SEN. LUGAR SPEAKS OUT ■ FS ORAL HISTORIES ■ LESSONS FROM USIA
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STAY W ITH SOMEONE YOU KNOW.® CONTENTS July-August 2003 ■ Volume 80, No. 7-8
FOCUS ON FOREIGN SERVICE FICTION F EATURES 16 / INDIGO AND PEPPER SOUP STILL TELLING THEIR STORIES: An enterprising FS wife challenges the presumption of THE ADST ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM / 48 hardship in Lagos and her husband’s cynicism. The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training is By Patricia L. Sharpe preparing to go online with its ever-growing collection of oral histories. Here are some excerpts. 21 / DEATH OF A PUBLIC SERVANT By Kenneth L. Brown and Veda Engel Eric Fleet was a very annoying man. But who disliked him enough to kill him? REMEMBERING USIA / 57 By Nancy Nelson This year marks the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Information Agency’s founding. A retired USIA officer 28 / FRANK GOES FOR BAROQUE recalls the agency’s many accomplishments. An upwardly mobile junior By Wilson Dizard Jr. officer in a backwater post discovers the secret to success. TO ANITA KILLED BY THE BANDITS / 62 By Hanscom Smith This poem is based on a true story. By Gordon King 31 / A COUNSELOR IN ROME An FSO has an unexpectedly CAPITALISM AND THE MEXICAN POOR / 64 fulfilling second tour in the Until USAID and other international development Eternal City. agencies learn how the lives of the working poor really By Peter Bridges function, their aid and loans won’t benefit those who Page 16 need help the most. 36 / THROUGH THE GLASS By James Olsen A Russian girl contemplates more than just marriage as she applies for a visa. C OLUMNS D EPARTMENTS By Donna Gorman PRESIDENT’S VIEWS / 5 LETTERS / 7 41 / NITA AND THE FIRST NOBLE EIGHTFOLD PATH Voice of the Foreign Service CYBERNOTES / 10 Mrs. Ambassador gets mixed up in a well- By John K. Naland BOOKS / 69 intentioned scheme with bizarre consequences. SPEAKING OUT / 13 INDEX TO Nita, her enlightened cook, tells the story. ADVERTISERS / 74 By David McAuley Strengthen Diplomacy for the War on Terror AFSA NEWS / By Sen. Richard G. Lugar CENTER INSERT
REFLECTIONS / 76 By John J. St. John
Cover and inside illustrations by Janet Cleland
THE MAGAZINE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS PROFESSIONALS Foreign Service Journal (ISSN 0146-3543), 2101 E Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20037-2990 is published Editor Editorial Board monthly by the American Foreign Service Association, a private, non-profit organization. Material appearing here- STEVEN ALAN HONLEY in represents the opinions of the writers and does not necessarily represent the views of the Journal, the Editorial Associate Editor JUDITH BAROODY, Board or AFSA. Writer queries and submissions are invited, preferably by e-mail. Journal subscription: AFSA SUSAN B. MAITRA CHAIRMAN Business Manager Members - $9.50 included in annual dues; others - $40. For foreign surface mail, add $18 per year; foreign air- MIKKELA V. T HOMPSON MARK W. B OCCHETTI mail, $36 per year. Periodical postage paid at Washington, D.C., and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Ad & Circulation Manager ED MILTENBERGER ELIZABETH SPIRO CLARK Send address changes to Foreign Service Journal, 2101 E Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20037-2990. Indexed AFSA News Editor TATIANA GFOELLER-VOLKOFF by Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS). The Journal is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts, photos SHAWN DORMAN CAROL A. GIACOMO or illustrations. Advertising inquiries are invited. The appearance of advertisements herein does not imply the Art Director LAURIE KASSMAN CARYN J. SUKO endorsement of the services or goods offered. FAX: (202) 338-8244 or (202) 338-6820. E-MAIL: [email protected]. CAROLINE MEIRS Editorial Intern WEB: www.afsa.org. TELEPHONE: (202) 338-4045. © American Foreign Service Association, 2003. Printed ASTER GRAHN HOLLIS SUMMERS Advertising Interns WILLIAM WANLUND in the U.S.A. Send address changes to AFSA Membership, 2101 E Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20037- CHARLES ODENZ TED WILKINSON 2990. Printed on 50 percent recycled paper, of which 10 percent is post-consumer waste. JESSICA BARNOSKI
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This is my final members are both. column after four AFSA’s professional Courage: AFSA exhibits responsi- years on the AFSA staff members, ble risk-taking in order to achieve Governing Board, results. The only people who don’t first as State vice elected officials, and make mistakes are those who don’t president and then post representatives undertake difficult tasks. as president. When Empowerment: AFSA staff and I first arrived, I did fight for the officers trust each other to give their not fully appreciate just how great a interests of our best efforts guided by the association’s force for good AFSA is. But now I do. core values. Given our lean staffing, Day in and day out, AFSA’s professional members, both there is little time for micromanaging. staff members, elected officials, and active-duty and Patriotism: AFSA is faithful to the post representatives fight for the inter- grand and enduring ideals of our nation. ests of our members, both active-duty retired. Those ideals include the checks and and retired. They negotiate improve- balances on governmental action ments in our conditions of service, afforded by collective bargaining. lobby for legislation to improve our Responsiveness: AFSA listens to AFSA has been the voice of the quality of life, respond to those who our members and actively promotes Foreign Service since 1924 when the unfairly criticize our profession, and their interests. When you contact Service itself was created. As happens speak up for employees who have been AFSA with a question or a problem, you every two years, the time has now come let down by the system. In so doing, will get a response. for a new Governing Board to assume they help to make the Foreign Service a Effectiveness: AFSA acts with a the responsibility for fighting the good better supported, more respected, and sense of urgency, gets results, and fight for the benefit of our members. more satisfying place in which to spend makes a difference. While AFSA can- My distinguished successor, Amb- a career. That makes our agencies more not win every battle that it undertakes, it assador John W. Limbert, heads up a effective and thus improves our nation’s wins quite a few. very strong team that includes numer- diplomatic readiness. Integrity: AFSA demonstrates ous longtime AFSA activists as well as It has been a great honor for me to openness, honesty, and fairness. We newcomers bringing fresh perspectives. work in this organization that so vigi- strive to close the gap that sometimes I urge members worldwide to give lantly defends and promotes the inter- exists in the Foreign Service between our new AFSA Governing Board the ests of the Foreign Service. One of the what is said and what is done. same support that you gave to the out- best things about this job has been the Efficiency: AFSA carefully expends going board. Send them your sugges- opportunity to work alongside AFSA’s resources where they can have maxi- tions, your kudos, and your constructive fantastic professional staff members. It mum impact. Our dues are relatively criticism. In so doing, we will be con- is they who do the bulk of the work for low by federal union standards, so effi- tinuing the proud tradition of mutual our members. They do so guided by ciency is essential. support dating back nearly eight eight core values: Community: AFSA’s staff and offi- decades. And the Foreign Service will cers foster teamwork and enjoy their be the better for it. John K. Naland is the president of the time together. Happy employees are Thank you for the opportunity to American Foreign Service Association. motivated employees. AFSA’s staff serve. ■
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War and Peace(keeping) order and democratic, multiethnic peacekeeping operations in “post- What a pity that just as U.S. and government to a society fractured by conflict environments.” Moreover, coalition forces are confronting the war. the PKI has published studies, pro- dangerous and untidy process of In Iraq, too, the long, painstaking ceedings, and book-length documents restoring order in Iraq, the U.S. process of restoring order will require that enrich the public’s understanding Army’s Peacekeeping Institute (PKI), coalition military forces to provide a of the critically important role peace established a decade ago to study safe environment for civilian peace- operations now play in U.S. foreign post-conflict peace operations, is keepers — and not just for weeks or policy. Many colleges and universities about to be shut down. The months. The need exists, therefore, rely on PKI publications for under- Pentagon, ostensibly as part of the for our military to understand and graduate and graduate courses in this Army’s transformation process, decid- support the flip side of war fighting: growing field of study. ed in 2002 to close this uniquely valu- peacekeeping. And that need looks Faced with a power vacuum in able operation at the Army War ready to expand over time. The Bush Iraq, the Pentagon is sparring with the College in Carlisle, Pa. I say “ostensi- administration, however, seems reluc- State Department on how best to cre- bly” because this move appears to tant to acknowledge this inevitable ate an interim indigenous authority to have as much to do with the antipathy consequence of America’s emergence pull Iraq back from a complete break- of the Pentagon’s top civilian leader- as the world’s “hyperpower.” down of public order. What better ship toward the idea of “peacekeep- Inscribed on the Army War place to turn for precedent and insight ing” — a concept associated with College’s entrance gate are the words than the PKI, whose charge is the “nation-building” and the Clinton