Sir Carl Berendsen (1890-1973) was the founder of New Zealand foreign policy. He was a dynamic thinker, a gifted writer, an outstanding administrator and a considerable orator. Few civil servants before or since have addressed both Cabinet and Parliament; few have made or been involved in making so much and such important policy; and few have had such a significant influence on New Zealand and its international relationships. As the Head of the Department of External Affairs, High Commissioner to Australia, and then Ambassador to Washington, he was involved in such major events as the ANZAC pact, preparations for World War II, the formation of the United Nations, the ANZUS Treaty and the Japanese Peace Treaty. Hon. Hugh Templeton, himself a former employee of the New Zealand Department of External Affairs, New Zealand's last Deputy High Commissioner of Western Samoa, and a Cabinet Minister in the Muldoon government, has shaped Berendsen's reminiscences into a fascinating and candid account of Berendsen's rise from an impoverished childhood in Australia and Southland to the highest levels of the New Zealand bureaucracy.
The book includes Berendsen's first hand reports of the administration of New Zealand's foreign policy in the first half of the 20th century, and his character sketches of many of the prominent political figures that he encountered during his career.