Refelections of a Diplomat

• Author: Ambassador J. O'Neil Lewis
• Pages: 144-158

144 CARICOM Options: Towards Full Integration Into the World Economy

REFLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMAT

Ambassador J. O’Neil Lewis

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I looked up the meaning of ‘diplomat’ and discovered that one meaning

is ‘somebody who carries a folded letter’. He was a minor functionary in the

days when diplomats, delegations, or heads of missions, were sent out to

visit foreign countries. The Head of Mission, who carried the original

communication together with a copy, usually went with a retinue; but, just

in case something unexpected happened, they sent along another functionary

with another copy of the letter; but, it was folded and he did not know what

was in it. That is why he was called a diplomat, because he carried the

folded letter. As to whether I was an ambassador, I cannot deny that I did

bear that title for some 15 years, having, in a previous assignment to Brussels

back in 1963, been described as ‘a personal representative of the Prime

Minister’.

At Dr. Williams’s first attendance at a Commonwealth Prime Ministers

Conference, Trinidad and Tobago was the only Commonwealth country that

had come out in favour of Britain’s seeking to join the European Economic

Community. He said that it was an important step that Britain was taking;

and he welcomed it. Dr. Williams later told Dr. Hallstein that European

countries, in their separate capacities in the sixteenth, seventeenth and

eighteenth had been responsible for the fragmentation of the Caribbean. The

English, Dutch, French and Spanish governments, by their wars and conquests

had made some of the Caribbean peoples Dutchmen, some Frenchmen, some

Spaniards, and some English-speaking. But, Dr. Williams stressed, ‘we in

the Caribbean are all alike’. We were all part of the same stock. If Britain

joined the Community, then the Community in its corporate capacity would

have an opportunity to remedy some of the effects of this fragmentation of