of Elihu Root, Secretary of War in the study of “postwar complex contingen- administration — as it does with cost- McKinley administration (1897-1901) cies” — a phrase that precisely fits the cutting and organizational streamlin- and, later, a Nobel Peace Prize recipi- current situation in Iraq. ing. The PKI’s functions are report- ent: “To keep the peace is as much the The Army’s Peacekeeping Institute edly to be transferred to the Center Army’s role as fighting wars.” These would have been the ideal venue for for Army Lessons Learned at Ft. words are even more apt today. At no military and civilian administrators of Leavenworth, Kan., this coming time in our history has an understand- postwar Iraq to have assembled and October. ing of post-conflict peace operations forged an integrated recovery plan. From 1997 to 2000 I was interna- been more important to our national Instead, an alarming and embarrass- tional supervisor of the Bosnian city of security. ing spectacle of near-anarchy is Brcko, a Balkan flashpoint. Along Since 1993, the Army’s PKI has unfolding in Iraq as seemingly hap- with other civilians involved in imple- become a focal point for the study of hazard calls for more troops, new menting the Dayton Peace Accord, peace operations within the military administrators, more police, and my staff and I relied for security on because no other service branch has health workers go out to help curb the the NATO-led Stabilization Force in established such a learning center. rising lawlessness. The PKI was made Bosnia in which the U.S. Army con- The institute has also drawn national to order for the kind of advance plan- tinues to play a vital role. Without the security policy-makers, diplomats, ning, the Pentagon’s putative hall- visible presence of these armed academics, think tank and nongovern- mark, required for postwar Iraq. peacekeepers, we civilians could not mental organization representatives Apparently, it was not used. have continued to implement our together with their military counter- If the PKI is moved to a distant multi-pronged mandate to bring parts for wide-ranging discussions on place and its functions disassembled, a
JULY-AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 7 L ETTERS
valuable learning resource will have In the Iranian government, agri- Bobbitt vs. Carter been lost. The half-million dollars cultural information such as crop After reading the FSJ review of “saved” by shutting the institute down statistics barely existed, and the data Philip Bobbitt’s The Shield of Achilles: will have no meaning in a Pentagon were not kept in a systematic fash- War, Peace and the Course of History flush with funds. The wiser choice ion. So my father developed his own in the State Department Library would be for the Army to reverse its sources, such as provincial officials today, I came across Jimmy Carter’s untimely decision, keep the PKI right and professors at agricultural col- The Nobel Peace Prize Lecture where it is, strengthen its staff, and leges. He also traveled a great deal, (Simon & Schuster, 2002) in the New rekindle its contributory role in meet- consulting with officials around the Books section. Juxtaposition of the ing the challenges we face in Iraq, country and visiting fields, which he two different concepts told me a lot Afghanistan, and who knows where assessed using skills he had learned about the relative values of strategic- else in coming years. This is no time as a farmer, an agronomist with an socio-economic-political theory and to downgrade the study of peace M.S. degree, and an extension agent down-to-earth love for one’s fellow operations. in Montana. After he’d spent a cou- inhabitants of Planet Earth. Robert W. “Bill” Farrand ple of years there, Iranian officials The FSJ review praises Bobbitt’s FSO, retired sometimes came to him for such sweeping thesis: that “the essential Supervisor of Brcko data when they needed to submit ideas that govern statecraft must (1997-2000) them to the U.N. change. The change will be as pro- McLean, Virginia After returning to Washington, found as any that the State has thus he worked at USDA and was even- far undergone. … Bobbitt’s intel- More on FAS tually chief of the Middle Eastern lectual ambition is truly breathtak- I commend the Journal for the and Eastern European Division of ing.” In one section Bobbitt dis- May coverage of the fiftieth anniver- FAS. When the “Point Four” pro- cusses three possible scenarios for sary of the Foreign Agricultural gram came along, he was put in reorganizing international relations Service. I was particularly interested charge of selecting agricultural tech- to cope with “various military in the article by Allan Mustard titled nicians to go to the Middle East, and attacks ... and assorted technologi- “An Unauthorized History of FAS.” in a two-year period recruited 71 cal, economic and environmental My father, Horace Bolster, was an experts for duty in that area. In 1954 developments during the next half- FAS pioneer. While the author is he was executive secretary of an century.” (Breathtaking indeed!) probably right that the greatly agricultural trade mission, and later The review tells us that Bobbitt expanded number of agricultural he was European area officer for freely admits that none of the sce- attachés sent abroad after World War FAS. He served as manager of an narios will eliminate war, and all II mainly went to Europe and Latin American pavilion at a Fine Food have advantages and disadvantages. America, my father was posted to Fair in Munich in 1958 and pushed (... and humble!) I think I will have Tehran in 1946 as the first U.S. agri- exports of American seeds as to pass on this book because my cultural attaché to Iran, and I’m sure USDA’s seed marketing specialist modest grasp of military-political- there were other agricultural before retiring in 1963. economic theory will impede my attachés assigned to the Middle The furor over using Foreign ability to understand and appreci- East. Service generalists versus sending ate it. Mustard’s comments about out specialists is no longer as strong Now to Jimmy Carter’s Nobel strained relations between State and as it was 50 years ago, and FSOs address: “Great American power Agriculture in those early days ring have become accustomed to work- and responsibility are not unprece- true. Dad was given a small office in ing with a variety of representatives dented and have been used with the economic section and had to of Washington agencies at overseas restraint and great benefit in the wait in line for secretarial services, posts. Agricultural attachés such as past. We have not assumed that but eventually he appealed to my father proved that specialists super strength guarantees super USDA’s Office of Foreign Agri- could be recruited to serve ably as wisdom, and we have consistently cultural Relations and was given the diplomats as well. reached out to the international funds to hire a skilled Iranian assis- Archie M. Bolster community to ensure that our own tant and his own secretary. Arlington, Va. power and influence are tempered
8 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/JULY-AUGUST 2003 L ETTERS
by the best common judgment.” Conversion Frustration Secretary for Management Grant (Delivered in Oslo, Dec. 10, 2002.) The AFSA News column by Kelly Green. During those four years, I was “Constrained and inspired by his- Midura, “Now Why Would I Want to unofficially ineligible for promotion. toric constitutional principles, our Go There?” (October 2002) hit Why would IRM panels promote me nation has endeavored for more home with me. I joined the depart- when I was not competing with my than two hundred years to follow ment 15 years ago as an Information peers serving in IRM jobs? They the now almost universal ideals of Management Technical Specialist. wouldn’t. They even low-ranked me human rights, freedom, and justice After many unsuccessful years trying while I was trying to enhance my for all.” to convert from IMTS to IM career filling a hard-to-fill position Carter notes that he was asked to Specialist to avoid having to spend based on the “needs of the Service.” discuss the greatest challenge that some 80 percent of my time travel- Unfortunately, this leads me to the world faces at the beginning of ing, I took an excursion tour as a believe all specialists should steer the new millennium. He decided GSO. I chose a hard-to-fill post — clear of out-of-cone, hard-to-fill hard- that the most serious and universal Beijing — thinking it would be a ship posts and take an “every man for problem is the growing chasm good career move and expedite my himself” attitude, even though this between the richest and the poorest conversion. contravenes the spirit of teamwork in people on earth. Citizens of the 10 But it took me almost four more the Foreign Service. wealthiest countries are now 75 years to convert, and I only succeeded John Smith times richer than those who live in after filing a grievance and obtaining IM Specialist, currently the 10 poorest ones, and the dispari- support from the post admin officer, serving as a GSO ty is increasing every year, not only the ambassador and even Under Embassy Beijing ■ between nations but also within them. He believes that the results of this divergence are the root causes of most of the world’s unresolved problems, including starvation, illit- eracy, environmental degradation, violent conflict, and unnecessary ill- nesses that range from Guinea worm to HIV/AIDS. Carter’s solution? “War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn to live together in peace by killing each other’s chil- dren. The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divi- siveness of our fears and prejudices … We can choose to alleviate suf- fering. We can choose to work Pet-friendly together for peace. We can make these changes — and we must.” Seems pretty clear to me — and about as sweeping and breathtaking as anyone could ask for. Francis Xavier Cunningham FSO, retired Arlington, Va.
