Some Qualifications Desirable in Members of the Foreign Service

I. Read the following extracts and make a list of a) personal qualities, b) special skills and qualifications, c) attitudes of a career diplomat. Discuss your list with a partner.

Advice of a Retired Diplomat to the New Generation

· Interest and concern is a substitute of intelligence to a certain extent, but not vice versa.

· Good manners is the best guide in practical diplomacy even in difficult situations. Even when you must be impolite, your guide is still good manners.

· You must have the ambition to serve your country, your fellow citizen and your fellow man.

· Shoulder your responsibilities. That is what you are paid for. Not assuming your responsibilities sometimes leads to a greater responsibility, that of omission.

· Always do things more difficult than you think you are capable of, other­wise you will fall into a rut.

· If you want to be taken seriously, don't take yourself seriously.

· We differ from the other civil servants mainly because of our knowledge of foreign languages. Don't neglect them. In any case, they are the best means of communicating with our foreign counterparts.

· Political affairs are easy. Study economics and trade. This way the foreign service gains in weight and importance.

· Don't neglect answering letters addressed to you by private individuals, your own or foreign. It is an example of civilization, good administration and respect for the private citizen.

· Use modern office equipment. It speeds up and multiplies results.

/William Mallinson, " Portrait of an Ambassador"!

As Diplomats See Themselves

They present themselves as practical men and women who take the world for what it is, rather than what it might be, and who let reason, rather than emotion, govern their actions. According to Mattingly diplomacy does not so much require special qualifications as makes special calls for common qualifi­cations, as well as the " application of intelligence and tact" and " a ready wit and sense of proportion".

Like Dobrynin with his " reassuring presence", diplomats see themselves as the steadying influence when others – public and politicians alike – are carried away by the heat of the moment to demand the satisfaction of national honour with war or be tempted by fear or selfishness to renounce important interna­tional responsibilities when they become dangerous or expensive to uphold. This they call professional detachment.

Some Qualifications Desirable in Members of the Foreign Service

What should the contemporary diplomat be? What personal qualities and attainments does he need for a job that is evidently so far from simple? Ideally speaking, nothing short of all-round perfection can be wished for in a man who is called upon to represent his country. One cannot, in principle, deny that such a man ought to be clever, wise, good, beautiful, and much else besides.

It is admittedly unusual and even somewhat shocking to contend that the diplomat should have a warm heart. Certainly he should not be emotionally ef­fusive in his behaviour, and he should preserve an unruffled calm when things go wrong and relations become strained. However, he will succeed best in his job when he not only likes at heart, but also shows quite plainly that he likes the fellow human beings with whom he comes in contact. And he will be well advised to make this liking the plainer, the greater the racial and other differ­ences may be.

A certain capacity for deception is needed in a diplomat; but where it is needed is in the domain of ordinary good manners. He must keep a good deal of what he thinks to himself and say for the sake of politeness a good many unimportant things he does not mean. He must be intelligent, but carefully re­frain from any oppressive display of intellectual powers. He must have humour (for that is fundamentally no more than a good sense of proportion), but if he also has wit he must usually keep the edge of it well sheathed not to wound those without humour.

Linguistic competence in the diplomat is a specialized branch of good man­ners as well as a by-product of sensitiveness to environment.

One final virtue of the professional diplomat is patience. Unless he is en­dowed with it in ample measure, the would-be diplomat will never in reality become a diplomatist at all; for it is of the essence of the profession to plod endlessly on at tasks which are neither simple nor quickly disposed of.

/on Diplomatic Practice/