine joining the diplomatic
service in today’s austere times and being able to write that.
Sherard Cowper-Coles in a Typhoon at RAF Coningsby, June 2009.
Alan Philps (New College, 1973) studied Arabic and Persian. He worked as a
foreign correspondent for Reuters (Moscow, Beirut, Tunis and Paris) and then
The Daily Telegraph (Moscow, Jerusalem and foreign editor). He is currently
Editor of The World Today, the Chatham House magazine.
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SHERARD COWPER-COLES