Secret diplomacy

“ If secret diplomacy exhibits its drawbacks even in a country where parliamentary government is so highly developed as in England and where political intelligence and independence of judgment exist, we shall not be surprised at the continuous prevalence of devious methods in diplomacy in countries where the conduct of foreign affairs is considered quite frankly a matter only for the initiated, and where little pretense is made of an appeal to public opinion except in the sense of holding it in subjection by vague general ideas of national danger, necessity, and honor. ”

“ Most discussions which favor the use of secret diplomacy, refer to the presumed necessity of confidential methods of negotiation. But there are some publicists and statesmen who believe that the policy of foreign affairs itself can best be handled by responsible statesmen keeping their own counsel and giving to the public only a general adumbration of the trend of policy. These two questions are constantly mixed up in current discussion; and their absolute separation is indeed difficult. Thus, a strictly secret diplomatic policy will naturally accentuate the secrecy of the methods employed. ”

“ Thus a minister, to whom national intrigue and duplicity were essentially foreign, who was trusted by his country and who wanted peace, was brought by the methods of secret diplomacy into a position where he had actually incurred the moral obligation to assist another country without having the power for peace which the ability to avow that relationship openly, to take the responsibility, and to confront Germany therewith, would have given him. ”

“ This, of course, implies a somewhat low estimate of public intelligence and self-control, of which more later.
The greatest vice of a secret diplomatic policy, working in the dark and concealing international undertakings, lies in the inevitable generating of mutual suspicion and the total destruction of public confidence among the different countries which compose the family of nations. No nation is so bad as imagination, confused and poisoned by secrecy and by the suggestion of dire plottings, would paint it. ”

“ Patient, sound, upbuilding influences shall have to work powerfully on the masses of men, and on their leaders, before we may finally overcome the evils that express them- selves in practices inherent in a system such as that we call ' ' secret diplomacy, ' ' before the world may be made an abode of mutual confidence and helpfulness instead of a house of imprisonment, suspicion and terror. ”

“ It is therefore inestimably important that the facts of international life, the materials out of which policies are formed, should be known freely and fully to the public of every nation. The manipulation of international communications for political purposes is the most sinister and dangerous part of the system with which secret diplomacy is entwined. ”

“ Each country is casting its net of espionage into the slimy bottom of the others, fishing for their secrets, the treacherous secrets brewing in the oozy depths of diplomacy. And what is their secret service but the nation's underground trade in kidnapping, murder and treachery and all the ugly crimes bred in the depth of rottenness? ”

“ More and more evidence is coming to light of the immense harm which secret diplomacy has done to mankind and to the world, and the full tale of these evils is certainly not yet told. But I venture to suggest that all the harm done by secret diplomacy is trifling in comparison to the evil effects of the absolutely public and unconcealed profession of journalism. ”

“ From the point of view of historic evidence, and of strict reasoning from cause to effect, a great deal of doubt still remains as to how far secret diplomacy in itself,—that is, the failure to publish to parliament and the people, details of the situation as it developed,—could properly be considered the specific cause of the war ”

“ Instinct can be transformed into a true public policy only through publicity and through the training of large groups of men to see things with true eyes and to judge with reason and wisdom. Here is the crux of the matter. Secret diplomacy treats all except the inner official ring as outsiders and “persons without responsibility.” Among these outsiders there may be numerous persons actually better qualified than the officials themselves, through experience and thought, to judge of international affairs. ”

“ Agreements and understandings which do not exist at all are imagined, the nature of those which actually have been made is mis- judged, and animosities are exaggerated; thus the public is quite naturally put in that mood of sus- picion and excitement which renders it incapable of judging calmly when apparently startling facts suddenly emerge.
Secret diplomacy destroys public confidence. ”

“ There is now little of that secret diplomacy which in former days so much prevailed. There is on the part of every Government—such is the power of public opinion—so great an anxiety to appeal to it and obtain its support, that despatches of the most important character and entailing the gravest consequences are no sooner delivered than they are published ”

“ Up until a recent date Americans could contemplate the play of secret diplomacy in Europe and Asia with a feeling of entire aloofness, as belonging to a political society which had neither need nor inclination to utilize such methods. Our unmenaced continental position, the natural protection and separation implied in distance and ocean boundaries, and the conscious intention of keeping clear of international entanglements, all contributed to make the foreign policy of the United States entirely public and straightforward. ”

“ The abolition of secret diplomacy is not a matter218 of agreeing to have no more secrets. It is a matter of arousing among the public so powerful a determination to know, so strong a sentiment of the value of truth, such a penetrating spirit of inquiry, that the secrets will fade away as they always do when the importance of a situation is really understood by a large number of people. ”

“ You cannot lay down and I do not think you would be wise to lay down, an absolute rule that under no circumstances, and for no object, could you so far concede the point as to say that a treaty is to be made which is not to become public property. I am perfectly ready to admit that that is not a process which, to me, is a very agreeable one. To reduce secret treaties to the narrowest possible limits should, I think, be the object of every responsible statesman who has the control of foreign affairs. ”

