Page:Paul Samuel Reinsch - Secret Diplomacy, How Far Can It Be Eliminated? - 1922.djvu/224



Conclusion
IN modern diplomacy there still persists the image of the chess players intent on their compli- cated game, planning each move with long fore- sight of all the combinations that could possibly be organized by the opponent. In the popular image, too, the great diplomat is conceived as spinning a complicated web of actions and rela- tionships in which every detail is subordinate and subservient to a general dominant purpose. Then comes the international publicist and with inge- nuity still more refined than that of the imagined diplomat, he reasons out the innermost ambitions that dominate and inspire the makers of foreign affairs. So it has remained possible for the most extravagant imaginary constructions to be put forth in volumes of sober aspect, which purport to give the key to diplomacy or to expose the per- nicious ambitions of this or that foreign office. It has become a game in which nothing is impos- sible to the constructive imagination.

To any one familiar with the usual methods of foreign offices and of diplomatic representatives,