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The issue isn't what Ambassadors write, it's what they don't write.
(Thread)
(Thread)
In the late 1930s, Robert Vansittart the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, was looking for a new ambassador to Berlin.
He settled on the idea of Neville Henderson, a man who had done a good job of developing a relationship with the dictator Alexander I of Yugoslavia, before his assassination.
In preparation for the post, Neville Henderson met with the Prime minister’s designate who informed him that while in Germany he was to try to prevent war, and at the same time the UK would continue to increase defence spending to improve Henderson’s leverage.
He is also warned that people would end up accusing him of being a Nazi.
Neville believed the key to achieving peace was to establishing close relations with the Nazi and to get them into his confidence he would need to do things he might feel distasteful.
On taking his post on April 30th, 1937, Neville's first memo to the UK suggests that it would be unjust to prevent Germany from completing her unity or hinder military preparation “against the Slav”.
The FCO is unhappy with this memo and suggest this is German doctrine
The FCO is unhappy with this memo and suggest this is German doctrine
Neville then caused a stir when he made a public address suggesting that people in the UK should put less stress on the Nazi dictatorship and more on the social experiment.
He also suggested the UK had lessons to learn from Nazi Germany.
He also suggested the UK had lessons to learn from Nazi Germany.
He became best friends with Hermann Göring.
Hermann invited Neville to the 1937 Nazi Party Rally in Nuremberg. On learning of this, the Foreign Office wrote to Neville telling him not to go.
(Neville went anyway).
Hermann invited Neville to the 1937 Nazi Party Rally in Nuremberg. On learning of this, the Foreign Office wrote to Neville telling him not to go.
(Neville went anyway).
Neville then told the Czech Minister in Berlin of his antagonism to the Soviet Union and how German agitation wouldn’t end while Czechoslovakia was tied to the USSR and France.
The FCO minutes note that apparently Neville had made himself German policy spokesman.
The FCO minutes note that apparently Neville had made himself German policy spokesman.
Our man in Berlin would go on to write to the UK that he hates the idea of the annexation of Austria but it is ‘inevitable’, and that it was unjust to make the Sudeten Germans live under Czechoslovakian control.
He even told the Germans that the UK would not risk anyone for Czechoslovakia, so any “reasonable” solution that avoided force would be acceptable.
At this time Neville was being called “Our Nazi ambassador in Berlin”, as predicted, and it seemed that way, but actually he was trying to broker peace.
Unfortunately, he was out of his remit and proving massively naïve.
Unfortunately, he was out of his remit and proving massively naïve.
Then in October 1938 Neville became ill, and George Ogilvie-Forbes took over temporarily. At this point the information going back to the UK noticeably changes in tone.
Unlike Neville, who had said Czechoslovakia was the last bastion of German expansionism eastward, George instead wrote that that Germany were looking at world domination and Hitler was likely to start a war in 1939 either to the East or to the West.
George describes Adolph Hitler as barely sane and capable of leading the world into another war.
He also went further than Neville ever did in describing what was happening to the Jewish people in Germany, writing “extermination in Germany can only be a matter of time”.
And then Neville returned to Berlin, castigated George for his communications before sending a communication to London claiming that Hitler wanted to return to comparative respectability and Britain should stress Hitler’s “peaceful intentions”.
The real danger at this point is that the cabinet of the day, while preparing for the eventuality for war, wanted to avoid one, and they were buying the optimism Neville was peddling, and the FCO were being undermined.
However, by that time things were changing, and in the next communication Neville asked the government to censor the press to end all negative coverage of the Third Reich, arguing war may be a consequence of a free press.
What we learn from Neville is that if people in the field only report the information that their hosts are happy with, it hampers our country’s ability to respond adequately and weakens our national security.
From George we learn that if people in any country believe that the information they are passing is unsafe, then upsetting someone isn't their biggest problem, it’s their own personal security. If they fail to pass information for this reason, it weakens our national security.
If an Ambassador in the US can't safely send information, then anybody in any country can't. Our communications have to be secure that they cannot be leaked, and they can, therefore, write whatever is necessary.
It's not the sharing of sensitive information that needs to stop, it's the leaks.
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