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00:00For 500 years, our little island Britain has punched above its weight around the world,
00:10getting our way.
00:13The means to our success?
00:18Not just gunboats and commerce, but ruthless powerbroking, Machiavellian manoeuvring, and
00:24plenty of charm, diplomacy.
00:29These are the people you don't often get to hear about.
00:31It's the kings and queens, the politicians and the generals who dominate the history
00:36books.
00:37But this series is about my predecessors who championed Britain's interests abroad, ambassadors
00:43and envoys, powerbrokers and negotiators.
00:47You must never forget that it's British interests which you're there to promote and protect.
00:52You are constantly having to talk to, make deals with, make concessions to, people who
00:59in other ways are doing things which you thoroughly dislike and disapprove of.
01:03You have to be a bit of a schemer, otherwise you can't do the job properly.
01:10As our man in Washington, I saw history in the making.
01:18Now I'm going back over the last five centuries to put myself in the shoes of different diplomats
01:24who helped Britain's rise to greatness and who managed our decline.
01:32Our diplomacy must always be driven by the national interest.
01:35That's easier to say than to define, but of one thing we can be sure of, our top priority
01:40is, as it has always been, our security.
01:47It's the irreducible national interest, and this is the minimum a diplomat or statesman
01:56must try to accomplish.
02:26When I was at school, I was taught that the Roaring Seas had protected England from invasion
02:39for a thousand years, but back in the 16th century, we were far from safe.
02:46For Queen Elizabeth I, a key line of defence was not the Roaring Seas, but her spymasters
02:52and diplomats, ruthless, pragmatic men like Lord Burley and Sir Francis Walsingham, who
02:58had made it their life's mission to confound the Queen's foreign Catholic enemies.
03:04What I would give to have been in that game, the nearest I got to it was playing cat and
03:09mouse with the KGB in Soviet Russia.
03:18In 1572, shocking news arrived from across the Channel, where Elizabeth's chief spy,
03:25Walsingham, ran our Paris embassy.
03:30Thousands of Protestants had been slaughtered on St Bartholomew's Day.
03:33Throats were slashed and bodies dismembered.
03:38The River Seine ran red with blood.
03:42Burley called it the greatest crime since the crucifixion.
03:48The grisly news from France tapped into a deep fear that a great international Catholic
03:52conspiracy would come together to depose Elizabeth and restore Catholicism in England.
03:58The Pope had just issued a bull calling for the violent overthrow of this monstrous heretic.
04:03Poor Elizabeth.
04:05But as they said about Richard Nixon, just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they
04:09aren't out to get you.
04:17The survival of the nation, no less, was at stake.
04:20And the Queen immediately summoned a diplomat for help.
04:25He was a Cornishman, and his name was Henry Killigrew.
04:31Killigrew was one of a new breed of professional diplomats, key players in the 16th century
04:36world of rapidly shifting alliances, cold-blooded assassinations, and devious espionage.
04:55Elizabeth I might not yet have had a foreign office, but she had moved from the medieval
04:59world into a recognisably modern era of professional statecraft, where resident ambassadors abroad
05:07kept a wary eye on neighbouring states in the defence of Britain's national interest.
05:18So much of real history happens behind the scenes, where diplomacy likes to ply its trade.
05:27These days, ambassadors summoned home to see the Foreign Secretary come here, the ambassador's
05:33waiting room, at the very heart of the Foreign Office.
05:39It can be nerve-wracking awaiting orders.
05:44Eventually, Henry Killigrew's moment came from his Queen.
05:52Killigrew had earned a reputation as a troubleshooter whose discretion was such that there is not
05:57a single portrait of him.
05:59Less than a fortnight after the Paris Massacre, Elizabeth gave him instructions for a new
06:04and vital foreign mission.
06:10Without even pausing to say goodbye to his wife and children, Killigrew made haste.
06:17From Paris, Walsingham had reported rumours of plans of a French military enterprise against
06:22England, and he strongly advised that steps should be taken to shut up what he called
06:28the Postham Gate.
06:38And that Postham Gate was Scotland.
06:44Edinburgh in 1572 was up for grabs, the two-year civil war had reached stalemate, and Killigrew's
06:51task was to negotiate a settlement between the rival Scottish factions.
07:05Holed up inside Edinburgh Castle were the Catholic supporters of the dethroned Mary
07:09Queen of Scots, Elizabeth's most dangerous rival for the English crown.
07:18Keeping them under siege was the Protestant faction that governed as regent in the name
07:22of Mary's infant son, King James.
07:29Why on earth should Elizabeth, as the Texans say, have a dog in this fight?
07:33Well, it was already bad enough that Mary had a respectable claim to the English throne,
07:39but what really rang the alarm bells in London was the danger of the French joining in on
07:44Mary's side.
07:46There was an old alliance between Scotland and France against the old enemy, England,
07:52and what Elizabeth dreaded most of all was Scotland's becoming part of a Catholic axis
07:58of evil on England's doorstep.
08:02The old alliance stretches back to the late 13th century, I mean, it had already been
08:05running for the best part of 400 years by the time we got to Killigrew.
08:10But of course Scotland had just actually come out of a union with France, Mary Queen of
08:15Scots' mother, Mary Guise, a very, very formidable woman, I mean, she'd have had Henry Killigrew
08:20for breakfast, incidentally.
