A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK N OW that Mr. Eden has handed back
the leadership of the House of Commons to Sir Stafford Cripps I hope he will be able to take up one or two departmental questions which rather urgently need attention. Chief among them is our representation abroad. In some respects it is very satisfactory. In certain key-cities like Lisbon (Sir Ronald Campbell), Moscow (Sir Archibald Clark Kerr) and Ankara (Sir Hugh Knatchbull-Hugessen) this country is, by the common verdict, admirably represented. But I hear very different accounts—in almost every letter I get from America and every talk I have with friends back from there—about the Embassy at Washing- ton. It is not primarily a question of the Ambassador, though Lord Halifax, with all his great qualities, is undeniably under certain dis- advantages. He is still, very unfairly, criticised as one of the appeasement school, he was not too happily advised in his first days at Washington, and though there is no touch of hauteur or aloofness about him he does not possess (how many people do?) that singular gift of easy adaptation to any society which Lord Lothian manifested in so remarkable a degree. But practically none of the permanent staff of the Embassy (the technical advisers are in another category) have, I believe, been home since the war began. The Britain they know and interpret is a pre-blitz Britain, and it does not follow that they are all of them ideal interpreters anyhow. Nothing is more important than that at Washington we should have the right men—for Washington—and only the right men. The man with the highest intrinsic diplomatic qualifications is not necessarily the best man for that particular post. What h needed is to seek out men who are, gather them from anywhere and send them there.
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