Word: carrington
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...tidbits leaked to the Washington Post of what Secretary of State Alexander Haig said privately to his senior staff over the course of a year, the most memorable was his description of the British Foreign Secretary. He called Lord Carrington a "duplicitous bastard." The Post was so proud of its sneak look at what it called the "unvarnished Haig" that it devoted about 300 sq. in. of one day's paper to Haig's "private and apparently candid pronouncements." It proved a damp squib...
...serious practitioners of the art of insult, the British probably dismiss Haig's testy comment on Carrington as hardly in the same world class as the invective of Lloyd George, who said that Winston Churchill would "make a drum out of the skin of his own mother in order to sound his own praises"; of World War Fs Field Marshal Haig that he "was brilliant to the top of his army boots"; of Lord Derby that he was "like a cushion who always bore the impress of the last man who sat on him." Devastating ad libs and insults...
...real damage of such journalism is what it does to trust among colleagues in Government. Shouldn't a Secretary of State be able to meet confidentially with his top assistants without having his exact words appear later in print? Haig's angry description of Lord Carrington more justly fits the person who leaked a year's notes of private meetings. Haig may now find himself driven to confiding in an ever smaller circle of advisers at some cost to other officials' knowing his views firsthand, and to his hearing theirs...
...former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's penchant for shuttle diplomacy: "I didn't go over [to the Middle East] to pull a rabbit out of the hat a la Kissinger. This Secretary of State is not putting on Kissinger's fedora." On Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington's reluctance to commit Britain to participation in a peace-keeping force for the Sinai: "Duplicitous bastard. European friends -just plain cowardly. British, lying through their teeth...
...those who argue that such accommodation is preferable to nuclear annihilation, Lord Carrington offers the solid answer: "This is highly misleading, because there is in fact a third alternative. It is the one that Western Europe has pursued successfully for half a lifetime: to prevent war and remain free...