08:22She'd negotiated a union with France, I mean, Scotland was in a union with France before
08:27it was in a union with England.
08:33Killigrew made it his business to sow mistrust of the French in Scotland by building a network
08:38of influential contacts and making sure they all heard the news about the Paris Massacre.
08:45It's reasonably typical of the sort of tradition of English statecraft and diplomacy, you know,
08:52divide and rule, sort of separate your opponents, try to divide and make the enemy uncertain.
08:57And the fairness to that sort of statecraft, I mean, you could argue that kept an empire
09:02together for the best part of 200 years.
09:08Before I went as ambassador to Saudi Arabia, a very wise predecessor of mine gave me a
09:14word of advice which I've subsequently passed on to a lot of younger members of the Foreign
09:18Service, and that was, if it moves, call on it.
09:23And I spent a lot of my time, and I may say the recipients of my calls were very tolerant
09:28of it, I spent a lot of my time just simply in going calling on people, not necessarily
09:34to do any particular piece of work, but to keep in contact, because you never know when
09:40you're going to need that contact.
09:49Scotland was a bracing experience for assassinat diplomat.
09:53Even Killigrew, Machiavelli, and Machiavelli felt obliged to report to Elizabeth and her
09:57advisors that these men be so deviled and uncertain in their doings as I cannot tell
10:04what to write of them.
10:06But of this, your honour may be assured, I trust no one farther than I can see with
10:12my eyes or feel with my fingers.
10:16What, so trusting Killigrew?
10:19First Minister, what does that tell you about the way in which the English tried to deal
10:23with the Scots?
10:24Well, it just tells me Henry was a diplomat, wasn't he?
10:28Sent abroad to lie for his country.
10:30So his attitude to the Scots was no different from what his attitude to the French or anyone
10:34else would have been.
10:35I think it's a bit much if you're sent in effectively as a spy to try and interfere
10:40in the Scottish succession than to start complaining about your hosts, as opposed to complaining
10:45about your own nefarious motives.
10:49The Scottish Catholics inside the castle might have been wise not to trust Killigrew himself
10:54too far.
10:55There was also a hidden agenda to Killigrew's mission, a set of instructions that dared
11:01not speak its name, an enterprise so hush-hush that it was written down in a separate document.
11:10These secret instructions were drafted by Elizabeth's main adviser and Killigrew's
11:15brother-in-law, Lord Burley.
11:18You can see from the crossings out this was, shall we say, a tricky document to write.
11:24It is found daily, more and more, that the continuance of the Queen of Scots here is
11:29so dangerous, both for the person of the Queen's Majesty and for her state and realm,
11:36as nothing presently is more necessary than that the realm might be delivered of her.
11:43Killigrew was being instructed by Elizabeth to devise a plan that would deliver Mary Queen
11:50of Scots into the hands of her Scottish enemies.
11:54Use all good speed, with the most secrecy that you can, to understand their minds, and
12:00yet to deal to your uttermost that this matter might be rather opened to you than yourself
12:05to seem first to move it.
12:08In other words, cunningly persuade the regent's party to assassinate Mary and make them think
12:13it's their own idea.
12:16Mary was a threat to the throne and to England's security.
12:19She had to go, and without the English Queen getting her hands dirty.
12:31For Killigrew, with his strong Protestant faith and intense loyalty to the Queen, if
12:36the nation were under threat, the end justified any means.
12:41Softly, softly, he sounded out the regent's party, headed by the earls of Marr and Morton,
12:49about carrying out judicial murder on behalf of the English Queen.
12:55Give us money and soldiers, and only then will we do your dirty work, they said.
13:01But Killigrew knew that Elizabeth would be extremely reluctant to get involved in a costly
13:06war in Scotland, so how could he keep the Protestant party on side?
13:14Killigrew could not promise what his Queen was unwilling to deliver, but he knew better
13:18than to give an outright refusal.
13:20He disappeared into a fog of vague assurances to keep his allies on side, even feigning
13:25illness at one particularly tricky moment.
13:28It's a tried and tested weapon in the diplomat's armoury, plain for time.
13:34Well, I'm not sure that being a Machiavellian scheming type is not actually a rather good
13:39description of what a diplomat ought to be.
13:42You have to be very thoughtful.
13:43You have to find ways to get your way, to get your country's way, and often that means
13:50you can't be entirely straightforward.
13:52What you must never do is lie.
13:54Once you lie, your credibility is destroyed, not just on that occasion, but forever.
13:59So you have to be very careful.
14:01But equally, there are ways and ways of presenting things, and perhaps occasionally withholding
14:06certain aspects which could be considered relevant, but maybe you don't want to emphasise.
14:10So you have to be a bit of a schemer.
14:13Otherwise, you can't do the job properly.
14:21As New Year's Day 1573 dawned, the ceasefire between the Scottish factions was broken by
14:27cannon fire.
14:31Mary's party in the castle fired a warning shot onto the town below.
14:36They expected military help from France imminently and were spoiling for a fight.
14:43With Scotland once again a boiling point, Killegrew decided that he needed new instructions
14:48urgently.
14:49He made a secret trip home.
