A posthumous memoir of late 20th century diplomatic life offers insightful windows into the world – New Zealand’s world – and detail the misgivings of the foreign affairs mandarins.
Book review: Ask a serving ambassador for a personal opinion on matters of world or national import and you will likely be met with a carefully crafted diplomatic response. Ask a retired ambassador the same question and you might open the floodgates of frankness: long-repressed views on what should or should not have been done; memories of drunk or otherwise wayward politicians on visits to major capitals; stories of first posts, or slights and entanglements with haughty counterparts, like Lawrence Durrell’s Antrobus stories. This is the grist and mill of diplomatic memoirs and what makes them such rewarding reading.
Terence O’Brien’s Consolations of Insignificance joins a number of other Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade kiss-and-tell biographies, among them Jim Weir’s Eat, Drink and be Wary (2011), Gerald Hensley’s Final Approaches (2006), Malcolm Templeton’s Top Hats Are Not Being Taken (1989), and Unofficial Channels a decade later, and the often acerbic letters of Alister McIntosh, Frank Corner, George Laking and Foss Shanahan.
These are effectively windows into the world – New Zealand’s world – and detail the misgivings of the foreign affairs mandarins on joining Anzus in 1951, decolonialisation in the South Pacific in the 1960s, and now, with O’Brien, the building of our relationship with Asia, particularly China. All of which tell us a lot about the world we live in now.
O’Brien, who died in late 2022, had a degree in history from the University of Oxford (Hensley was poised to go to Oxford for a history PhD when he was hired by McIntosh, NZ’s first secretary of foreign affairs, in 1958, Jim Weir did history at the University of Canterbury and Templeton studied English literature and Latin at the University of Otago).
O’Brien is clearly writing for the record but he interrupts the narrative occasionally for passionate flashes of irritation over current foreign policy. In one pithy comment on countering Chinese influence in the Pacific, he warns, “New Zealand always needs to tread prudently lest it appear to be ‘choosing friends’ for the South Pacific, after having actively encouraged the region to seek out new partners.”
Regarding the Anzus break-up, O’Brien says New Zealand’s anti-nuclear stance did not worry the US in itself, but for the possibility of the idea “infecting” other states. New Zealand was told by its allies that it was heedlessly unravelling “the seamless web of Western security”.
He recounts meeting a very senior member of the European Commission at the time, which coincided with his toil for a trade agreement with the EEC (which was not going well). Having been lectured about the destabilising threat of this country’s stance, O’Brien pointed out that political security and economic security were linked, and New Zealand was not getting much in the way of assurance from the protectionist US or Europe.
The official was not interested, and treated him to a “brisk dose of European realpolitik”. O’Brien clearly believed our foreign policy should be independent and even suggests the US view of us as “friends but not allies” is exactly as it should be.
O’Brien is amusing in his portraits of his political masters. He cites Mike Moore as capable of “an engaging but often mystifying stream-of-consciousness ode to free trade”. When a Soviet official visited Rotorua in 1978, O’Brien accompanied him, where they met then-minister of tourism and local National MP Harry Lapwood. Over dinner, the Russian, Aleksandr Ishkov, produced his dinner trick, which was to sing in impressive basso profondo, with his entourage as chorus. Not to be outdone, Lapwood proceeded to sing Old MacDonald Had a Farm, replete with pig snorts and chicken clucks. A not-so-subtle reference to Orwell? Probably not.
O’Brien also led New Zealand’s successful bid for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council in 1993.
He is vague about the reasons for his recall from New York but was clearly unhappy about the decision. A story in Private Eye suggested he had enemies in the UK Foreign Office. O’Brien writes that his close relationships at the UN were being wasted by replacing him before New Zealand’s term on the council had ended.
You can see how committed front-line diplomats could, over time, come to see New Zealand’s foreign policy as their own mission, and the clash between reputation and realpolitik as a deeply personal fight.
Indeed, much of the book details the diplomat’s frustration with unclear briefs from Wellington, and PMs and foreign ministers travelling overseas with sketchy ideas about what they wanted to achieve. In 1977, Robert Muldoon travelled to Rarotonga on his way to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. A fishing trip was arranged, complete with a hamper of food and liquor mixed with coconut milk. After four hours without a single fish caught, the skipper decided to throw the remaining fish bait out to attract sharks, in the hope of hooking one. Informed there was no bait left, Muldoon – who may have already had his fill of coconut cocktails – jumped up and said “Out of bait? Throw in the foreign affairs representatives! On second thoughts, foreign affairs representatives are an acquired taste – even for sharks.”
Diplomatic memoirs may also be an acquired taste but O’Brien’s book has just the right balance of historical spice and political meat. (The site kahudespatches.nz is another good source of Hensley’s writings.)
After a 40-year career as a diplomat, O’Brien went on to become founding director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at Victoria University, and as his biography shows, never lost interest in serving New Zealand’s interests.
Consolations of Insignificance: A New Zealand Diplomatic Memoir by Terence O’Brien (Te Herenga Waka University, $40) is out on Thursday.
