D ELI GHT S| BOOKS
On diplomacy, sovereignty and peacemaking
Christina Spencer
They Call It Diplomacy: Forty Years of Representing Britain Abroad By Peter Westmacott Head of Zeus, Apollo Books, 2021 368 pages Kindle: $9.99
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Peter Westmacott's new book provides insights from a British envoy abroad. He served as British ambassador to France, Turkey and the U.S.
ing relationships with the senior ranks of other nations is crucial, he believes, and his close ties to ministers and leaders seem to bear that out. Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan, for example, never accepted hospitality from foreign diplomats, but was happy to come for a meal at the rebuilt consulate. Later, posted to the United States, West-
macott enjoyed time with his next-door neighbour, then-vice-president Joe Biden. “He was a people person. Genuinely interested in other human beings, and warm to the point of being more tactile than some people found comfortable, but which we found endearing, he understood that the secret to getting another person to do what you want is to gain their trust and FALL 2021 | OCT-NOV-DEC
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oon after Peter Westmacott arrived in Turkey as British ambassador, a bomb razed Pera House, the British consulate general in Istanbul. Twelve consulate employees died in the 2003 attack, and three people in the vicinity. Had the timing been a few days earlier, when Westmacott and his wife were visiting the building, they would have been among the casualties. It’s a reminder that the life of diplomats — though often perceived to be focused on pomp, protocol and pleasantries — can also be dangerous. It is not just superpower representatives (specifically Americans) who are the targets of protest and sometimes violence abroad. Nor is it just the superpowers that have global interests and priorities, as Westmacott’s biography of a British envoy shows. Much of the focus of this book is on London’s herculean attempts over many years to resolve the festering tension in divided Cyprus and assist Turkey in joining the European Union — an effort that has so far failed (and is now more than a little ironic, given that Britons themselves have left the European fold). Westmacott joined what was then the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1972, and served as British ambassador to Turkey, France and ultimately, the United States, with various other postings (including with royalty, as deputy secretary for the Prince of Wales). Along the way, he increasingly strongly believes in the role of professional diplomats, even as they are less and less appreciated by their governments in the modern age. Build-