“ OUR historical survey of diplomatic policy and practice does not hold much assurance that the evils of secret diplomacy have very appreciably waned since the eighteenth century. The cruder methods of deception and corruption which were at that time employed would indeed now be con- sidered beneath the dignity of diplomats ”

“ Infallibility cannot be expected in the handling of foreign affairs, whether under a broad discretion of statesmen or under strict democratic control. There will always be an alternative of wisdom and rashness, constructive planning and headlong action, carefulness and negligence. But past experience has certainly established beyond peradventure of doubt that secret diplomacy is not infallible, and particularly that diplomacy acting under absolutist traditions, as in Germany before the war, may make the most fatal mistakes of judgment and of policy. ”

“ It pre- vented us from finding some alternative for war, and it prevented us from being prepared for war, because secret diplomacy means diplomacy aloof from Parliament." The issue is here quite clearly stated. Those who see in the methods and spirit of the old diplomacy the chief cause of war, do not hold, on the one hand, that secret diplo- macy involves at all times and in all cases un- scrupulous plotting. ”

“ But though it is easy to understand the need of secrecy at such a time, yet the spirit displayed in these negotiations had but little in common with the ideals professed in the same breath. Moreover, there was a lack of complete sincerity among the Allies themselves, and particularly was there a concealment from some of them of important facts and agreements affecting their interests. However, the most baneful effect of secret diplomacy during the war is found in the undermining of public confidence in a moral foundation of public action. ”

“ The great diplomats of the beginning of the 19th century—Metternich, Talleyrand, Pozzo di Borgo—while they talked much about humanitarian principles, continued to play a barren game of intrigue. Napoleon III, that master of devious statecraft, will always be cited by excoriators of secret diplomacy as an abhorrent example—a man undone by the results of his own plotting. ”

“ To America, to the government and the people, the elimination of secret dealings in international affairs is nothing short of a primary interest. The entire character of our foreign policy is inspired with, and based upon, the belief in open dealings and fair play. ”

“ Manipulative, and hence secret, diplomacy is in fact the most complete expression of the purely political factor in human affairs. To many, it will seem only a survival of a hyperpolitical era, as human society now tends to outgrow and transcend politics for more comprehensive, pervasive and essential principles of action. We need not here rehearse the fundamental character of politics as a struggle for recognized authority to determine the action of individuals, with the use of external compulsion. ”

“ Directly a controversy becomes public all that fair give-and-take becomes either difficult or impossible, and if secret diplomacy meant anything so idiotic as an attempt to discuss in public matters in which sentiment, international pride, and international interests were profoundly concerned, I do not think that any sane assembly would ever really try to carry it out in the day-to-day national work which has to be got through. ”

“ Whether or not secret diplomacy brought on the war, it certainly has not ended it. War still exists, not only when actual hostilities are going on, but in the whole temper of international affairs con- tinuing enmity, continuing armaments, 'Unending' waste of human effort. ”

“ It soon became manifest even to the most obtuse that whenever the Supreme Council, following its leaders and working on such lines as these, terminated its labors, the ties between the political communities of Europe would be just as flimsy as in the unregenerate days of secret diplomacy, secret alliances, and secret intrigues, unless in the meanwhile the peoples themselves intervened to render them stronger and more enduring. ”

“ Diplomacy, instead of secret whispering, a finger to its lips, must shout from the housetops. Great nations cannot be governed from cellars. Diplomats are not necessarily conspirators. There is such a thing as walking in the sunlight. ”

“ This argument brings out all the strong points of the system of secret diplomacy under the ex- isting conditions of international politics, but it contains no hint that these conditions need im- provement. They cannot, as a matter of fact, be improved until some strong nations, even at the risk of disadvantage to themselves, take the lead in placing diplomatic affairs on a broader basis. ”

“ There grew up gradually, al- though with many relapses and with many breaks of continuity, a consensus that while the methods of diplomatic action might be secret, the general trend of policy should regularly be laid before the representatives of the people who should also be informed of any individual action involving the responsibilities of the nation. ”

“ Divesting ourselves of all prejudices, even of righteous indignation against plainly unconscionable practices, we shall try to examine and analyze the action of great diplomats and to see to what extent really important results achieved by them have depended upon the use of secret methods. In the 18th Century, diplomacy was still looked upon as a sharp game in which wits were matched, with a complete license as to the means pursued ”

“ This is true only where suspicion, mistrust, fear, secret diplomacy, and secret alliances hold instead of the great and eternally constructive forces—sympathy, good will, mutual understanding, induced and conserved by an International Joint Commission of able men whose business it is to investigate, to determine, and to adjust any differences that through the years may arise. ”

“ Much of it, of course, amounts to nothing and their possession of it does not materially add to their power, but the fact that they have the access, that they can get whatever they want when they want it is the important point—as many a secret paper could testify if it could talk, and many a custodian of secret papers could tell if he would. The real secret diplomacy of the world is that which hands over the world's so-called secrets to a few men who are members of one race. ”