Celebrating 90 Years - Foreign Policy Association

In looking for inspiration on the subject of
diplomacy, I came upon the end of “The Good,
the Bad and the Ugly.” After the buried treasure
is found in the graveyard, Clint Eastwood
says, “There are two sorts of people in this
world: those with a loaded gun, and those who
dig. You dig.” There are two types of diplomats
in the world as well. There are those who sit in
pleasant ministries or international organizations
writing the rules and deciding the policies,
and there are those who are sent out on
the streets to apply the rules to real life. I have
been lucky enough to do both. I have helped
write rules of global order in London, in Washington,
in Brussels, and now in New York. And I
have also worked on the ground in Syria, South
Africa, Egypt, and Iraq, trying to bring about
change in real life.
A most memorable moment of my career
was out in the field, in Cape Town, on 12 February
1990. I had been with our embassy in
South Africa for two years, and I was in the garden
of Archbishop Tutu’s house that morning.
It was the day after Nelson Mandela had been
released, and there he was, just a few yards
away from me, giving his first press conference
after 27 years in prison. There was an invited
audience of twenty or so South African journalists
and a handful of young diplomats who
had heard about the press conference and had
worked their way in. I had the honor of greeting
Nelson Mandela to freedom on behalf of
the British people, and he asked me to convey
a personal message to Margaret Thatcher, who
was then Prime Minister. It was an unforgettable
moment for a young diplomat.
Nelson Mandela’s release and
the transformation of South
Africa that it heralded, together
with the collapse of communism
in Eastern Europe, which hap-
pened at the same time, showed
me that change is possible.
Mandela’s release and the transformation
of South Africa that it heralded, together with
the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe,
which happened at the same time, showed
me that change is possible. It was change not
from revolutionary terror or violent upheaval or
military force, but change through democratic
process and with restraint as an end in itself. It
was change supported by patient diplomacy,
by winning the arguments, and by judiciously
applying pressure and incentives. Such change
showed me that diplomacy can work. It was
one of the best moments in my life.
The worst moment in my career came
over Easter weekend in 1999. I was a new
recruit to Tony Blair’s team on Downing Street,
advising him on foreign policy. Two weeks
earlier, NATO forces had begun bombing
Milosevic’s Serbia. Our policy had, we believed,
been thought through well. We had built up
the pressure over the previous months, but
Slobodan Milosevic had refused to deal with
the Kosovo issue in a reasonable way. We had
FOREIGN POLICY ASSOCIATION | 93
MEETINGS: PRESENTATION BY SIR JOHN SAWERS