JULY-AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 9 CYBERNOTES
Nation Building: icy brief, “Lessons from the Past: The A Reality Check uling three-and-a-half American Record on Nation Despite claims to eschew nation million Palestinians Building,” by Minxin Pei and Sara building, the Bush administration is Rcannot go on indefinitely. Kasper, that helps give context to the now “up to its ears,” as an American You may not like the word, Iraq undertaking. America’s overall diplomat in Afghanistan put it, in just but what’s happening is success rate in democratic nation that. And the price of failure, espe- occupation. Holding 3.5 mil- building is about 26 percent, or 4 out cially in Iraq, is high. lion Palestinians is a bad thing of 15 cases, a finding that is presented History tells us that winning the usefully in the form of a table. for Israel, for the Palestinians peace is every bit as difficult, if not The report zeros in on the factors more, than winning the war. The and for the Israeli economy. experience shows to be important for occupation of postwar Germany and We have to end this subject success: “the target nation’s internal Japan took place in highly favorable without risking our security. characteristics, a convergence of the circumstances: there was strong — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel geopolitical interests of the outside domestic and international support Sharon, May 27, 2003, power and the target nation, and a for America’s role in nation building; nytimes.com commitment to economic develop- the soldiers were trained and well- ment in the target nation.” prepared for the transition to occupa- tion; and the polity of each nation was ing of ambitions to reform the norms Pulling Rank relatively homogenous and well-orga- of international order and recast the What country has the least free- nized. At the time, it was thought that U.S. role in the world.” dom? Which harbors the biggest several months would be required at The Carnegie Endowment for bribe-payers? How do nations rank most, yet each occupation lasted International Peace has also taken a for governance or environmental sus- seven years, U.S. Institute for Peace long, sober look at nation building tainability? The answers can be found Senior Fellow Ray Salvatore Jennings (www.ceip.org). The result is a pol- at a growing variety of Web sites observes in a report issued in May. “The Road Ahead: Lessons in Nation Building from Japan, Germany and Site of the Month: Great Books Online Afghanistan for Postwar Iraq” is avail- www.bartleby.com able online (www.usip.org). Now, when you take off on vacation or set out for a new, distant posting, Jennings compares the German there’s no need to fret about lugging your favorite books and reference works and Japanese occupations with the along. All you need is your laptop. There, just a click or two away, ongoing U.S. experience in Afghan- Bartleby.com, named the “Best Literary Source of 2002” by Yahoo!Internet istan. He explores the implications of Life, offers the full, printable, searchable texts of hundreds of classics, as well as the recent emphasis on updated war- poetry collections and reference works online. fighting strategies and technologies Among its interesting and useful content, the site includes the complete and the simultaneous downplaying of Gray’s Anatomy, the Oxford Shakespeare, the King James Bible, and the com- peacemaking. “In this dissonance plete 70-volume Harvard Classics and Fiction Shelf. Reference works include between an overdeveloped ability to world factbooks, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and a variety of historical docu- wage and win war and an anemic facil- ments including the inaugural addresses of past presidents and William ity for winning peace,” says Jennings, Jennings Bryan’s The World’s Famous Orations. Great for looking up quotes or “is the potential for a reversal of war references, Bartleby.com can be an invaluable resource for speech writing. gains, a subverting of the country’s — Aster Grahn, Editorial Intern long-term security goals, and a deflat-
10 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/JULY-AUGUST 2003 CYBERNOTES
devoted to country ratings and rank- ings. “Good governance,” a somewhat 50 Years Ago... amorphous buzzword, is the first of We shall not react emotionally and irresponsibly to the the Millennium Challenge Account many slings and arrows for which our Service provides criteria. The World Bank has devel- the target these days. As trained observers of the oped a comparison tool that ranks countries by governance indicators, political scene in many countries, we have learned a few lessons that including corruption control, rule of should help us in these difficult times, particularly the advantages of law, political freedom, and others. forbearance and patience in the long-pull. This does not mean that While the ranking system is based on our editorial comments will be restricted to the heat of the Washington an extensive survey and fairly compli- summer or the relative merits of specialization versus varied cated statistics, the results are dis- assignments. played simply and usefully on the World Bank Web site (http://info. — Editorial, “Your Journal,” FSJ, August l953. worldbank.org/governance/kkz/ gov2001map.asp). aside for the title of most economical- A year ago, in the July-August 2002 Foreign aid programs like the MCA ly competitive, according to the World Cybernotes, we reported on another are only part of the equation by which Economic Forum’s Competitiveness instructive ranking service, the the Center for Global Development Report (www.weforum.org/site/ Transparency International Bribe evaluates the development commit- homepublic.nsf/Content/Global+ Payers Index (www.transparency. ment of the most developed countries Competitiveness+Programme). org/index.html). The current index (www.cgdev.org). In collaboration On the Web site each country’s com- shows Australians paying the fewest with Foreign Policy magazine, CGD petitiveness scores can be viewed by bribes. American companies are still produces an annual Commitment to individual factors like infrastructure, among the top 10, though behind, Development Index ranking 21 indus- labor, or government, as well as by among others, Italians, Russians, and trialized countries on the extent to overall result. The rankings can be Malaysians. which their aid, trade, investment, viewed as a list of all countries or by — Aster Grahn migration, peacekeeping, and environ- region. A related site, also sponsored ment policies actually foster develop- by the World Economic Forum, has Vacationing in ment. It turns out the world’s biggest similar rankings for information tech- Perilous Times donors, the U.S. and Japan, are at the nology readiness (links to the IT rank- The U.S. war in Iraq set off a bottom of the heap in this regard. ings can be found at the URL above). firestorm of anti-Americanism around Political and social freedom are Environmental sustainability is the world. U.S. embassies have ratch- measured in the “Country Ratings” another buzzword that has recently eted up security precautions in published annually by Freedom come into its own. The Center for response, but what about the ordinary House, a think tank in Washington, International Earth Science Infor- American tourist? Is he or she wel- D.C. (www.freedomhouse.org/ mation Network at Columbia come or safe anywhere? What precau- ratings/index.htm). Ratings are University ranks countries by the cur- tions can American tourists take? provided from 1972 for most coun- rent status of their environment and Conde Nast’s Traveler asked its tries, making it a useful tool for deter- their capacity to manage future envi- reporters in 17 places around the mining relative stability and trends for ronmental challenges (www.ciesin. globe these questions, and their infor- a country or government. columbia.edu/indicators/ESI/ mative answers are featured in the This year the U.S. pushed Finland rank.html). June issue, most of which is posted at
