dodis.ch/49327Der Generalsekretär des Politischen Departements, A. Weitnauer, an den Herausgeber von Foreign Affairs, W. P. Bundy1

Thank you very much for your letter of September 6, 19772, which I received yesterday.

Let me first of all express my deep gratitude for all the trouble you went to going through my manuscript3 and making so many interesting comments. Although I don't agree with all of them learning about your views was of great value to me.

I take it that even if I submitted a considerably revised text to you, it is quite possible that you would still not be able to accept it for publication in «Foreign Affairs». So it will surely be better for me not to insist. Anyway, I feel guilty to have taken so much of your precious time.

The key sentence in your letter in my opinion is on page 5, where you say: «The subject is potentially an interesting one, although the pace and degree of change in Swiss foreign policy are not such that one can make the subject truly dramatic.» This is, indeed, the truth.

Swiss history and, for that matter, Swiss foreign policy are not boring per se. But they have been moving at a very slow pace for many centuries. Maybe I had better suggested to you a text on «The interest Swiss foreign policy presents despite its apparent boredom4». But this would certainly have been a subject even less acceptable to you than the «new features» which would, according to you, seem almost imperceptible to the American reader.

Again many thanks for your kind attention.