14:53The time had come for diplomacy to be backed by force.
14:56He had to persuade the Queen to send guns and troops to help the Regent's party defeat
15:01the Scottish Catholics, even though they were now backpedalling from joining the secret
15:05plot to kill Mary.
15:09Sometimes a diplomat has to use his arts of persuasion as much back home as in the country
15:13to which he is posted, getting your government, or in this case your Queen, to accept that
15:19you know better what is in the nation's interest.
15:21I have to admit that my own record of disrespect was patchy at the best of times.
15:27But you're failing in your duty if you don't tell it like it is, and too bad if that is
15:31not the message that people want to hear back home.
15:35You have to recommend on policy, and you haven't to be afraid in your recommendations.
15:41The worst kind of diplomat is one who tells his Foreign Secretary what he thinks the Minister
15:46wants to hear.
15:51Talking the notoriously stubborn Elizabeth into anything wasn't easy.
15:56But Killegrew was a trusted and above all persuasive advisor.
16:01And he returned to Scotland with 10,000 gold crowns for the Regent, to be followed by an
16:06army of 1,500 English soldiers.
16:13The English guns sailed into Leith Harbour and trundled up here to face the castle wards.
16:18It must have been an impressive sight, a sight to fill you with dread if you were standing
16:23guard on the ramparts.
16:25Even Killegrew, who had once been a soldier, got his hands dirty and helped dig the gun
16:29mounts with pick and spade.
16:31The only time I used an ambassadorial shovel was to plant a tree in the embassy vegetable
16:37garden.
16:38When the guns finally opened fire, it took just 11 days' bombardment before the eastern
16:45defences of the medieval castle came crashing to the ground.
16:54Thanks to Killegrew's resourcefulness, astute reading of the situation and deft footwork,
16:59Queen's enemies were confounded and the Posten Gate shut tight.
17:03It was not a moment too soon.
17:06Inside the castle, Killegrew found the smoking gun, hard evidence that the defeated rebels
17:10had been expecting help not just from the French, but from Catholic Spain as well.
17:20Thanks to Mary, Queen of Scots, she never did suffer extraordinary rendition to Scotland,
17:25but 14 years later, she felt the English execution as acts.
17:31Five hundred years on, Henry Killegrew is sitting on his diplomatic cloud, observing
17:36us from the great Foreign Office in the sky.
17:39He'll see that much has changed.
17:42Quills and manuscripts have gone, replaced by strange, infernal machines, and the magnificence
17:48of the ambassador, in his doublet, codpiece and hose, have given way to boring suits.
17:57But Killegrew could have done my job in Washington, just as I hope I could have done his in Edinburgh,
18:02because the essential skills of the diplomatic trade have remained unchanged.
18:07The ability to negotiate, to interpret, to persuade, all of this to get your way in the
18:13nation's interest.
18:30For a young diplomat like me, the Madrid embassy in General Franco's dying days was an exciting
18:35place to be, but it was regularly blighted by the protocol hell of having to organise
18:41the ambassador's dinner parties.
18:47I was far too junior to be invited myself, but I had to spend hours devising seating
18:53plans that reflected the fiendish complexity of Spanish protocol.
18:58I got it wrong once, when a duque walked out of the ambassador's dinner because he thought
19:03a mere marquess had a better seat.
19:08The ambassador's receptions are noted in society for their host's exquisite taste that captivates
19:15his guests.
19:16Truth is, life wasn't a million miles away from the cliché of the diplomatic circuit.
19:23Though in all my time, I never clapped eyes on a Ferrero Rocher.
19:28So, does this flim-flam matter?
19:45Diplomatic history tells us that it does.
19:47The peace and security of Europe has even depended on it.
20:03It's the capital of the Austrian Empire in late 1814, and just about everyone who was
20:09anyone accepted an invitation to attend the Congress of Vienna.
20:20The city's population swelled by 100,000 visitors.
20:24The hosts laid on for their guests 1,500 liveried servants, more than 100 new carriages, and
20:311,200 extra horses, all of them white.
20:37Beethoven was on hand to compose and conduct the music, as Europe's statesmen and diplomats,
20:42their wives and mistresses, gathered to join a party which would last the best part of
20:47the year.
20:52With just a touch of that pomp and circumstance, I've come with my wife Catherine.
21:00My goodness, I miss my time by a couple of centuries or so.
21:04The European Union in bureaucratic Brussels, this was not, but glittering parties aplenty,
21:09and most important of all, a real sense of history in the making.
21:16The delegates had gathered to bring peace to the continent after decades of warfare.
21:24Perhaps the most important person in town was not the Austrian Emperor, not the Russian
21:28Tsar, and certainly not a mere king, though Prussia, Denmark, Bavaria, and Württemberg
21:33all sent theirs.
21:35He was the British representative, in my book, one of Britain's greatest diplomats.
21:46Robert Stuart, Viscount Castlereagh, an Anglo-Irishman in his mid-forties, was Britain's Foreign
21:52Secretary.
21:57He arrived in Vienna in 1814 with one guiding principle, that security and peace for England
22:03depended on security and peace in Europe.
22:12The French Revolution, 25 years earlier, had set in motion a war that saw most of Europe
22:17fall to Napoleon before his eventual defeat, leading to abdication and exile.
