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The funeral of a major political leader which is attended by scores of high-level delegations from abroad. It is thus an opportunity not only for diplomatic signalling but also for confidential discussion between the mourners and the politically bereaved government, and perhaps more especially between the mourners themselves. The term has been attributed to Robert Carvel, Political Editor of the London Evening Standard, who introduced it in an article on the Requiem Mass for West German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, in April 1967.
Funerals of this kind, which are attended by high ceremony and generally styled ‘state funerals’, are extremely useful in diplomacy. They provide an occasion which is above reproach for heads of state and government to break existing commitments for discussion on an urgent matter of the moment; and they provide a cloak behind which the representatives of hostile states may meet. If the deceased leader was an incumbent rather than retired, the funeral also provides what will probably be the first opportunity for foreign leaders to make contact with his or her successor. |
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