Undiplomatic Activities.

• Author: McLean, Denis
• Position: Book review

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

UNDIPLOMATIC ACTIVITIES

Author: Richard Woolcott with illustrations by David Rowe

Published by: Scribe, Melbourne, 2007, 202pp, $35.

Dick Woolcott is well-known and liked by many New Zealanders. He was an outstanding figure on the Australian official landscape in Canberra for many years and elsewhere during many diplomatic postings abroad. As Secretary of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade from 1988 to 1992 he contributed much to keeping trans-Tasman relations on a more or less even keel, during difficult times following the ANZUS bust-up. All who know him testify to an endearing charm and a robust sense of humour.

Both are very much on display in this agreeable little book. Not a memoir, more a collage of anecdotes about incidents during a long and multi-facetted diplomatic career, this is an often hilarious read. Dick Woolcott does not take himself or the pomposities of diplomatic life too seriously. This has helped him navigate the tricky shoals inherent in the relationship between ministers and senior officials. Diplomatic dealings with foreign governments are not necessarily the problem, he writes. 'The reality is that the most difficult governments and ministers, with which a diplomat has to deal, are often their own.' He has had experience enough, having advised seven prime ministers from Robert Menzies to John Howard and twelve foreign ministers.

Some clearly had their heads turned by the trappings of office; others, and notably Gareth Evans, could deal not only with senior officials with ideas about themselves but also with other prima donnas around the diplomatic circuit, 'I don't care how many prima donnas there are around here, so long as I am prima donna assaluta!' Our own Keith Holyoake was known--not only in this country it seems but also across the Tasman--for putting on airs. After Holyoake had made some affected remark about proceedings at a Commonwealth conference in London, Menzies turned to Woolcott, 'raised his bushy eyebrows and said in a stage voice, "Ah, great holy oaks from little acorns grow."'

Woolcott has been able to draw on his experiences in wildly different and often--to say the least--exotic places. Official journeys have, it seems, taken him everywhere: 'from Argentina to Antarctica, from Denmark to Djibouti, from Egypt to Eritrea, from Fiji to Finland, from Indonesia to India, in fact virtually through the alphabet to Zanzibar and Zimbabwe', even to wondrous...