Faith in Diplomacy Archie Mackenzie A memoir CAUX BOOKS • GROSVENOR BOOKS In this well-written book containing accounts of many delightful episodes in his diplomatic life, Archie Mackenzie succeeds in combining his working principles with his deeply held beliefs in Moral Re-Armament. He describes the problems he encountered right up to the highest level in his profession and how he succeeded in overcoming them throughout his long service in Whitehall and in our Embassies abroad. I know of no one else who has done this so capably and it makes both enjoyable and impressive reading. Edward Heath, KG, PC, British Prime Minister 1970-74 Archie Mackenzie is a diplomat with a long memory. His knowledge of the UN goes back to 1945, and I was fortunate enough to have him as head of the economic work of the Mission when I became Ambassador in 1974. A man of deep personal integrity, which showed in his professional activities, he was a diplomat of the highest quality. His story is well worth the telling. Ivor Richard, PC, QC, British Ambassador to UN 1974-80, Leader of the House of Lords, Labour Government, 1997-98 The distillation from a life-time of creative service by a Western diplomat identifying with all parts of the world. Rajmohan Gandhi, Indian writer and political figure Archie Mackenzie’s book is about faith, diplomacy, and personal fulfilment. It is a testament of gratitude for a life of purpose and service. Its author’s life has been shaped by the way in which he found practical expression for his Christian faith. It was a commitment which did not always sit easily with the Foreign Office. But the book is also a significant historical document, written by a former Ambassador who found new challenges in ‘retirement’, ranging from reconciliation work in former Yugoslavia to Western relations with the Third World. R D Kernohan, Scottish writer and broadcaster vi First published 2002 Second edition published 2002 CAUX BOOKS Case postale 36 Rue du Panorama 1824 Caux Switzerland ISBN: 2 88037 507 X GROSVENOR BOOKS 24 Greencoat Place London SW1P 1RD UK ISBN: 1 85239 032 8 © A R K Mackenzie 2002 Book design: Blair Cummock Typeset in Sabon 11 pt Printed by Kelso Graphics, Kelso, Scotland For Ruth ix Contents 1 Beginnings – a Glasgow Highlander 1 2 Universities – Glasgow, Oxford, and the 15 New World 3 Wartime Washington – working for Churchill 31 with Isaiah Berlin 4 San Francisco – the post-war world takes shape 44 5 New York – The UN: ‘the newest show in town’ 57 6 Bangkok – discovering Asia 74 7 Cyprus – message from ‘murder mile’ 86 8 Paris – the linkage of global and intimate 96 9 Burma – rich country, poor government 104 10 Yugoslavia – being ready for the unexpected 118 11 Tunisia – learning Arab ways 145 12 Challenges of the Third World – the UN and 160 Brandt Commission 13 Faith in Diplomacy 178 14 New Dimensions of Statecraft – where 189 are we going? xi Acknowledgments The contours of this book were first sketched by my friend Bob Kernohan on a piece of paper at a lunch table in the Roxburghe Hotel, Edinburgh, in December 2000. As I look now at the finished product, I am struck by how closely it resembles that original outline. Bob has remained throughout as my senior consultant and I am permanently in his debt. Ginny Wigan also joined the project at an early stage, skilfully deciphering and typing my handwritten text and then coping amicably with my endless stream of additions and amendments. She subsequently became overall editor of the book, responsible for the fine tuning of the text and saving me from many pitfalls. To her, too, I am deeply grateful. John Milton famously said that ‘a good book is the pre- cious life-blood of a master spirit’. My own discovery in producing this small volume, my first, has been much more mundane. It has been that a book needs an assem- bly-line just as surely as does an automobile or television set. And I have been touched by the wide range of friends who have joined the assembly-line at different stages. Philip Boobbyer and Andrew Stallybrass actually had the vision of such a book well before I had and before Bob Kernohan started to give it shape, and Andrew later assumed the role of publisher on behalf of Caux Books. Elizabeth and David Locke of Grosvenor Books also con- tributed their publishing skills, with early assistance from Robert Hastings of Dexter Haven. Blair Cummock, with xii Faith in Diplomacy whose family I have been entwined for 69 years, not only designed the cover, the typography and the photographic layouts (with help on picture research