JULY-AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 11 C YBERNOTES www.cntraveler.com. Though the (www.dfat.gov.au) advisories for site at gsmworld.com and can also correspondents in cities from Berlin additional views. Reading an English- be found at www.gsmcoverage. to Jakarta, including London, Cairo, language newspaper from your desti- co.uk, a popular site with an update- Istanbul, Buenos Aires, and Hong nation is also suggested; you can find notification facility. Kong, reported some generalized them in the Google Directory for To stay connected, all you need is anti-U.S. sentiment (consisting, they Newspapers. a tri-band phone and a SIM (sub- said, mostly of nasty slogans directed The report recommends hiring scriber identification module) at President Bush during demonstra- an English-speaking guide, and “smart” card to go with it. Cell tions), not a single correspondent was advises against going for a group phones operate on one of three dif- personally harassed — even in Paris. tour: safety in numbers doesn’t nec- ferent frequency bands, depending The most striking effect of the war, it essarily apply to a busload of on what part of the world you are in: seems, is actually a positive one: a sig- Westerners. The report also con- the tri-band phone, made by all the nificant drop in hotel rates. tains tips for how to get the best major manufacturers, can operate A “Safety Check” is featured in The medical care anywhere in the world, on all three bands. The SIM card, Perrin Report in the May issue of and how to negotiate the minefield which stores your account informa- Traveler, also posted at the Web site. of travel insurance effectively. tion, identifies you to the regional Consulting the State Department Communication is another dimen- network you are in. Wireless carri- travel advisories (http://travel.state. sion of safety. As the June Traveler ers in the U.S. that use GSM have gov/travel_warnings.html) is an reports, the GSM (global system for roaming agreements with foreign essential first step, but cntraveler.com mobile communications) networks networks. Or, you can purchase a recommends cross-checking with the that now include 197 countries are prepaid SIM card from between $17 British (www.fco.gov.uk), Canadian growing fast. Detailed maps are post- and $80 to access the local network (www.voyage.gc.ca) and Australian ed at the GSM Association Web in the country you’re visiting. ■
12 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/JULY-AUGUST 2003 SPEAKING OUT Strengthen Diplomacy for the War on Terror
BY SEN. RICHARD G. LUGAR
ooking back to the time just win the war on terrorism, we must after the Soviet Union broke It’s time to stop assign our diplomatic assets the same Lup, most observers now realize nickel-and-diming strategic importance we give our mil- that it was naive to think that the U.S. itary assets. I use the phrase “win the government could open diplomatic our diplomatic war on terrorism” deliberately. Few missions in 15 newly-created coun- doubted that our troops could defeat tries without a budget increase. But it corps, because this the Iraqi army, and they did so con- was surely folly to try to manage that spending is vincingly. That was an important bat- expansion, plus all the turmoil in the tlefield conquest, but it is only a mid- rest of the world in that decade, while cost-effective in dle chapter in the story. We are cutting State Department budgets. the war on terror. already faced there with important Despite protests from some of us, questions about whether we can limit that’s exactly what Congress and the anti-American reactions in Iraq and in administration advocated in the mid- the region. Can we enlist help from 1990s, when spending on internation- our friends and allies in reconstruct- al affairs in real terms was cut year portion of its efforts during 2003 to ing Iraq? Can we work with the after year. this goal. United Nations and with NATO to Tragically, it took the 1998 In April, during consideration of quickly bring security and stability embassy bombings in Kenya and the FY 2004 budget resolution, I there, and then success in political Tanzania to reverse this short-sighted worked with other senators to restore reorganization? Can we deal with the trend, but the damage was done. a $1.15 billion cut by the Senate other sources of tension in the Middle Hiring had stopped, generalists and Budget Committee in the president’s East? specialists headed for the exits, and a request for the 150 Account, which We can only claim a complete vic- personnel gap opened that will persist funds the State Department and tory in Iraq if we can achieve those for years. As the Bush administration international affairs programs. I goals, and that success can’t be came into office in 2001, “the dilapi- offered an amendment on the Senate achieved solely with military forces dated state of America’s foreign policy floor to fully fund President Bush’s and smart weapons, no matter how apparatus [was] a national security cri- international affairs budget. superbly trained and designed. sis,” according to a Council on In this era of deficits, plenty of Victory requires a robust and engaged Foreign Relations study at the time. other budget accounts were cut, and foreign policy, one that is creative and To his credit, Secretary of State their supporters were likewise trying capable of leveraging America’s eco- Colin Powell was moving to repair to restore funding. My amendment nomic and political strength. that apparatus even before the Sept. was among the few that succeeded. Similarly, winning the larger war 11, 2001, attacks. But now that we are The Senate put back the $1.15 billion, on global terrorism will require more on a war footing against terrorism, it is and the full Congress approved that than military force. We will need to more urgent than ever to beef up our budget, a show of confidence in continue rallying all countries against diplomatic capabilities just as we are Secretary Powell and a sign that al-Qaida, gaining cooperation from beefing up our military and our Congress is paying more attention to local law enforcement agencies on homeland defense forces. The Senate foreign policy. every continent to hunt down and Foreign Relations Committee, which We can no longer afford to con- arrest terrorist cells wherever they I chair, has dedicated a significant duct diplomacy on a shoestring. To are. We must help Islamic countries
JULY-AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 13 S PEAKING O UT
lift themselves out of the poverty that received from our G-8 partners. spending on security during the past breeds the foot soldiers of extremism. Third, we need to expand trade by four years, the GAO says that more We must work with friends to find eliminating political and economic than 200 posts still don’t meet all the ways to rehabilitate the failed states restrictions and pushing ahead with basic security criteria, and at current that harbor terrorists. Most funda- trade agreements. Free trade is nec- rates it will take more than 20 years to mentally, we need to change the polit- essary to create the international finish the planned replacement pro- ical and economic environment so transparency and economic growth gram. We should cut that time in half. that al-Qaida’s message no longer that will dampen terrorist recruitment Our diplomats are truly on the front strikes a favorable chord in the and political resentment. lines of the war on terrorism and we Muslim world. All this will require a Fourth, we must repair our frayed must give them the necessary protec- sustained diplomatic commitment alliances and establish new ones. We tion. over many years. simply cannot win the terrorism war • $8 million to increase the caps alone, any more than we can win the on hardship and danger pay for State Five Campaigns drug war, or the war against AIDS Department employees. This will To achieve victory in the war on and other deadly diseases. enable the department to boost the terrorism, we must dedicate ourselves The final campaign involves danger pay differential at 10 posts to five foreign policy campaigns. The addressing underdevelopment along from 25 percent to 35 percent, and to first campaign is boosting investments a broad front, with special attention to raise the hardship differential at 21 in our diplomats and in their security, building democracy, assuring security posts from 25 percent to 30-35 per- increasing our foreign assistance and and diversity of energy supplies, and cent. Staffing shortfalls are occurring strengthening our diplomatic capabil- protecting the environment. These at