Diplomatic lessons 2, 1983-87: languages change everything

I was working in the personnel departments of the FCO when Judith Macgregor, head of my section, put her head around the door and beckoned.

An officer named John Everard had resigned from his post as second secretary (political) and press officer at the British Embassy in Vienna, she said. They needed a German speaker, fast. Was I interested?

One of my goals in joining the Foreign Office had been to drive a Jeep through wild terrain, in the manner of a corny cigarette advert popular at the time, in South America or Africa. Vienna – not so much. I asked friends. One replied ‘It means nothing to me’. Another, Louise Kroll, said ‘Vienna? You’d be mad not to’.

I had joined the FCO in 1983 from HM Treasury. My first job, as as desk officer for El Salvador and Nicaragua, consisted mostly of answering letters from Members of Parliament complaining about the support of the British Government for US policy in those countries. We received our reports from the region by letters in the diplomatic bag.

My department also covered Cuba.  Granma, the confusingly named newspaper of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, had curiously-scented printing ink and a predictable editorial line. When I visited Cuba in 2015, on holiday, it seemed to have changed remarkably little from how Granma had depicted it in 1983.

Early in 1984, my Treasury background – implying some degree of numeracy – led to me being assigned to write a review on how to use computers more effectively in personnel work.

I was also asked to explore why many women who had joined the FCO in 1983 had left within twelve months. Out of a graduate intake of 21, eleven had been female; I interviewed the eight or nine who had already left. The most common reason they gave was male partners who did not want to accompany them on an overseas posting.

Moving to Vienna on my first posting in 1984 felt a big deal. To mark the moment, and to sense the distance from London, I travelled there by train (I did the same when I took up my job as ambassador in Vienna in 2016). I remember sitting in my compartment watching the illuminated castles as we passed down the Rhine valley by night.

Although I already spoke German, the FCO arranged for me to do a month of “immersion training” with the wonderful Klaus family in Munich – a unique opportunity to build fluency which I have repeated with other languages.

My three years in Vienna were marked by political turbulence, including the Austrian wine scandal; the election of President Waldheim; the phenomenon of Green Party politician Kaspanaze Simma, who I met at an anti-dam protest in the Hainburger Au in 1984; and the takeover of the Freedom Party by young right-wing politician Jörg Haider, who I met in Innsbruck in 1986. I helped organise a visit by the Prince and Princess of Wales, accompanied by a festival of British culture, “Britain in Vienna”.

The lesson I draw from these four years is that learning languages changes everything. I’m not good at grammar – I scored possibly the bottom mark in the FCO Language Aptitude test when I joined in 1983. But I can pick them up; and over the years have spoken reasonable French, German, Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish and Spanish, although not at the same time. This helped me get several jobs:

• I was sent to Vienna at short notice in 1984, as described above;
• I went to Kyiv as ambassador in 2008 because they needed a Russian or Ukrainian speaker quickly;
• German also helped me get jobs as Counsellor EU & Economic in Germany (1998-2002) and as Ambassador in Vienna (2016-2021).

Speaking languages transforms your understanding of a country. It helped in Ukraine to be able to chat to President Yushchenko in Ukrainian, or Prime Minister Azarov in Russian. But it was life-changing to be able to talk to my security guards in Istanbul, or co-travellers on a bus in Anatolia, in Turkish; to communicate in Russian to local politicians and journalists in Novosibirsk or Vladivostok; or to participate in TV talk shows or give speeches in German in Berlin or Vienna. Exchanges in languages other than English are some of the experiences that have left the deepest impressions on me over the past forty years.

The system is not always consistent. It is a joke amongst diplomats that if you want to be sent to Brazil, the first thing you should do is learn Russian.

But that didn’t work for me.

Diplomatic Lessons 12: Tips for Diplomats and Ambassadors

Tips on being a diplomat

I’m fond of the rule of three.

1. Be expert, whether in languages, cultures, geographies or other skills eg economics.
2. Be wise. See your core task as knowing people, understanding them and building relationships of influence.
3. Be long term. Deliberate and debate before you decide. The pace of social media makes this hard. But Talleyrand had a point when he said ‘pas trop de zèle’.

How to be an ambassador?

1. It’s a unique privilege. People give you credit because you stand on the shoulders of giants. Live up to it.
2. Your job is to have opinions about your country or area of responsibility. Get it right by being a good diplomat (see above).
3. Identify and focus on the work you find most absorbing. You perform best when you’re doing what you love.

Coming soon: “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Diplomacy”.

P.S. For another excerpt from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Diplomacy” see my post “Diplomacy and the Media“.