22:28Now in 1814, it was time to divide the spoils, and from a myriad of competing claims, draw
22:34up in Vienna a new blueprint for Europe's reconstruction.
22:39It was a situation where Europe had been at war for nearly a quarter of a century.
22:45It's quite a difficult thing for us to imagine, because we've not experienced that in our
22:49lifetimes, thankfully, or indeed ever since, although there's been the First and Second
22:53World Wars.
22:54There hasn't been a war of that length, an almost entire generation in length, of conflict
22:59in Europe from 1792 onwards.
23:03And so the people who came to the end of that conflict were looking for an entirely new
23:10framework, looking for something that would mean there would be no more wars in Europe.
23:15So they were looking for a very ambitious solution.
23:22Behind him, Castlereagh had the might of the growing British Empire, deep pockets and unchallenged
23:27naval supremacy.
23:28So what Britain wanted, Britain was likely to get.
23:33Castlereagh was our first great foreign secretary.
23:37He had to do two things.
23:38He had to keep together the coalition against Napoleon, which was always splitting off.
23:44He had to keep it together with money, with persuasion.
23:48And secondly, when we'd beaten Napoleon, he had to negotiate the peace.
23:54He had the Russians' troops all over Europe.
23:57He had the Russian Tsar, a very strange man, who was insisting on keeping Poland, but also
24:03had all kinds of Christian ideas about the shape of Europe.
24:06He had to deal with the French.
24:09How do you keep France as an important European power, while not allowing her to rampage again,
24:15as she had under Napoleon?
24:16He had to deal with all kinds of very tricky situations and people.
24:25Like all good negotiators, Castlereagh had an eye for detail.
24:29He was incredibly diligent and knew that being thoroughly on top of his brief was the most
24:34vital weapon in the diplomatic armory.
24:43Austria's spies reported that he even prepared to the point of practising the latest waltzes
24:49with a chair.
24:59Today the nearest one gets to the melee of 19th-century Vienna is the annual officers'
25:04ball at the Hofburg Palace, which hosted many of the Congress's grand soirées.
25:15The Congress saw the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in France and a scramble by the moustachioed
25:21scions of Europe's Ancien Régime to get back what Napoleon had seized from them.
25:29So the ambitions of the Congress were intensely conservative, but the way it set about achieving
25:35them certainly wasn't.
25:37The unending round of balls and entertainments, the bed-hopping, the pillow-talk, everybody
25:42rubbing shoulders with everybody else from the Russian Tsar and Austrian Emperor downwards,
25:47this was a diplomatic revolution.
25:50It was the start of informal networking, which, despite all appearances, was absolutely avant-garde.
26:06Entertainment is important, provided it is focused.
26:10I mean, I found one of the most satisfying ways of entertaining as an ambassador was
26:18if the entertainment was designed to introduce A to B.
26:23When people have met over a period of time, you know, they find it easier to relax, they
26:29find it easier to get to know each other, and that getting to know people is essential
26:34if you're going to reach agreements which are going to work.
26:39If, to quote Churchill, George Orr was to prevail over World War, the diplomats would
26:47have to agree to a generally acceptable balance between all the competing interests.
26:52So Castlereagh was faced with a task of fiendish intricacy.
27:02Of course, with such a vast throng and such a complex agenda, it's nearly always mission
27:06impossible to get anything significant agreed.
27:09Just look at the European Union with its 27 member states.
27:12When I was in Brussels, we couldn't even get the then 10 members to agree tariffs on
27:18the import of Romanian shoes.
27:21Castlereagh's genius was to work the room tirelessly, to get alongside everyone, to
27:26make even the smallest duke feel important, and then to cut most of them out of the decision-taking.
27:32And that's multilateral diplomacy today.
27:35If you think it's difficult to get consensus out of the United Nations Security Council,
27:40imagine how it would be if decisions had to be taken by the almost 200 members of the
27:46United Nations General Assembly.
27:51As Castlereagh himself put it, in such a large confederacy, an equality and community of
27:57council is utterly incompatible with the march of business.
28:03So though there were numerous nationalities, the Italians, Belgians, Poles, jostling for
28:08a place at the negotiating table to have a say in their own futures, Castlereagh realised
28:13that lasting peace depended before all else on striking a deal between the great powers,
28:19regardless of who else got trampled in the process.
28:25Now, of course, there were many controversial aspects of this, because the solution involved
28:31a strong active role for the major powers in Europe, and a rather aggrandisement of
28:37the, something of an aggrandisement of medium-sized powers, in order to create more of an equilibrium.
28:43And that meant the extinction of some small countries.
28:48And it showed, in one of the quotations at the time, no special tenderness to nationality,
28:53which meant that people were lumped together in countries that they probably didn't really
28:56feel they belonged to.
28:58Of course, in the long term, that would create some difficulties.
29:01But this is often one of the conflicts in foreign policy.
29:05Are you looking for an equilibrium that guarantees the peace, or are you trying to give people
29:12their rights to be citizens of the countries they want to be in, to self-determination?
29:17Those two things don't always sit together.
29:21Castlereagh was very much on the side of the balance of power, of law and security, rather
29:26than nationality.