many of our most important mis- ities. It’s time to stop nickel-and-dim- are all necessary to help reverse anti- sions — some 60 percent of State’s ing our diplomatic corps, because this American attitudes and stop the cre- overseas workforce is in hardship spending is cost-effective in the war ation of new terrorist cells. posts, where the vacancy rate aver- on terror. If we can prevent the ages 12.6 percent, versus “only” 8.4 bombing of an embassy, secure more Ensuring Adequate Funding percent at non-hardship posts. allied assistance for expensive peace- The responsibility for waging these Report after report has shown that keeping operations, or keep more ter- campaigns falls heavily on the State despite the dedication of our envoys rorists from reaching our shores, the Department. Yet diplomatic funding overseas, staffing problems are com- extra funding will have paid for itself receives only about seven cents for promising diplomatic readiness and many times over. every defense dollar in the U.S. bud- our ability to meet foreign policy The second campaign is to expand get. Annual foreign policy funding objectives. and perfect our non-proliferation remains, in real terms, 32 percent Moreover, to bolster the non-mili- activities. I believe that we can build below its peak in 1985. tary side of the war on terrorism, we on the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative In May, the Senate Foreign added $30 million to the president’s Threat Reduction program, which is Relations Committee unanimously request for outreach to the Islamic dedicated to safeguarding and elimi- passed a State Department author- world, including public diplomacy nating nuclear, biological, and chemi- ization bill and reported it to the entire efforts such as Arab-language TV and cal weapons in the former Soviet Senate. The committee increased Fulbright exchanges. In all, we added Union. The program, which is essen- funding for the State Department approximately $400 million, or about tial for keeping these weapons out of above the amount requested by the 4 percent, to the administration's terrorist hands, currently is limited to Bush administration. This increase original budget request. Russia and the former Soviet states. included two important additions That’s still not enough, in my view, We must apply its successful methods that directly affect diplomats on and we have to help it survive the leg- to additional countries, eliminate the the job: islative meat-grinder. But it’s a start, red tape that hampers emergency • $312 million for embassy con- one I want to build on. The Foreign non-proliferation missions, and struction, which will enable the Relations Committee will continue encourage fulfillment of the $10 bil- department to break ground on an with hearings to review a host of State lion in pledges toward weapons dis- additional three embassy compounds Department programs that have suf- mantlement programs that we have next year. Despite the stepped-up fered from congressional neglect in
14 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/JULY-AUGUST 2003 S PEAKING O UT
recent years. Some are left over from accession treaty and three tax another era and may need to be treaties, and approved President scrapped or radically redesigned. Still Victory in Iraq requires Bush’s landmark Global AIDS others may need to be expanded or Initiative. refocused as State assumes additional a robust foreign policy, This is an important time in our responsibilities. New approaches to history, perhaps as pivotal as the eliminating and controlling weapons one that is capable beginning of the Cold War. The of mass destruction must be high on same CFR report I cited earlier the list. A comprehensive and cre- of leveraging noted that, “American foreign policy ative strategy for public diplomacy in prevailed in the Cold War in large the Islamic world, and efforts to America’s strength. part because of the Department of strengthen international civil police State.” In the new war on terrorism, capacity, are two other areas that too, we can only prevail by skillful require more emphasis. use of our diplomatic clout, public On other fronts, the Foreign giving Congress a greater stake in diplomacy, and foreign assistance, Relations Committee in May passed their success. During the first directed by a reinvigorated and a foreign assistance authorization bill months of 2003, we also achieved a replenished State Department. ■ for the first time in many years. This number of bipartisan successes as will further strengthen our diplomat- the Senate, based on work done by Sen. Richard G. Lugar, R-Ind., is the ic capabilities, by raising the profile the committee, ratified the Moscow Chairman of the Senate Foreign of foreign assistance programs and Treaty, the NATO membership Relations Committee.
JULY-AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 15 F OCUS
INDIGO AND PEPPER SOUP
just love pepper soup!” Exactly the kind of client we want for the boutique, Ellen did relish the innocuous- thought Ellen. Patti would love to dress her. looking soup with its light cargo of “You can really take a whole bowl of it?” the reporter meat bits and onions and other veg- was saying. “ gies bobbing about in a broth for Ellen nodded. “I love the tingle. It’s just like Nigeria. which “tangy” was a hazardous Such a vibrant place. So alive it almost hurts.” understatement. Nigerians and “That’s terrific! Quotes make the story, you know.” other guests at embassy parties Ellen watched the reporter scribbling on a little pad laughed hysterically at her ice-breaking mime of the new- with coils at the top. A wristful of bracelets jangled when comerI meeting her first spoonful. she crossed a T or looped an L. Her She’d saucer her eyes and wave off scrawl was so extroverted she had to the imaginary flames: Whoo-ee! It’s keep flipping pages, and with every explosive! It’s corrosive! It’s flip the bracelets jangled some napalm wall-to-wall! And forget more. about the water! Nothing helps! Ellen wanted to relax. She liked Remembering her last perfor- the reporter, liked her looks and her mance, Ellen smiled, but she noisy bangles, liked her spontaneity, decided not to inflict the routine on liked the way she paused to get the reporter who was interviewing quotes right. But Jim’s shadow kept her. This very self-assured young her on guard. Although the ambas- woman might be in a prickly post- sador had raised no objections to colonial phase. She might take the interview, her husband had humor for ridicule. Keep it simple, taken issue, strongly. Ellen told herself. Whatever the Even that morning at breakfast reporter asks, make sure all roads Jim had still been hammering away, lead to the boutique. Give Patti rehashing all the reasons for avoid- lots of credit. Not every Lagos Janet Cleland ing reporters like the plague. widow who takes in sewing devel- “Better safe than sorry,” he’d ops into a top tailor and goes on to AN ENTERPRISING concluded. “I speak from experi- become a designer and entrepre- FS WIFE CHALLENGES ence, as you well know.” neur. THE PRESUMPTION Ellen nodded. She couldn’t “It isn’t too hot for you?” asked OF HARDSHIP IN LAGOS count the times Jim had gone red the reporter, whose stretch jeans in the face and thrown down a sec- AND HER HUSBAND S clung no more than the black and ’ tion of the paper in disgust. amber tie-dye wrapped around CYNICISM. “They’ve fouled it up again,” her torso. Rings of copper thread- he’d mutter through his teeth. ed with flame-red coral ran BY PATRICIA L. SHARPE “Why do I bother?” through the reporter’s ears. “Because you’re the economic