from Peter and Margaret Sisam), but supervised the whole printing oper- ation as well. When we finally reached the proof-reading stage, Wendy Pugh, assisted by Janet Paine, focused their professional eyes on the text and removed many blem- ishes. But most continuously on the assembly line has been my wife Ruth. Her constant encouragement, her insights and her patience, even when drafts and redrafts threatened to engulf our entire abode, have made the whole exercise not only possible but enjoyable and, I trust, worthwhile. To all these people, and to other helpers unnamed, I therefore offer my warmest thanks for lightening my task and improving the product in so many different ways. December 2001 ARKM 1 Beginnings – a Glasgow Highlander My thirty-two years in the Diplomatic Service have been thoroughly enjoyable ones and, when asked by the younger generation about choosing a diplomatic career, I invariably give an encouraging response. I have to admit, however, that I have not been a wholly orthodox member of the Service. I never filled in a Post Preference Form in my whole career, asking for a specific job. I accepted whatever was offered, and have no regrets about the consequences. I have never been a big player in big events. My role rather was at the margins of history but, looking back, I can see that I was sometimes instrumental in accomplishing more than I realised at the time. I found myself in the Service as a result of a series of events, few of which I could control. The successive steers given to me by my professors at crucial moments in my uni- versity career were admittedly influential. But the really decisive factors were different. They were the outbreak of the Second World War and the circumstances which led to my being in the United States rather than in Britain at that time; and the fact that at the age of 18 I launched out on an adventure in faith that was to last a lifetime. Ultimately it was this decision which led me step by step, in ways that I could not have planned in advance, into the diplomatic profession. I met with opposition from time to time, not 1 2 Faith in Diplomacy surprisingly. But I also found repeatedly that, when facing difficulties, an ally would appear or a locked door would open. In retirement when I now awake in the morning and look across Loch Lomond from our home on the eastern shore, my first thought is very often one of gratitude. Not achievement. Not failure. Not frustration. And certainly not boredom. Just gratitude. This mood is not induced simply by the unspoiled and unsurpassed beauty of the loch and the islands and western hills beyond, which take on a special luminous quality in the early morning. It is gratitude for a host of things, but spe- cially for the people who have shaped and enriched my life. ***** I have long thought that G K Chesterton hit on the most original of openings for his autobiography: ‘Bowing down in blind credulity, as is my custom, before mere authority and the tradition of the elders, superstitiously swallowing a story I could not test at the time by experiment of private judgment, I am firmly of the opinion that I was born on the 29th of May 1874 on Camden Hill, Kensington.’ In Chestertonian style, I would say that I believe that I was born in Ruchill, Glasgow, on 22nd October 1915 in a tenement flat at 23 Mayfield Street. The only recorded comment on that event came from the Highland minister who baptised me and said in Gaelic: ‘He’s a small man with a big head.’ My father’s forebears all came of farming stock on the Isle of Arran and, if he had had his way, he would have continued in that tradition, but his father decreed other- wise and he was despatched unwillingly to the High School of Glasgow. He eventually joined the Royal Bank of Scotland and served virtually all his career in branches in the Glasgow area. Beginnings – a Glasgow Highlander 3 My mother – who was a Mackenzie before her marriage although no relative of my father – was a Highlander through and through. She came from Ross-shire in the far north-west of Scotland, from the tiny village of Kishorn. On both sides of my family we could, if we wished, claim to be linked to inhabitants of 10 Downing Street. On my mother’s side there was a link with Ramsay MacDonald and on my father’s side a link with Harold Macmillan whose ancestors came from Lochranza, the small village on the Isle of Arran where my father grew up. But both links are quite remote and they certainly did not affect my own career. My mother spoke only Gaelic until she was 12 years old.