29:34Back from ball after ball, Castlereagh burnt the midnight oil, plotting a course through
29:39the well-nigh intractable issues which kept the parties poised between peace and renewed conflict.
29:45A barrier had to be built against a revanchist France, which meant a strong Netherlands,
29:51whatever the Belgians said.
29:52An expansionist Russia, threatening from the east, had designs on Poland where they had
29:56placed 200,000 troops.
29:57Poor old Poles.
29:58Meanwhile, how to create that vital counterweight in Central Europe against any Franco-Russian
30:03alliance.
30:04And then there was a dangerous rivalry between Prussia and Austria, with Prussia threatening
30:07more unless it got all of Saxony to compensate for any losses, and Poland.
30:11And that was anathema to Austria, who then demands some kind of compensation from Italy,
30:16not to mention kicking the balls of the King of Saxony.
30:23And this was not all.
30:24There was a huge range of other issues to be grappled with, such as ending the slave
30:29trade, preserving the emancipation of the Jews, regulating Europe's internal waterways.
30:37If Castlereagh ever felt tired, he was said to snatch an hour's rest by dozing in the bath.
30:51Castlereagh was also expected to do his share of entertaining, though his soirees were notoriously
30:57meagre.
31:00It's still an essential part of diplomatic life in the British Embassy in Vienna.
31:07Tonight's host is the British Ambassador to Austria, Simon Smith, and he's a defender
31:12of the Ambassador's reception against his critics.
31:16Norman Debed once said notoriously that just as the Ministry of Agriculture existed to
31:22look after the interests of farmers, so the Foreign Office existed to look after the interests
31:26of foreigners.
31:27I mean, what's the riposte to that?
31:30I think the riposte is that if you don't understand what makes foreigners work, if you don't understand
31:37what makes a country that you're accredited to, what makes its government do what it does,
31:42what makes its people feel the way they do, think the way they do, then you're not going
31:46to be terribly good at getting them to agree to see things your way, at getting them to
31:51line up with British objectives.
31:54I think that one can make the mistake that by understanding a country that you're working
31:58in, you are supporting its position, you are advocating that country's position.
32:03You would never go native?
32:05I would never go native.
32:06But you are more likely to get listened to in advocating that position if you demonstrate
32:10an understanding of where your partners across the table are coming from, and you won't get
32:15that understanding unless you make an effort.
32:17It is an occupational danger to go native.
32:21And every once in a while, or more than every once in a while, when I worked in the State
32:23Department or the White House, I would see people who began to see too much of their
32:28job as explaining them to us as opposed to us to them.
32:31And every once in a while, I used to take them aside and say, remember, you work for
32:34the blue team.
32:35We are the blue team.
32:37And it's good to have your take on them, but your bigger job, quite honestly, is to make
32:42us understandable to them and to make our case.
32:54As the Congress moved towards its diplomatic climax, the entertainments grew ever more elaborate.
33:07In January 1815, a party came out to the palace here at Schoenbrunn.
33:16The grand procession of 32 slaves was led by an orchestra.
33:24At the same time, Karlsruhe's fragile coalition of great powers was inching towards a compromise,
33:35and a deal redrew the map of Europe.
33:39The significance of the Congress of Vienna is that it ushered in the longest period of
33:45peace without general war in European history.
33:52In the hundred years that followed it, there were only local conflicts and never involving
33:58all the powers simultaneously.
34:01That was a considerable achievement.
34:03So Kastelrey's contribution was seminal, and his tenacity made it possible.
34:12Kastelrey understood that for Europe to remain at peace, a balance of power was not enough,
34:17and there needed to be a system of regular meetings between nations to diffuse problems
34:22before they blew up.
34:23And that is what the Congress of Vienna created.
34:25It was, to use the jargon of today, a system of multilateral collective security.
34:32Kastelrey certainly favoured strong diplomatic engagement with the other powers of Europe.
34:38Once at a concert of Europe, they really saw the guarantee of the settlement that he and
34:44his colleagues arrived at, at being the major European powers working together and being
34:49prepared to actively defend the settlement, militarily defend if necessary, the settlement
34:55that they had arrived at.
34:57So yes, that is strong active engagement in Europe.
35:00And I don't think any British statesmen have ever been in favour of anything else other
35:05than strong active engagement in Europe.
35:08The debate now is whether strong active engagement means automatically signing up to anything
35:13that is ever proposed in the rest of Europe or being prepared to give a lead ourselves.
35:21Kastelrey was, of course, himself no visionary idealist.
35:24In fact, he refused to sign up to the Tsar's grander vision, the Holy Alliance, of a united
35:29Europe of shared Christian values.
35:33Sublime mysticism and nonsense, he called it.
35:36For Kastelrey, that was taking a shared European project too far.
35:44In our more liberal age, the Congress of Vienna has a terrible reputation for the way the
35:50great powers rode roughshod on the smaller nationalities.
35:58After the First World War, Woodrow Wilson hoped that no odour of Vienna would influence
36:03the peace settlement.
36:05David Miliband, not so long ago, declared that Europe cannot have its destiny settled
36:12on the basis of the Congress of Vienna.
36:25In his own time, poor old Kastelrey's reputation had so suffered.
36:30His achievements were taken for granted, and yet he was blamed for failing to achieve the
36:35impossible, democracy, self-determination for small nations, and universal happiness.
