You’ve chosen Henry Kissinger’s book first.

Kissinger’s book is called Diplomacy, but it is really a monumental historical work where the conduct of international relations is interwoven through every one of the different aspects of it that he talks about. That was really the basis on which I chose the books that I have mentioned to you. Much of the book is devoted to Europe, and especially to European power struggles and relationships in the 17^th, 18^th and 19^th centuries. In fact, in doing that, Kissiner is really addressing the unfolding of American foreign policy in the 20^th century, and especially the direction it should now take. He talks about the singularities that America has ascribed to itself throughout its history, which have produced two contradictory attitudes towards foreign policy: one of them being the desire to perfect democracy at home and act as a beacon for the rest of mankind, and the other one being the view that America’s values make it obligatory to crusade for them around the world. However, he pays absolutely no attention to the post-war construction of the European community and to the influence that it exerted on the economic and political development during that period. It’s an immense canvas that he covers, and there are lacunae and you can criticise a certain amount of it – but I reckon that it’s an exceptionally interesting book. It’s a remarkable intellectual achievement.

Why do you think Kissinger does miss out the European Union?

I got to know him really rather well, and he’s always taken a fairly Gaullist view of Europe; he’s very much affected by the Europe of the past, by 18th- and 19^th-century politics. Now if you talk to him about it, he understands perfectly, but when he wrote this book he wasn’t really thinking in terms of Western Europe’s economic and political development. He once said about Europe, ‘I don’t know, if I pick up the telephone, who I should talk to.’ Of course, he did actually know. The person he should have talked to, because that was the way Europe was developing, was the Danish foreign minister, because Denmark was in the Chair in the six-month period during which he wanted to make his call. He didn’t like the Danish foreign minister and, anyway, he didn’t think Denmark was important enough. So he had a blind spot about Western Europe but, nonetheless, it’s a very remarkable book.

You say you got to know him very well. He’s a very controversial figure. What personal view do you come away with?

When I tell the younger members of my family that I’m going to see Henry Kissinger, they say, ‘Oh! The merchant of death!’ He is a very controversial figure, and much of his political activity was pretty controversial, but, whether one likes it or not, and whether one approves of the methods or not, there is no doubt that he and Nixon established a relationship with China and he and Nixon got America out of Vietnam at a time when America had to get out of Vietnam. One can take a positive or negative view of that, but, on the whole, I take a positive view. One forgets that this is a German, born in Germany, who left as a boy, a Jewish boy in the early 30s, and then became a really extraordinary figure in American intellectual, political and historical life. Unlike some of the others of his time, he could never be president because he was not born there.

Do you like him?

Yes, I do like him. I do. I may be a bit exceptional, but I do. An awful lot of people abhor him, but as an individual I find him entertaining and intelligent and amusing to talk to. I saw him not long ago, and, like all of us, he’s getting old – but he’s still very good value!

Tell me about Duff Cooper.

I don’t know how many biographies of Talleyrand there are in English and in French. I’ve read several in both languages over the years, but Duff Cooper achieved an extraordinary feat with this short book. It’s only about a hundred and fifty pages long. It brings Talleyrand completely to life and covers his own life, bringing out the person he was and the achievements he had to his credit(or, as some people would say, to his discredit). In a funny kind of way, Talleyrand has the same sort of problems with his personality and so on as Kissinger. There are some people who think he was a real scoundrel, and there are others who admire him greatly.

Tell me what kind of person he was, and what his achievements were.

He was devious, crafty, a fundamental survivor. He was a priest, which people tend to forget – I think he himself forgot it fairly often. He had a fairly interesting personal life. He managed to survive and steer French foreign policy through a very difficult period during the Revolution, the Napoleonic period and post-Napoleon. He was the French representative at the Congress of Vienna, which sorted out Europe after the defeat of Napoleon, but he also served Napoleon very faithfully for a while. He had a great capacity for compromise, for staying on the right side of things, for spotting which was the right side of things and making for it. He rendered very considerable service to France, quite apart from managing to keep going himself and to survive through all sorts of difficult periods and jobs at a time in history when survival was jolly difficult.

Do you think that being devious is a key attribute for a diplomat?

No. I think it depends a little bit how you define ‘devious’. A diplomat has to understand why people are doing things, and one of the essentials in any diplomatic negotiation is to start by asking yourself what you want, what you hope to achieve, and then to ask yourself what the other guy wants and how he will try and get it, and then to be willing to sway with the punch of that and to recognise that if you are going to have an agreement you are going to have to compromise with what the other person wants.