Storm Signals: More Undiplomatic Diaries, 1962-1971

149 Pages·2001·0.75 MB·English

by  Charles Ritchie

ALSO BY CHARLES RITCHIE
An Appetite for Life
The Siren Years
Diplomatic Passport
My Grandfather’s House

Copyright © 1983 Charles Ritchie
Originally published in hardcover by Macmillan of Canada 1983 McClelland & Stewart trade
paperback edition published 2001 by arrangement with The Estate of Charles Ritchie
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a
retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of photocopying
or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an
infringement of the copyright law.
National Library of Canada cataloguing in publication data
Ritchie, Charles, 1906-1995
Storm signals : more undiplomatic diaries, 1962-1971
eISBN: 978-1-55199680-6
1. Ritchie, Charles, 1906-1995 – Diaries. 2. Diplomats – Canada – Diaries.
I. Title.
FC616.R58A3 2001 327.71′0092 C2001-930637-7
F1034.R56A37 2001a
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing
Industry Development Program for our publishing activities. We further acknowledge the support
of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.
McClelland & Stewart Ltd.
The Canadian Publishers
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v3.1
To my niece Elizabeth Ritchie
and to the memory of
Elizabeth Bowen
CONTENTS
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Preface
Washington, 1962–1966
London, 1967–1971
Diplomatic Attitudes
Epilogue
PREFACE
This will be the fourth volume of these undiplomatic diaries. It covers
the years 1962 to 1971, beginning with my appointment as Ambassador
to Washington and ending when I quit the post of High Commissioner to
London and said goodbye to the Foreign Service.
I should from the start warn the reader what not to expect. This is not
an historical memoir or a study of the role of Canada in international
affairs. Recently a spate of memoirs and studies of this period have
appeared. Some are valuable contributions to history – some less so. All
were written with the wisdom of hindsight which is denied the diarist.
As a boy I wrote, “I prefer diaries to memoirs. They are less made up
afterwards.” They are also less flattering to the ego of the author. It is a
temptation to revise the record when one comes across opinions about
people and events which have since proved to be wrong. That
temptation has to be resisted. Also, one does not want to hurt the
feelings of the living or cause distress to the friends and relatives of the
dead. Yet if one irons out all pungency of comment the sanitized text
becomes so bland as to be unreadable. The only real answer to the
problem would be for the diarist to die before publication or for those
mentioned in the diary to die before him – either seems an extreme
solution.
This record is only a footnote to History. Yet History, if not at the
centre of the stage, is always in the wings, for the diarist played a small
part on the fringes of the drama. Politics dominated the Washington
years, and politicians – good, bad, and indifferent – come and go
throughout the story. So too do my diplomatic colleagues. Diplomats are
not a particularly popular breed and my old profession, like all
professions, has its trivial, sometimes ludicrous, side, but most of its
practitioners are hard-headed, humane, and tolerant people who devote
much of their energies to the peaceful solution of intractable
international problems and the prevention of violent international
collisions. As to our own Foreign Service, it contains some of the best
brains and most devoted public servants in our country.
Though the framework of this journal is that of the diplomatic career,
the diaries themselves are highly personal. The scenes and people
appearing in them are an oddly assorted company, not chosen in order
of importance or according to the rules of protocol. Why else does the
diabolical dachshund Popski usurp space which should be reserved for
his betters? Why does the snapshot of an eccentric encountered by
accident replace the portrait of a friend whom I saw every day?
In this book statesmen, or would-be statesmen, rub shoulders with
authors, society hostesses; old friends reappear and a younger generation
begins to enter on the stage; the scenes shift from Embassy life in
London, Washington, and Paris to the streets of Ottawa and the south
shore of Nova Scotia. It is a peculiar book because it reflects the
changing moods of the writer, ranging from gloom and nostalgia to
exhilaration and amusement, written from day to day, sometimes from
hour to hour. We diarists are peculiar people; we may appear harmless,
yet we can be dangerous. We write things down, awkward things
sometimes, indiscreet things, things better forgotten. We should be
banned. No doubt we soon will be, for we have no union or lobby to
defend us. Diarists are by definition non-joiners; theirs is not a group
activity. Our only plea in defence might be that we find Life so
interesting that we are not willing to see it slip between our fingers
without leaving a trace behind.
WASHINGTON
1962–1966
After four years as Permanent Representative to the United Nations I left
New York on April 27, 1962, to go as Canadian Ambassador to
Washington. My appointment there took place at a time of strained and
worsening relationship between the Kennedy administration and the
government of Prime Minister Diefenbaker. I had been chosen as
Ambassador at the urging of the Secretary of State for External Affairs,
Howard Green, and after a prolonged period of indecision on the part of
the Prime Minister as to the best candidate for the job. I hardly knew
Mr. Diefenbaker personally, and my interview with him prior to my
appointment was of the most cursory kind. Howard Green, on the other
hand, I knew well. I had worked very closely with him in my capacity as
Permanent Representative to the United Nations and I had developed a
respect for his ability and integrity, and a personal affection for him. I
had serious misgivings myself about my suitability for the Washington
post, principally on the grounds that I had not enough knowledge of the
trade and economic issues between our two countries. However, the
outgoing Ambassador, Arnold Heeney, sought to encourage me in every
way possible, and this, combined with Howard Green’s confidence,
overcame any hesitations I might have had.
To be an ambassador in a capital when relations between your own
government and the government to which you are accredited are bad,
and getting worse, is always a tricky situation and is a difficult hand to
play. I had spent happy years in my youth as Third Secretary in the
(then) Canadian Legation in Washington. I had many friends there. So
my wife Sylvia and I were warmly welcomed, and there was not the
faintest reflection, in the hospitality with which we were greeted, of the
clouds on the political horizon. However, pleasant as this was, it had
little to do with the realities of politics. I had only been in Washington a
very short time before this was brought home to me. The occasion was a
private party at which the Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was present. To
my surprise, he took the occasion to launch an attack on the policies and
attitude of the Canadian government in such forthright language that
Walter Lippmann, who was among the guests, said to me afterwards that
in all his experience he had never heard such terms used to an