36:41He became the whipping boy for England's liberal set.
36:49And through it all, he never stopped working.
36:53In August 1822, he confessed,
36:57I am quite worn out. This is more than I can bear.
37:03Four days later, he killed himself.
37:16When the great statesman was brought here to Westminster Abbey to be buried, the hearse
37:20had to make its way through a mob of jeering protesters.
37:24And could poor Kastelrey rest in peace? Not a bit of it.
37:28Byron wrote this epitaph,
37:31Posterity will ne'er survey a nobler grave than this.
37:36Here lie the bones of Kastelrey. Stop, traveller, and piss.
37:43Diplomacy is sometimes a thankless task.
37:55It was April 2002, and Tony Blair and his team, including me, had been invited to President
38:01Bush's Texas ranch, for what the press were calling a Council of War.
38:06This was a crucial moment. The big question was, would Blair put British security on the
38:11line, and sign on for a U.S. war?
38:15It was a crucial moment. The big question was, would Blair put British security on the
38:22line, and sign on for regime change in Baghdad?
38:26On arrival, Blair was whisked off for a tete-a-tete with the President. Indeed, for most of the
38:31weekend, he was alone. No advisers, nobody to record what was agreed. A diplomat's nightmare.
38:38Meanwhile, the rest of us, Condi Rice, Alastair Campbell, and so on, went off to a nearby
38:43Tex-Mex restaurant for dinner. The President's political guru, Karl Rove, flew in his bootmaker,
38:50who measured me up for these superb specimens. Suitably emblazoned, and adding at least two
38:57inches to your height.
39:00I never did find out exactly what Blair committed to that weekend. Afterwards, the Americans
39:06believed that he was on board for whatever they decided to do in Iraq. It may have been
39:11a case of good personal relations leading to a hug too close.
39:17But, in modern times, there's no doubt that Britain's security has sometimes depended
39:22on how well the two at the top really get on.
39:37In 1962, just before Christmas, two aircraft carrying two national leaders flew towards
39:43the same destination. They were heading for a showdown that would determine Britain's
39:49international role. In particular, whether Britain could continue to have a seat at the
39:54top table as a nuclear power.
39:58Elderly Prime Minister Harold Macmillan spent much of the flight reading Gibbon's Decline
40:03and Fall of the Roman Empire. History does not relate to whether this was for amusement
40:07or for instruction. But the harsh truth was that the British Empire too was disintegrating.
40:13India had gone, colonies were breaking away, and Britain's recent bitter humiliation at
40:19Suez had underlined our diminished vulnerable position. Macmillan would be negotiating from
40:25weakness, the supreme test for diplomacy.
40:32Much more comfortable was the popular young president sitting in the other aircraft.
40:38Something to drink, sir?
40:41Yeah, a bloody Mary, please.
40:45John F. Kennedy had every reason to feel pretty sure of himself. He was, after all, president
40:50of the most powerful nation that the world had ever seen. As Castlereagh and his Victorian
40:56professors had discovered, this makes getting your way in the world a darn sight easier.
41:04Macmillan staked his foreign policy on two things, a close relationship with America
41:08and on Britain's possessing an independent nuclear deterrent. Now both were at risk.
41:16America was threatening to go back on its offer to sell Britain nuclear missiles.
41:23So the stakes could not have been higher. But riding on Air Force One with the president
41:28was Macmillan's secret weapon, a Brit with a very special relationship.
41:34Her Britannic Majesty's Ambassador Extraordinary in plenipotentiary to the United States of America.
41:41David Ormsby Gore arrived in Washington in 1961. He was considered a brilliant appointment
41:58because of his brilliant contacts, Macmillan's nephew by marriage and an old family friend
42:04for Kennedys. When I got the same job 36 years later, number 10 told me to get up the
42:13arse of the White House and stay there. Not very elegantly put, but I understood the point.
42:19In diplomacy, access is everything. And David Ormsby Gore had access to the president for
42:26which ambassadors would sell their grandmothers.
42:33Ormsby Gore was practically a family member of the Kennedys. And I was a consultant to the
42:41Kennedy administration. He was infinitely closer to the Kennedys than I was, even though I was
42:48technically working in the White House.
42:52Being his private secretary gave me an extraordinary, very exciting insight into what life was like
43:00in what was called Camelot. I mean, these glamorous characters who piled into the British
43:07ambassador's residence, including the president himself.
43:11He impressed me immediately as a very intelligent, likable man who shared the same ideals and
43:28objectives that Kennedy and I already shared.
43:42So here we are in the British embassy residence, 3100 Massachusetts Avenue. This is where all
43:51the guests would come in attending receptions or lunches or dinner. In our time, we reckon we
43:58had about 12,000 of them every year. To be greeted by the ambassador and his wife somewhere
44:06around about there, you would stand here saying, good evening, how are you? Welcome to the British
44:11embassy. This is my wife, Catherine. After you've done that about 200 times, your brain started to
44:16go. And once I called my wife by the name of my ex-mother-in-law. But there you go. You shake a lot
44:24of hands, you lose your sanity after a while.
44:26This is a great ballroom. This is how you put networks of high-level contacts together, networks
44:34of influence. You brought them in to the house and gave them a good time.
