Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
American diplomat, first career diplomat to serve as US Ambassador to London, appointed by President Bush and retained by Clinton.
On the island
Eight records
I Heard It Through the Grapevine
This would make me think about her, and it's also, incidentally, a very good theme song for a diplomat, inasmuch as it is called I Heard It Through the Grapevine.
It's a song that was written when the United States entered the First World War … it sort of catches the jaunty, cocky American optimism that sometimes irritates other people, but which I rather like. And it also has a kind of lesson to it as well, because we've been learning really for the rest of the century – that is never over over there.
Choir of King's College, Cambridge
Ever since I was a little boy, I remember this carol, which never fails to move me. And I thought this would be very important because on the desert island I would have to figure out how to celebrate Christmas. And I would have to find coloured coconuts to decorate my palm tree, perhaps, and I could listen to this.
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77: II. Adagio
David Oistrakh, Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Française, Otto Klemperer
Part of the second movement of Brahms's violin concerto in D major. This was one of the pieces that I remembered from [school] and I have played many, many, many times since then.
When I was about thirty seven or thirty eight years old, I discovered that I was not Fred Astaire. And this came as a terrible blow … one of the reasons I would want to go to a desert island is so that I could pretend to be Fred Astaire.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:07Is it true that the US Ambassador to London is seen as one of the great plum jobs, and usually goes to one of the President's rich supporters?
It certainly is seen as a plum job, and it has been not a job to which a career person has ever been appointed. It's not always been accorded to somebody of vast wealth. But one of the reasons I was pleased to be able to come to do this job is to at least attempt to demonstrate that one does not have to have great worldly goods in order to conduct the affairs of diplomacy here. But it does help.
Presenter asks
6:25How far do you stray from the disinterested reporter role into the political function?
In some respects, although I think they're never really separable. Part of your job is not merely to understand the politics of the country in which you happen to live, but really to understand the politics of your own country, and not only to represent it, but to understand how to develop an issue within the political limits of Washington. And there are many, many considerations that you have to take account of … What are the limits at home that prevent us from doing this thing but encourage us to do another? And then how can I try to explain that here?
Presenter asks
15:28The keepsakes
The luxury
My luxuries would be a big box full of Family Photo Albums. Lots of memories in those photographs. Good memories.
You've worked for Kissinger and successive Secretaries of State – which of them have you most admired?
Very undiplomatic, and the answer is George Schultz. I worked very closely with him and I just have an immense affection and admiration for him. He's a man of great depth and great integrity.
Presenter asks
16:35Do you think the special relationship can go on being that special with Britain moving ever more towards Europe, and without the threat of the Soviet Union to cement it?
Certainly the relationship over the last fifty years has had at its very centre the issue of security. The US and the UK, over all of this period, have built up a remarkably intimate relationship in all sorts of activities. Much of that will stand us in very good stead as we deal with this new set of problems that come forward, but some of it will go away.
Presenter asks
23:15You've accused Britain of having a lack of self-regard – do we really look that bad from the outside?
Well, it's not so much my image of Britain, but what I saw perhaps far too frequently as Britain's image of Britain. This sort of sense of decline and 'can't get anything right' and somehow not competitive enough in the world. And I find it disconcerting that Britain can often be so down on itself.
Presenter asks
25:48Do you share Warren Christopher's view that Bosnia is a faraway country remote from essential American interests?
Well, it is. I think what he was trying to signal in making that statement is that we cannot try to address the problems in Bosnia in the same Cold War context … the United States … has to reassess exactly what its interests are and what its priorities are … All of that said, I think we are very much involved in what is happening in Yugoslavia and in Bosnia in particular.
“I have always had, I think, the good judgment never to ask why [President Bush appointed me]. And when I learned about the job, it really was a complete, almost a shock.”
“The only person in the bar more astonished than I was the bartender who had been handling all of these telephone calls from the White House. He did not believe it. He thought there was some guy. I didn't believe it.”
“I had told the people that there was no place on earth that was too dangerous or too dusty or too disease ridden that I wouldn't go. I was ready to go anywhere.”
“I discovered that I was not Fred Astaire. And this came as a terrible blow and a terrible disappointment. And one of the reasons I would want to go to a desert island is so that I could pretend to be Fred Astaire.”
“We can never recreate this relationship with any other country. And in each iteration, it tends to revalidate itself. And that's what's so rewarding about it.”