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counselor,” she would say. “Explaining’s your job.” She was busy now, and happy. She had no intention of “It’s not my job to look like a fool,” he would retort. staying home all day. Again and again Ellen had soothed him with the obvi- ous. The Nigerian press was notorious for getting things wrong. Any reader who mattered would chuckle and dis- llen felt her eyes tracking the motion of the miss the offending garble. Et cetera. Ereporter’s ballpoint. Men are raised to be self-cen- Jim refused to be comforted. He could not or would tered, she thought. Jim was falling into a Marianas not roll with the punches. After a year in Nigeria, his Trench of self-pity. Otherwise he’d give her credit for blood pressure was planing at dangerous levels. thriving at a post most Foreign Service families shunned He had become insufferable to live with, too. or, if they had to, endured. Hating Nigeria, despising Patience had never been Jim’s strong point. Now he was Nigerians, these reluctant recruits maintained calendars so stressed from work he couldn’t relax anywhere. He on which they crossed off the days that brought them was also complaining of neglect. Calling home to clarify closer to pack-out time. plans for an evening engagement, he’d find she wasn’t Ellen was flourishing in Lagos. She didn’t doubt the there. The maid would take his message. He didn’t like megacity had its share of violent crime, but her gamble it. on the decency of ordinary people had paid off, a point Ellen admitted her days were monopolized by the she made at embassy functions. For Jim’s sake, she was million things still to be done if she and Patti were going diplomatic, of course, and she couldn’t really fault the to open their high-fashion venture on schedule. The women whose cautious nature turned fearful under a legal complications of setting up a partnership between a barrage of negative reports. The boutique, she hoped, diplomat’s wife and a Nigerian national had almost would be a window on a world into which they might doomed the enterprise. Finding a good but affordable eventually tiptoe. location had been harder than they expected. They This interview with a reporter from the leading Lagos racked their brains for a name that would entice chic daily promised city-wide, free publicity for the boutique’s young women as well as monied matriarchs. Now they opening, and Ellen had set the scene carefully. Motioned were on the brink of realizing their vision. Ellen loved to a chair covered in crazy-quilt akwete cloth, the Patti’s new take on traditional textiles. Patti was fascinat- reporter faced a wall on which Ellen had stretched a ed by Ellen’s uninhibited trade bead jewelry. length of Calibari plaid to evoke its resemblance to op- The jewelry-making idea had popped into Ellen’s art. Ellen poured coffee from a brown glazed pot she head as a way to fill long, empty days. With servants to had bought from a potter in Oshogbo. Most important, cook, wash, clean and shop for her, she’d been function- she wore one of Patti’s creations, a body-loving sheath less once she had livened up their government-provided, with a slit sneaking up between two of the tightly woven government-furnished house with Nigerian artifacts. aso-oke strips normally intended for a Yoruba woman’s imposing traditional wrapper. A torrent of old glass Patricia Sharpe was an FSO with USIA from 1978 beads, her own creation, swirled about her neck and cas- until the agency’s consolidation with State in 1999. She caded into cleavage. served as public affairs officer, branch public affairs Deferring the moment of truth, Ellen had asked the officer, information officer or cultural affairs officer in maid to answer the door and conduct the reporter to the Medan, Colombo, Dar Es Salaam, Lagos, Freetown, living room. Shaking hands, Ellen had felt a nudge of Santo Domingo, Karachi and Calcutta. She retired panic. What if she froze like a hopeless dummy? She from the State Department in 2001. Before joining and Patti had brainstormed the fashion points she need- USIA she was (among other things) an assistant pro- ed to inject, and Ellen had gone to sleep full of confi- fessor of English at Pennsylvania State University, dence, but breakfast with Jim had drained it all away. from which she holds a Ph.D. in American literature. They had eaten on the terrace, by the pool, as usual. She was a Fulbright Professor of American Literature Red plantain and common banana trees swept the silvery at Punjab University in Lahore, Pakistan, and an sky of early morning. Hibiscus, lantana and bougainvillea American Institute of Indian Studies Hindi grantee at sprawled over walls so high she often forgot there were Delhi University in New Delhi, India. neighbors within hearing distance. Copycat splotches of
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red and violet patterned the tablecloth and napkins Ellen the table and gave her the usual peck on the cheek. had fashioned from some batik she’d bargained away “I’m off. Please, for my sake, be careful.” from her favorite market lady. “You should have declined,” Jim had said. “You can still postpone. Why must you insist?” ow the dreaded interview was under way. As the The angry clink of cup on saucer startled a crow hov- Nreporter’s head bent toward her notebook, Ellen ering about with the clear intention of sharing their could see her scalp glistening between the tight corn- breakfast. rows. The day was warming up. Soon the servants would “You know why. The boutique. But it’s good for you, close the windows and turn on the air conditioning. The too.” reporter stabbed in a period to end the pepper soup “The minister’s going to make concessions on oil quote. She flipped to a new page. The bracelets danced because you jolly the social reporter?” on her wrist. “Can’t hurt, if the economic counselor’s wife shows “Now tell me — what do you think of Nigerian she really likes Nigeria.” women?” Jim spooned imported jam onto his toast. Ellen gave herself a moment to consider how to nego- “Trust me,” continued Ellen. “I’ve listened to you. I tiate the line between “flaming feminism” and inanity. know the angles. Why market economies are more pro- “Yes?” said the reporter, smiling impishly, tapping her ductive. Why free trade is good for all of us. Why the pen on the pad. IMF demands conditionalities. ” “Impressive,” said Ellen. “Look at you. I read your “Not bad.” series on the garbage-dumping scam. The feature on “I can do even better. I can defend American fast food exploited orphans was great, too.” and music videos and—” “Thanks, but I can’t write about me.” “Damned crow!” “Say that I’m bursting with admiration for the women The crow had zoomed in like a hotshot pilot on a straf- who are getting into law and medicine and education — ing mission. Retreating to a branch of a mango tree over- and journalism, too. I really admire the women traders I hanging the pool, it dropped crumbs among the leaves know. And I think the women in the countryside are pos- that had fallen into the water overnight. itively heroic. Use that word. Heroic. African women “That’ll teach you to peck at me!” laughed Ellen, have always done the farming, with so little respect.” reminding herself to have the gardener trim the tree. “My grandmother worked like a donkey. She vowed “Don’t worry. This is a style story, a human interest her daughters would be literate. Her eldest, my mother, story.” told me to aim for the stars. So here I am.” “Correction. It’s a back-door story. A way to attack the “Your grandmother must be proud,” said Ellen. mission through you. Why else would they profile a “Not yet. She says I should be an editor.” diplomat’s wife?” “Do it!” said Ellen. “Here’s my favorite story about “Because she leads an unusual life. Women, at least, the caliber of Nigerian women. It happened in Ibadan want to know how she deals with making a life in the face during the colonial period. The British decided to of constant uprooting and different customs.” Ellen’s impose a new tax. When the market women marched in spine left its place of ease against the chair back. “I have protest, the authorities backed down.” a story, too, you know. Or maybe I’m not interesting?” “That’s true,” nodded the reporter. “Of course you are. I married you. And you’ve had a “But,” pursued Ellen, “if market women were so pow- good life, haven’t you? Servants. Breakfast by the pool. erful then, why don’t women play a really strong role in Safaris in Kenya. Skiing in Switzerland. Shopping in modern society? How did it slip away?” Hong Kong. What more could you want?” “It didn’t fade in the traditional sector,” said the “What does a bird in a gilded cage want?” reporter. “But the Brits pushed the Western model. “Oh, Christ! Not the flaming feminist act.” Men got the education and opportunities. Now they “Is that really what you think?” make the blockbuster deals with other men, like your “What I think doesn’t seem to matter.” husband—” Jim pulled his napkin through its ring. He came around “We’re getting into tricky territory,” Ellen warned.