44:41That's new. A picture of the queen. So you go down here towards the drawing room. This is a very
44:49good place in which to just have a handful of influential American friends. You could sit around
44:55in a circle here and have a really good political discussion.
45:05With his contacts on both sides of the Atlantic, Ormsby Gore was the perfect middleman to oil the
45:13relationship between President and Prime Minister. A vital role, because by the end of 1962,
45:20Anglo-American relations were strained almost to breaking point.
45:25Early in December, former Secretary of State Dean Acheson made his notorious speech declaring that
45:33Britain had lost an empire and not yet found a role.
45:38Britain, I think, was struggling to find a role and hadn't at that point decided whether to join the
45:43EEC, as it then was. It had a difficult relationship with the United States over the Suez crisis,
45:53where Britain and France had really been abandoned, as they might have seen it by the United States,
45:57had not been supported by the United States.
46:00Acheson's wild words have caused an international furore.
46:04Oh, about this Acheson thing, Jack. It's Harold here. Harold Macmillan. M-A-C-R.
46:18I'm calling from London. Now looky here. This thing doesn't represent the views of your government, does it?
46:27Oh. Well, goodbye then.
46:33Acheson's scorn exacerbated a row already brewing between Britain and America over their cooperation
46:40on a missile called Skybolt. This was Britain's main hope for an independent nuclear future.
46:49Ormsvigour was summoned to a meeting with the Secretary for Defence, Robert McNamara.
46:54There he heard that while no final decision had been taken, the Americans were seriously considering
46:59Skybolt's cancellation. The missile was failing tests and proving exorbitantly expensive.
47:07For any ambassador, news like this is red alert. It demands an urgent report to London.
47:15That evening, Ormsvigour's reporting telegram was sent off, classified emergency and top secret.
47:23I said I was sure he would realise that a decision to abandon the Skybolt programme would be political dynamite
47:29so far as the United Kingdom was concerned.
47:34Harold Macmillan was furious. He instructed the ambassador to make sure the president didn't decide anything
47:41until the two sides had consulted. Macmillan asked Ormsvigour whether he should telephone Kennedy.
47:48Technology had of course moved on since Killigrew or Castlereagh and it wouldn't be long before hotlines
47:53connected the world's most powerful leaders. But there are dangers to bypassing the local ambassador
47:59as Ormsvigour knew well. A golden rule of diplomacy that has remained unchanged by technology
48:06is to get your timing right when you deploy your biggest gun. Ormsvigour advised Macmillan to hold off.
48:14Only a face-to-face meeting with Kennedy stood any chance of success.
48:20It's very often thought that by telephoning your opposite number every month or so, a head of government
48:27can do the job perfectly well that these expensive ambassadors don't need to do.
48:32The fact is that an ambassador is a continuity man in constant contact with the locals
48:40and governments have found that they can't do business without some intermediary.
48:47Diplomats tend to be professional whereas much diplomacy these days is conducted by politicians
48:53who are very definitely not professional. So a good diplomat spends a lot of his time clearing up the mess,
48:58trying to repair things that politicians have either broken or trying to put into some usable form
49:05the very broad conclusions which politicians have reached. It's a bit of a thankless task.
49:11These days it's probably much more fun, much more professionally interesting in out-of-the-way countries
49:17where politicians are less tempted to go.
49:22So it was that in late December, Prime Minister and President set out for the Bahamas for the showdown over Skybolt.
49:32It was highly unusual for a foreign ambassador to travel on Air Force One
49:37but Ormsby-Gore's special relationship got him a ride and half an hour's tête-à -tête with the President.
49:45If you ditch Skybolt, the consequences for our relations and for the Prime Minister personally
49:50will be very severe. He would be desperately exposed and the government might fall.
49:56I fear also that if the British public think that they have been let down by the United States
50:01a storm of anti-Americanism will sweep the country.
50:06As I know myself, the Americans are not overly sensitive to the domestic politics of others.
50:13But thanks to Ormsby-Gore's intervention, perhaps Kennedy had begun to be persuaded
50:19that it was not in America's interest to leave MacMillan high and dry and provoke a political crisis in Britain.
50:27Ambassador and President hammered out a deal.
50:30The Americans would not themselves procure Skybolt but would offer to split its development costs 50-50 with the Brits.
50:41Would this generous gesture of good faith be enough to placate the Prime Minister
50:46and avoid a huge row in the Bahamas?
51:01Mr. MacMillan flew into the Bahamas late on Monday night for what many of them were calling
51:06the worst moment in Anglo-American relations since Suez.
51:10Welcome. Welcome. MacMillan and Kennedy.
51:16Then, in the warm sunshine of this British island colony, full airport ceremonial for the arrival of President Kennedy.
51:23The whole world is making a fuss about the Skybolt you came out to discuss.
51:29But you can be sure definitely we have the maximum security.
51:35We don't mind Russia saying this or that.
51:38Three cheers for Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack.
51:42I said welcome. Welcome. Your visit to Nassau will go down in history.
51:53Ormsby Gore had done all he could. It was time to hand the diplomatic baton to the Prime Minister.
52:03Ormsby Gore briefed the Prime Minister on the 50-50 deal that Kennedy was offering.
