A viewer calls Machiavelli's diplomatic letters unprofessional, prompting an example from ambassadors' correspondence of the 1920s and 1930s. One report devoted about twelve pages to gossip, including an undersecretary for agriculture receiving a yellow tie from his wife. An official dispatch is not automatically concise, strategically useful, or focused on foreign policy. For historians, the value of a primary source depends on what it records and why, rather than its mere presence in an official archive.
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What interwar diplomatic dispatches could contain
An archival anecdote shows that official diplomatic reporting could include pages of low-value social gossip.