A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
R. EDEN's friends will have welcomed his decision to take a short rest in the country this week, for in spite of official reassurances he has looked very tired of late, and with good reason. A Foreign Secretary's work never stops, and though Mr. Eden is most admirably served by his Ministerial colleagues, Mr. Selwyn Lloyd, Lord Reading and Mr. Anthony Nutting. he must necessarily take all major decisions himself, and keep himself posted in the documents on which to base them. That is particularly difficult when there is so much to take him out of the office and out of England. The new diplomacy by conference means that a great deal of business that used to be quite successfully trans- acted by Ambassadors has to be dealt with by Foreign Ministers away from their own capitals. It is a considerable strain. Early next month, for example, Mr. Eden goes to Washington with Mr. Butler. In April he is off to Istanbul and Ankara, conceivably to Cairo, and then back to Athens. After a day or two at home he must be in Paris for a N.A.T.O. con- ference. And there is the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, of which Mr. Eden is chairman. It is a ceaseless round, and much more exacting than in days when a Foreign Secretary rarely had to go further from his office desk than across the street to a Cabinet or down the street to the House.
Previous page