52:08The ambassador's groundwork mollified MacMillan, but he'd already made up his mind.
52:12If Skybolt wasn't good enough for the Americans, it wasn't good enough for the British.
52:19The talks were to take place at a secluded luxury villa, Bali Hai, lent to MacMillan for the occasion.
52:29This is the moment of truth. Straight talking, statesman to statesman.
52:34It's where personal chemistry can really make the difference.
52:38And luckily, MacMillan and Kennedy got on.
52:43What made MacMillan so captivating for Kennedy was that Kennedy was a bit of a romantic.
52:52And MacMillan seemed to him like a breath from Edwardian England,
52:59where the great and the good were comfortable with the use of power, but weren't vulgarised by it.
53:09MacMillan was able to play-act the role of the wise Greek to the sturdy young Roman Emperor.
53:17Face-to-face personal chemistry is very important, perhaps more important now than before,
53:22because of the number of occasions in which they are actually face-to-face.
53:27The fact that MacMillan and Kennedy were on those terms,
53:31the fact that Margaret Thatcher was on bad terms with Helmut Kohl, the German Chancellor,
53:36they do make a difference.
53:37You must try and prevent them so dominating the scene that you forget the realities.
53:42I think some of the rhetoric about our relationship with America does get out of control,
53:47and it arouses expectations which won't ever be fulfilled.
53:56When the formal talks began, MacMillan made the speech of his life.
54:01He talked emotionally about British sacrifice in the wars.
54:05He charted the historic friendship between America and Britain,
54:08and waxed lyrical about his own personal friendship with Kennedy.
54:13And he made it clear that all this was at risk if America attempted to cut Britain out of the nuclear club.
54:22What MacMillan now wanted was the new American weapon that Britain had no previous stake in,
54:28the submarine-launched missile, Polaris.
54:34Proven more reliable and cost-effective than Skybolt, Polaris, and only Polaris, he argued,
54:40would keep the Anglo-American relationship alive.
54:45To get his way, MacMillan pulled out all the diplomatic stops.
54:49Alongside his emotional appeal, he kept everyone on edge
54:52by repeatedly adjourning the discussions to consult Ormsby-Gore and the team,
54:57insisting that no agreement was better than a bad compromise.
55:01It was a masterpiece of play-acting and of diplomatic technique.
55:06And it worked.
55:09Against all the British expectations, and against the advice of his own State Department,
55:14Kennedy agreed to let Britain have Polaris.
55:20Kennedy would not have done that for the French.
55:24He would not have done that for the Germans, the Italians,
55:29not even for Israel, which was a great enemy of Britain.
55:34The Germans, the Italians, not even for Israel,
55:38which has its own unique qualities of relationship.
55:43So the fact that he did it for England,
55:49I'd rather say he did it for MacMillan,
55:53shows that the relationship was indeed special.
55:58Britain got a bargain.
56:01A better missile than Skybolt,
56:03without having to pay any of the initial research and development costs.
56:11This final agreement was reached by some masterly ambiguity,
56:15which blurred the lines between independence and interdependence.
56:19Polaris would be under NATO,
56:21except where Her Majesty's Government may decide
56:24that the supreme national interests were at stake,
56:27which is, of course, the only time you would need a nuclear weapon.
56:35What was agreed here at Bali Hai
56:37remains the basis of our security policy to this day and beyond.
56:41In the 1980s, we acquired Trident, successor to Polaris, on similar terms.
56:46And we're still committed to Britain's remaining nuclear well into the 2040s.
56:52At the end of the day, our security is in our own hands.
56:55Of course, we have the alliance with the United States.
56:58But really, even in the best circumstances,
57:01you should be able to defend yourself.
57:03We had the nuclear technology.
57:05We were one of the first to acquire it.
57:07I think our giving it up would have been a sign
57:10of resigning from a leading role in the world.
57:13It is the ultimate deterrent.
57:15I think the security of Britain,
57:17is the fundamental aim of British policy.
57:20The threat of security comes in all shapes and sizes.
57:23Not long ago, it was the Soviet Union.
57:26Now you can argue that it's terrorism.
57:29In a few years' time,
57:31it may be the threat from the deteriorating planet,
57:34i.e. the threat will change.
57:36But all the time,
57:38your fundamental objective is the security,
57:41the security of the United States.
57:44The fundamental objective is the security,
57:47the safety of these islands and the people who live in them.
58:01Ormsby, Gore and Macmillan achieved a remarkable victory
58:04for British diplomacy.
58:06It cemented our position in the first rank of great powers.
58:09It improved the relationship with the United States of America.
58:12Above all, it protected our security in a nuclear world.
58:16You might not have heard of Kirigou, Castlereagh or Ormsby, Gore,
58:20but the lesson of history is clear.
58:23True national security is not possible without effective diplomacy.
58:43In the next programme,
58:45I'll explore the history of our troubled diplomatic relationship with China,
58:49beset by rows over opium, protocol and Hong Kong,
58:53and how it has so often come down to money.
58:57Moolah.
59:05Coming up tonight here on BBC4,
59:07we go behind all the red tape and spin to the BBC.
59:10Behind all the red tape and spin
59:12to the beating heart of some of the government's biggest departments.
59:15More Corridors of Power catch up with the great offices of state next.