On the question of ceremonial representation, commentaries have added little to the observations of diplomats. Close observance of certain formalities helps to maintain the hierarchies which make social life possible in the diplomatic profession, as in other walks of life. This is tame stuff compared to an era in which the correspondence of ceremony and reality meant that when the French king or his ambassador visited the court of the English king, France had come to England, and ambassadors’ retinues could come to blows over questions of precedence. In the Middle Ages and early modern period, the status of the ambassador as his sovereign emerged in response to the problem of how to deal with a person at Court who was not a subject and was, indeed, acting on behalf of someone else. Immunity, a functional requirement of effective communication, was justified by arguing that diplomats enjoyed the rights and privileges of their sovereigns, and since sovereigns embodied their polities then so, by default, must their representatives. And so, problems created by one fiction - the division of the political world into sovereigns and subjects - assisted in the maintenance of another - the ambassador-as-sovereign or as the symbol of his sovereign.

For this fiction to work, diplomats must retain a certain residue from the era of direct correspondence. They may not think that their symbolic status is necessary to function effectively (in which case they are almost certainly wrong), but they do regard it as helpful. Thus, they have to pretend and get others to pretend that their symbolic claims are in some sense true. Here the problems begin in earnest: the idea of embodying the state is seen as immodest, false, and dangerous in a democratic and empiricist era replete with memories of the evils which can flow from treating nations as real and states as ends rather than means. Once acknowledged, therefore, the idea of symbolic representation is either safely cordoned off or watered down. It is cordoned off by confining it to relatively insignificant ceremonial occasions. It is watered down by suggesting that rather than embodying their states, diplomats exemplify or express their national, cultural identity. Marcel Cadieux sketched a profile of the Canadian diplomat both as a reflection of what he saw as the key elements of Canada’s identity and as a catalyst in the process by which that identity could achieve its fullest expression. Identity diplomacy per se, however, belonged to the "romantic phase" of Canada’s diplomacy. By the early 1960s, its officers were "no longer only symbols of our political independence," for that was "firmly established." Instead, they confronted "real and numerous tasks."(6) 

Even if symbolic diplomacy recedes into the background in some process of national development as real diplomacy takes over, it refuses to remain there. Rejection of communications and invitations, nonappearances at functions, and the diplomatic walk-out all suggest that diplomats remain sensitive to perceived insults to the honour of their countries. The less professional among them may confuse personal dignity with the reputation of their country, but there are limits to what even the best will endure to maintain communications. Anatoly Dobrynin, the long-serving Soviet ambassador to the United States, expressed great frustration at the readiness of others, including his own leaders, to allow slights (real or imagined) to get in the way of business. Nevertheless, he shared his government’s anger when the United States bombed North Vietnam in 1965 while Premier Alexis Kosygin was visiting Hanoi. "The fact remains that they bombed the country while our premier was there." The insult, rather than the political, military, or human consequences of the bombing, seemed to count for him.(7)