One German diplomat later recalled that "Ribbentrop didn't understand anything about foreign policy.

One diplomat recalled that he once complained about corrupt government officials who kept delaying action on a foreign aid project.

The diplomat recalled resorting to buying a rod and reel to catch fish for dinner.

"The Russians spent 45 minutes arguing over the meaning of consult," the American diplomat recalls.

There was no panic, not even screaming inside the embassy, several diplomats recalled.

"We're going to take every necessary security precaution, but we're not going to hide," a diplomat recalls the Ambassador telling staff members.

"The Government was besieged by demands for pay raises, better labor conditions, more campus democracy," a Western diplomat recalled.

"We have nothing to to worry about from a war with the United States," the diplomat recalled the Iraqi as saying.

As a result, recalled one Canadian diplomat, "[t]here developed a collaboration in international organizations so habitual that it was taken for granted by the 1950s."

But one well-placed Western diplomat recalled that the international mediators had decided that the territorial division was the "core problem" and should be dealt with first.