Dmitri Chuvakhin Quotes
What Your Excellency is saying is logical, but I haven’t been sent here to be logical. I have come here to tell you about the rupture of relations.
The ambassador had been instructed to threaten a breakage of diplomatic relations. Eban observed how illogical and counter-productive that would be.
Dmitri Chuvakhin, Russian Ambassador to Israel, Discussion with Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, June 10, 1967
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Kennan was talking about the Russians, but the same principle seems to hold with any autocratic government and in some cases even democracies. However, the tradition of secret diplomacy with no transparency is established even in many democracies. Great Britain and France, for example conduct most of their diplomacy in secret as do less democratic governments and tyrannies. They expect us to keep negotiations confidential, which causes American diplomats to be torn between the American view of transparency and the tradition of confidentiality.
The Arab culture, like most desert cultures, maintains a degree of hospitality that is much greater than that of most other cultures. Even enemies are granted hospitality. This sometimes confuses Western diplomats who might interpret the friendly hospitality as institutional friendship but it often is nothing more than the gracious hospitality that is expected in Arab society.
The great European powers were attending an International Congress—Summit Meeting of the heads of government and their diplomats to deal with the crisis of Tsarist Russian military expansionism. None of the other European powers of the time wanted or could afford war so Russia could only be thwarted by Great Britain. There were many in England who thought that the British should not even attend and should send troops immediately. The Queen and the Royal Family were among those. At the Congress Disraeli, who had much personal affection for Queen Victoria, wanted to reassure her. 1st Earl of Beaconsfield. If the Congress did not succeed the mainland of Europe would have been at war. Disraeli obtained everything England wanted. See Russian Ambassador Prince Gortchakoff’s observation.
The Russians were breaking diplomatic relations with Israel.
Son of Egyptian President
Conservative hard liner hawks in both countries wanted a much more contentious and hostile relationship between the two nations. Reagan especially had to cope with a significant base of his Republican support. In any attempted peace or disarmament negotiations, there are people in both nations who profit economically, politically or ideologically from continued strife. This always makes the process difficult.
At the time of this quotation, he was the President of the America-Mexico Chamger of Commerce and his Mexican members were very anxious or disturbed by the prospect of Donald Trump being sworn in as President. Trump, during his presidential campaign, had courted many of the anti Hispanic voters and organizations, had labeled Mexican immigrants as "criminals" and "rapists", and had promised to build a very high wall accross the Mexican U. S, border and "make the Mexican's pay for it." Zapanta was also under consideration by President Elect Trump as the U. S. Ambassador to Mexico. These words were particualy well and delicately chosen to try and maintain his staning with with Trump and the Mexican leadership.
