Diplomatic Correspondence Quotes

I wanted all my visits to be official. When I sent the pass back with a note, I had no idea it would antagonize the president. I found out years later that it did.

When the President picks up the phone and calls the Prime Minister, what does it mean to be an ambassador?

I will not comment on or confirm what are alleged to be stolen State Department cables. But I can say that the United States deeply regrets the disclosure of any information that was intended to be confidential, including private discussions between counterparts or our diplomats' personal assessments and observations.

Most other documents leaked to WikiLeaks do not carry the same explosive potential as candid cables written by American diplomats.

Again and again [Tomas] Jefferson deftly sidesteps many of [John] Adams's often provocative remarks. They both felt the correspondence, which was written for posterity, was too important to risk by being too candid with one another.

[John] Adams's letters reveal his persistence and determination to win over the Dutch against all odds and to convince them and the other peoples of Europe of the potential greatness of the United States and of the importance of the Revolution to the world.

Regardless of some disagreements in the past with Dr. Kissinger, I personally had a very good relationship with the secretary when I served as ambassador to the United States and later on as premier.

We had a completely deniable exchange of papers - in the winter before the 1997 election - with [Tony] Blair, setting out what we thought were the realistic parameters for a solution: and we were getting reasonable responses back from him. That's what led to Blair's visit to Belfast on May 16, 1997 - two weeks after he became Prime Minister and his first official visit outside London.

Ambassador: In diplomacy, an officer sent into a foreign country as the visible embodiment of his sovereign's hostility.

Ambassadors are the eyes and ears of states.

Huge numbers of embassy cables are labeled 'unclassified' or 'limited official use' and deal with mundane matters.

People also don't care about the daily comings and goings of diplomats and yet we must report it.