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.
However, the most one can conclude from this is that diplomats are neither more nor less virtuous than the rest of the population. For every quote about power, there are many more about restraining and tempering its use. Nor have diplomats played the passive and pessimistic parts assigned to them by some commentators in which they simply go with the flow or, to put it more professionally, do their best to execute the will of their political masters without making things worse. More research is needed on the role of diplomats in policy formulation, but it is clear that some have taken the lead in advocating peace through the construction o an order which circumscribed the autonomy of their sovereigns. They did so because they thought it was a good idea. They continue to do so, however, not as cosmopolitans in the pejorative sense used by critics to call into question their patriotism.
More typical than Nicolson's elegant husks is what might be called the practical-or even unreflective cosmopolitanism exhibited by Frank Roberts when he recalls his role as Britain's ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the 1950s. He suggests that his position was unusual because he was "like any Ambassador, the representative of his country, but at the same time share a collective responsibility as a member of the Council'. As a consequence, it was his duty not only to represent British views on the Council but also to press upon London, when required, the collective views of the Council in addition to reporting those of Spaak, Norstaad and individual national representatives'. It is pressing rather than reporting which is important here, and on one occasion "pressing upon London' resulted in Roberts being summoned to 10 Downing Street after Earl Mountbatten complained about his support for American generals in an argument with their British counterparts. Roberts makes no explicit judgment about his conduct and discusses neither his conception of his role nor the issues raised by his carpeting. Nevertheless, one senses a confidence bordering on smugness that Roberts believes that he was right, Mountbatten was wrong, and that anyone with a grasp of diplomacy would agree.