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“Don’t worry. This isn’t an exposé.” lor with a bundle of the lacier aso-oke strips for Patti to “Thank you,” said Ellen. “But don’t be afraid to give tailor into a cocktail gown. Patti had never undertaken the story some pizzazz, some excitement.” such an assignment, but she was delighted to dress a for- The reporter rested her pen. “I clawed myself out of eigner in the traditional textiles young Lagosians were the soft reporting ghetto. I’ll never return to writing fluff snubbing. The two of them had worked together to and flattery. I didn’t ask for this assignment. But the devise a sleek and elegant design totally at odds with the usual reporter was sick, so I agreed, reluctantly, to sub for fussy, girth-exaggerating outfits Nigerian women of her. I guess I misjudged you.” Ellen’s age tended to favor for dress-up occasions. “Happens all the time to us housewives,” Ellen teased. Suddenly, during the final fitting of that fateful cock- “Dull by definition.” tail dress, Patti was spitting pins into her palm. She made “How did you find out about the market women? Ellen spin around several times. Most foreigners aren’t aware of the Ibadan incident.” “What’s wrong?” Ellen had been puzzled. “A very esoteric process called reading,” said Ellen. “I “Not a blessed thing,” Patti had told her. “I’ve just found love history. And literature, too. Wole Soyinka is so the solution. Don’t fight the modern world. Use it!” impressive, and Things Fall Apart, I think, is universal. “I don’t understand.” Ellen was peeling the tight dress Oh, yes — don’t forget Ken Saro Wiwo. His style’s off her sweaty body. unique and he cares so much.” “Traditional textiles. Radical style.” Patti’s face was The reporter’s wrists were jangling. full of wonder and delight. “It came like a revelation. I “I get around as much as I can, too,” said Ellen. “The almost swallowed a pin!” collection of portrait bronzes in Ibadan was a real eye- The reporter’s bracelets were jangling. The pages opener. A thousand years old and full of personality! were flipping. Finally the pen jabbed in a period. The Visiting the dye pits in Kano, I shot a whole roll of film reporter looked up for more. recording every step of the indigo-making process. Patti’s Ellen held out a card. “Patti hit on the name as well having some prints blown up to wall-size for the bou- as the concept that very day, although it took us months tique. What do you think?” to circle back to it. Look.” “Perfect!” murmured the reporter, filling a few more The reporter took the card and read: “Revelations: pages, then looking up. “About the boutique now, tell me Ready-to-wear for smart women. Rooted in tradition. more. Make me a customer.” Ripe for the future.” At last, thought Ellen, it’s time for the spiel: how fitting “I wish you luck,” said the reporter. “Plenty of people sessions with Patti, her fabulous dressmaker, had turned have tried and failed.” into a partnership; how their boutique would open with a “You and my husband! He’s full of cautionary tales. splash in a couple of weeks; how they already had export He thinks I should be content with my exotic life. But nibbles that Ellen would be handling. don’t print that, please!” “The idea was incubating even before I met Patti,” “Men!” snorted the reporter. “Last year I was so said Ellen. “Every time I passed through the airport, I happy. I was going to marry my boyfriend. Then he saw women returning from the U.K. with humongous dropped the bombshell. His wife would not be per- suitcases crammed with clothes. I was amazed. Nigerian mitted to work at night. I explained that reporters fabrics are so special. Take indigo. I’m haunted by indi- often work at night. They travel, too. Alone. He go. It’s the blue of the ocean when you’re hovering off a didn’t like that either. Result: I’m still single. But I reef and gazing into depths you’ll never get down to. And love my work.” the adire patterns remind me of the night sky — the deep “I have kids,” said Ellen. “But they’re grown-up. I dark infinity of it, and, sparkling through the darkness, needed something real to do.” stars to give you heart.” “What if your enterprise does fail?” asked the reporter. “Novelty has something to do with it. You like our “Patti returns to her VIP tailoring business. I move on stuff. We like yours.” to other things. I’ll have sacrificed some of what I inher- “That’s exactly what Patti and I are dealing with.” ited from my father, but the experience won’t be wasted. Ellen described how she and Patti had clicked from Here in Lagos, I’ve discovered strength, even courage. the moment she’d appeared in Patti’s workroom cum par- I’ll always be grateful.”
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The reporter put down her pen. “Thank you so much ting on her nerves, too. for liking my crazy, mixed-up country.” Finally the maid approached with the paper, which “Just doing what comes naturally,” smiled Ellen. she laid on the table. She had hardly turned her back “Have another cup of coffee. Tell me more about your when both Ellen and Jim lunged for the Style section. life. Tell me about your mother and grandmother.” Ellen restrained herself. “Photos first,” said the reporter. As Jim’s eyes devoured words, Ellen studied the page Ellen arranged herself on the sofa beneath the upside down. She loved the headline: “New Boutique to Calibari. She felt perfectly calm. Be a Revelation.” And the color photo capping four columns was all she could have hoped for. The Calibari made a dramatic backdrop; Patti’s dress was definitely he interview was to run in the Sunday edition. For the chic; she herself looked better than not bad. Trest of the week Jim labored under a cloud of fore- But Jim’s reading was taking so long Ellen could hard- boding that seemed ludicrous to Ellen, who insisted that ly stand it. She poured coffee, checked her fingernails, the reporter could be trusted. Jim retorted that Ellen’s noted that the mango tree had been clipped back, tapped personal charm had not been lavished on the editor. a bare foot soundlessly on flagstone. Sometimes the Sunday paper arrived before dawn; Eventually Jim looked up, perplexed. sometimes it was delayed. As luck would have it, there “There’s nothing here,” he said. was no paper on the doorstep when Ellen went to “Nothing?” retrieve it. There was still no paper when the maid “Nothing bad. Nothing about the mission.” called them to breakfast. Jim was on edge. He was dri- “Well,” said Ellen, as mildly as she could, “that’s all ving Ellen crazy. The usual racket of the crows was get- that matters, isn’t it?” ■
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DEATH OF A PUBLIC SERVANT
he awkward position of the halls, the building seemed oddly silent to me. I body lying on the floor. A knife slouched back in a leather armchair with my eyes protruding from his back. closed, badly wanting to sleep. Jay, on the other hand, Curiously little blood. I froze was turning ghoulish. in the doorway, a strangled cry “The body was still warm, so the police think Fleet stuck in my throat. was murdered just a few minutes before you found “Liza, did you find that ass- him. You and the killer must have been this close.” Jay hole Fleet yet?” The annoyed held his hand up, thumb and forefinger pinched voice calling loudly from the other end of the hallway together. Twas apparently past caring whether “Don’t be such an ass; I’ve the members of the General already told you I didn’t see any- Council would hear. one,” I snapped. “I walked up “Over this way,” I said. Then and down the hallway opening up realizing he hadn’t heard me, I doors looking for Fleet. The cor- cleared my throat and repeated ridor was empty. No one even more loudly, “Jay, come here now! went by me. Everyone was Something awful has happened!” already in the main hall waiting Worse than awful. The World for the meeting to start.” Trade Organization’s first meeting “If no one else was there, you of the season was opening in 10 must be the police’s main sus- minutes with a keynote speech from pect.” the U.S. under secretary for eco- I opened my mouth to nomic affairs — and the head of his protest, but Jay was already talk- advance team was lying dead at my ing again. “You’d be the perfect feet. murderer. You’re methodical, calm under pressure, and you ix hours later, I remained Janet Cleland hold a grudge.” Sensconced in a small side office I didn’t like Jay’s description, at World Trade Organization head- ERIC FLEET WAS A but he wasn’t far off the mark. quarters in Geneva with the other VERY ANNOYING MAN. “But I didn’t have a motive,” two members of the U.S. delega- BUT WHO DISLIKED I said, draining the last of the tion. The police had come and HIM ENOUGH TO coffee out of my mug. It was gone, the under secretary and his cold. KILL HIM? entourage had been whisked back There was a brief pause. “I to the hotel, and most of the other did,” said Ellen. delegations had left for the night. Both Jay and I looked over at Without the bureaucratic hum BY NANCY NELSON our soft-spoken office assistant that normally filled the WTO’s in surprise.
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When the General Council Chairman started screaming at Fleet, the rest of the advance team just snickered.
