Secondly, the experiences which feed world-weariness may also give rise to cynicism, laying diplomats open to the charge that they simply seek power or, worse, to be close to it without responsibility. In accounting for his own success, the British Foreign Office permanent under secretary, Lord Hardinge of Penshurst, declared in the early 1900s that his ‘theory in the service was that "power" is the first aim’ Diplomats have served some fairly odious regimes. The Nazi seizure of power provoked only one ambassadorial resignation. Dobrynin, for all his efforts to present himself as a civilizing influence on Soviet power, remains remarkably glib about the activities of his colleagues. Indeed, the Russian experience from Tsarist empire to Bolshevik state and from USSR to Russian republic provides remarkable examples of shifts in the allegiances of professional diplomats It can be argued that the evolution of the European Union (EU) is providing us with others.