The Boys on the Bongo Bus

"This one is quite different, but it’s written by someone who’s become a very good friend. John was a journalist, a good journalist who came into his own when he was appointed the Daily Mail’ s diplomatic correspondent in the days when the diplomatic correspondents of the big newspapers were a sort of clique, knowing each other very well, and the Foreign Office news department had a separate briefing for them every day. These were men – and it was entirely men at that time, there were no women, in the 1960s, 70s and early 80s – who had a great interest in foreign policy, acquired a very considerable knowledge of the world and British policy in particular, and wrote about it intelligently, but who also had discretion in knowing when they should not report things. There was a kind of empathy, if you like, which that group had with the people in the Foreign Office. It’s called The Boys on the Bongo Bus because they were somewhere in Africa accompanying the Foreign Secretary and the woman who was dealing with them said, ‘Come on! The Bongo bus is ready to go!’ It’s also an entertaining book because it describes the life they led following the Foreign Secretary on his travels, and it gives a different kind of perspective. Well, he describes travelling with Alec Hume, Peter Carrington and Tony Crossland – just episodes in those travels. It’s not a serious book like Kissinger’s or any of the others, but it’s a rather mischievous look at the way British foreign policy was conducted at home and abroad during that period. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter I joined the Foreign Office in 1947 and I left it in 1982, as permanent undersecretary. Those were the years I was serving – but there were particularly active periods. I was in Paris for the transition between the Fourth and Fifth Republic and the return of de Gaulle, and then I was there again ten years later and I interpreted for Ted Heath in his talks with Pompidou which led to the recognition that they should let us into the European Community. I had four years with Harold Wilson in Number 10, and then I dealt with Callaghan, Crossland, Owen and Carrington with Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister. I liked Peter Carrington best. He is a remarkable man. But the others were all very interesting in their different ways. Crossland, if he hadn’t had his stroke and died, would have been a remarkable Foreign Secretary. Callaghan of course became Prime Minister. Owen was perhaps promoted a big young, but he had an extraordinary feel for foreign policy. Well, I worry a bit."