The Falklands crisis is a vulnerable subject to pick at long range, but the way it occurred does prompt some thoughts about the professional handling of international affairs.
If I am not mistaken, John Foster Dulles inaugurated the age of the airborne foreign minister, and that was before the jet made shuttle diplomacy possible. Without it, Henry Kissinger would not have captured the world’s headlines; nor would Alexander Haig be demolishing his metabolism by continent-hopping across the time zones. But the bureaucracies they represent have taken, are taking, a revenge all their own, by blocking initiatives of which they disapprove and offering incumbent ministers a choice of safe options none of which (for example) will impede in any way the Soviet drive for world domination.
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