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Valedictory dispatches

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Here’s a satisfying day-dream: you have quit your job, but you’re encouraged to write down your opinion about the whole thing – and then publish it to your colleagues. Well, that was long standard practice for British diplomats. Britain’s former ambassador in Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer (pictured) told The BBC that for him, the quality of dispatches varied as much as the quality of those that wrote them. Alex Gallafent reports.

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MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman.  This is The World.  Here’s a daydream for you.

You’ve quit your job, but you’re actively encouraged to write down your thoughts about the whole thing, and then send them off to your former colleagues. Well, that was long standard practice for British diplomats, as The World’s Alex Gallafent reports.

ALEX GALLAFENT:  For centuries, British ambassadors wrote “valedictory dispatches,” final thoughts on their overseas postings.  The reports were then fed through the veins of the British government.  The tradition ended in 2006, but the dispatches still make for good reading.

VOICE OVER: Sir David Hunt, Lagos, 1969.

GALLAFENT:  All the excerpts, by the way, are read by fruity British actors.

VOICE OVER:  The Nigerians certainly deserve a happy and united future after all they have gone through.  I have a great affection for them, because they’re generally cheerful and friendly, in  spite of their maddening habit of always choosing the course of action which will do the maximum damage to their own interest.  They’re not singular in this.  Africans as a whole are not only not averse to cutting off their nose to spite their face.  They regard such an operation as a triumph of cosmetic surgery.

GALLAFENT:  If it’s not clear by now, the private tone of British diplomats hasn’t always been, well, politically correct.  Their parting shots were confidential.  That allowed the authors to write freely.  But now the dispatches are coming to light.  Sir Christopher Meyer is a former British ambassador to the United States.  For him, the quality of valedictory dispatches varied as much as the quality of those who wrote them.

SIR CHRISTOPHER MEYER: What I think one looked for was not only profound analysis, but you looked for wit, and you also looked for a person touch, which necessarily meant a reflection of the ambassador’s personality.  Now some ambassadors are incredibly pompous and boring, and that would come through.

GALLAFENT:  For instance: Ambassador Roger Pinsent, on leaving Nicaragua in 1967.

VOICE OVER: There is, I fear, no question but that the average Nicaraguan is one of the most dishonest, unreliable, and alcoholic of the Latin Americans. Their version of Spanish is quite the least attractive I have come across.

GALLAFENT:  Today, the British valedictory dispatch is no more.  Email made confidentiality harder to preserve, and recent freedom of information laws allowed the public access to the documents.  Some say British lawmakers are losing a source of candid opinions from their departing diplomats. For instance, Dame Glynne-Evans wrote this on leaving Portugal in 2004.

VOICE OVER: The more we stand by principle the better. Expediency does not pay. Departing from international humanitarian law, even just a little bit, is like being just a little bit pregnant

GALLAFENT:  But maybe some opinions won’t be missed.

VOICE OVER: Sir Anthony Rumbold, Bangkok, 1967.  I have very much enjoyed living for a while in Thailand.  It is true they have no literature, no painting, and only a very odd kind of music.  Nobody can deny that gambling and golf are the chief pleasures of the rich, and that licentiousness is the main pleasure of them all.  But it does a faded European good to spend some time among such a jolly, extrovert and anti-intellectual people.

GALLAFENT:  Britain’s current ambassador to Thailand has already reacted to the release of that missive from 1967.  Quinton Quayle praised ”the richness of Thai culture, and the charm and warmth of the Thai people.”  For The World, I’m Alex Gallafent.

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