“Eric Fleet was a jerk, I don’t care who hears me say our name, Mademoiselle?” The young gendarme, it. He refused to get his own coffee even if he was sit- “Ypoised with a clipboard and pen, startled me. ting right by the coffee maker and I had to cross the When I had spotted a small crowd of people — some room to pour it. And he claimed he didn’t know how to with cameras — milling around the WTO’s front make the photocopy machine work. Fleet enjoyed mak- entrance that morning, I detoured to a door at the back. ing other people do menial labor for him.” The Swiss policeman was standing just inside. I digested this in silence. That wasn’t a motive to kill I stated my name, showing him my ID badge at the someone, not really. same time. “He was irritating,” agreed Jay amiably, reaching “Liza Heywood,” he said as he ran his eyes down a list behind an impressively thick tome in the bookcase for of names. After making a check mark with his pen he the bottle of Scotch we kept there. He poured a shot of said, “Captain Lauer would like to speak with you in the amber liquid into a glass and continued, “It’s amaz- Conference Room 3.” ing he managed to piss off so many people in just the I had already met Captain Lauer the day before; five days he’s been here. Yesterday the WTO director- despite the stressful circumstances, he had managed to general became furious when he found Fleet changing put me at ease. Within minutes he had me telling him the podium arrangement to give the under secretary a everything I knew about Eric Fleet — not that I could more flattering camera angle.” tell the police anything of interest. Now he stood up to That wasn’t a reason to murder someone, either. greet me as I came in. “And wasn’t your committee chairman upset about “Bonjour, Mademoiselle Heywood. I hope you are something Fleet was doing?” he asked me. I held up rested today.” my empty mug and Jay poured in some whiskey. “I am feeling much better,” I said sitting down at the “Dr. Tordorov has been beside himself with worry small table he indicated. He sat across from me and lit about this meeting,” I said, sticking my nose into the a cigarette. The smoke from his Gauloise curled gently mug and breathing in deeply the alcohol’s fumes. “He’s in the air between us. been working hard for months now to conclude an “You have more questions for me?” I said. Judging agreement on turtle excluder devices. Even though from the ashtray already overflowing with butts, the cap- the agreement’s not yet finalized, Fleet was planning to tain had spent the entire night at the WTO. have the under secretary announce it as a deliverable. “Not more questions, just the same ones as yesterday. That would have been a setback for Tordorov’s negoti- I am sorry to have to bother you again, but would you ations.” please repeat the circumstances, as you remember “Even his own people didn’t like him,” volunteered them, surrounding your discovery of Monsieur Fleet’s Ellen. “When the General Council Chairman started body.” screaming at Fleet when he found him switching So I did. I don’t think he learned anything new from around name cards at the head table just before the me. When I finished talking, Captain Lauer was silent official dinner started, the rest of the advance team just for a moment. He said, “No one went past you in the snickered.” hallway?” We laughed. Somehow it made us all feel better. “No.” The ash on his cigarette was getting long. He tapped Nancy Nelson, an economic cone officer, joined the it into the ashtray, then returned the Gauloise to his Foreign Service in 1989. She has served in Caracas, mouth. He didn’t say anything. Managua, Tallinn and Washington, D.C., and recently “I’m the main suspect,” I said challengingly. Captain began a two-year tour on the Canada desk. Lauer didn’t rise to the bait.
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The murderer had to be experienced — the stabbing caused almost instantaneous death, and the wound hardly bled.
“It is not necessary to alarm yourself unduly, “I’m the main suspect.” I meant to be flip, but only Mademoiselle,” he said. “We are merely investigating all succeeded in sounding tense. possibilities. Although you had the opportunity, you do “Surely they can’t think such a thing, Liza. No one not appear to have a motive.” He cocked his eyebrows who knows you would even suggest it.” Tordorov gave as if in query. me a reassuring smile, then swiveled his chair around “Eric Fleet was a very annoying man…” I began. and peered into a glass terrarium sitting on a small side For the first time I saw the officer crack a smile. “I table. Two small turtles basked in a sunbeam. have already come to that conclusion, Mademoiselle. “Eric Fleet was murdered just a few minutes before I Monsieur Fleet appears to have displeased many people found him, and I was the only one in the hallway during during his short stay.” that time. I told them that no one went in or out any of the doors. The police have come to a very logical con- clusion.” aptain Lauer’s statement was still ringing in my ears “The police are tyrants,” he said with an unexpected Can hour later as I sat in a meeting of the CTE — intensity. He stared broodingly at his turtles. “In my Committee on Trade and Environment. The other 15 or native Bulgaria, I was imprisoned when I protested the so members were discussing sea turtles — where they poor working conditions at my hospital. I had been a swim, who catches them, and whether the U.S. was jus- successful doctor there for seven years but after my tified in banning shrimp imports from foreign fleets release, I was no longer allowed to practice my profes- whose nets weren’t equipped with turtle excluder sion. I wasted decades of my life repairing tractors on a devices, or TEDs. The issue was important for the U.S. collective farm.” — several countries had filed lawsuits against us over it “But you are here now.” I felt embarrassed to have — but I had a hard time following the debate. My inter- raked up painful memories. views with the police kept running through my head. “Yes, I am here now,” he said with a half-smile, look- I sought out the committee chairman, Dr. Stefan ing up. “Friendly people came to power in my country Tordorov, to apologize after the meeting was over, and and gave me the opportunity to work as a professional found him back in his office. Gray-haired and dark-suit- once again. Of course I have been too long away from ed, he was busily putting away his papers from the meet- medicine to serve any more as a doctor, but I still may ing. The wall behind his desk was lined from floor to accomplish some small good in my role as a bureaucrat.” ceiling with books; on the facing wall were hung an over- lapping assortment of turtle excluder devices — circular metal frames measuring about three feet across covered ay was being ghoulish again. I pushed aside my plate with webbing. Jas he expounded on the details of the murder. I cleared my throat apologetically. “I couldn’t con- “The weapon was a steak knife from the cafeteria. At centrate today; I’m sorry. This murder and all the first the police planned to talk with everyone who ate policemen make it hard to work.” here yesterday, but then I explained it was common to Although Dr. Tordorov took pains to speak distinctly, take trays back to our offices and forget to return them I had to listen carefully to understand his Eastern for days. You can find kitchen utensils in practically European accent. every office in the WTO.” Jay paused in the middle of “Yes, the authorities have also questioned me. They cutting his meat and held up his knife, gravy dripping are talking to everyone. But since you were the one to down, as if to examine it for clues. The noise level rose discover Mr. Fleet’s body, I suppose you are being asked briefly as a small group at a nearby table finished their even more questions.” meal and got up to leave. A cafeteria worker quickly
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moved to clear off the dirty dishes. “I’m sorry,” apologized Jay, immediately contrite. “I “Captain Lauer made a mistake by letting the under didn’t know you were friends with Eric Fleet.” secretary’s delegation fly back to the States,” I said. Tordorov snorted. “We were not friends. Mr. Fleet “They were the ones who worked with Fleet. If we was a horrible man and I regret the murderer didn’t kill detested him after knowing him for just a few days, they him earlier. When we are at the dinner table, however, must have been desperate.” we should think of our digestions.” Jay and I fell silent “He checked — they all had alibis. The security peo- as he began to eat. ple were in the front lobby with the local guards. The rest of the staff was busy catering to the under secretary’s every whim. Everyone was in full public view at the time aptain Lauer wasn’t nearly so patient the third time Fleet was murdered.” Caround. He kept me for almost an hour in his “Except for me.” makeshift office going over my previous testimony as he “And me,” Jay grinned, as he speared another piece of chain-smoked. “You were there when it happened; you meat. “But neither of us has a motive. And we don’t must have noticed something!” he accused me. “Are you have the expertise either. Captain Lauer said the mur- going to tell me about it or not?” derer had to be experienced — he had to know where to When I was finally allowed to leave, I sank down on a put the knife. The stabbing caused almost instantaneous bench just outside the door. I was in a bind. If the Swiss death, and the wound hardly bled.” police were focusing back on me, it meant they were in “Talking about such distressing events is not appro- the dark about the murderer’s identity. I watched as the priate at a meal,” said Dr. Tordorov as he came up committee chairman was escorted into Lauer’s office by behind us and placed his tray down on the table. a police officer. Poor Dr. Tordorov — to have had such
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Within minutes Captain Lauer had me telling him everything I knew about Eric Fleet — not that I could tell the police anything of interest.
a bad experience with police authorities in his own coun- Yet as I headed back to my office, something kept nig- try, only to have to face them once again in Geneva. I gling at the back of my mind — something that didn’t could hear the policeman’s voice as he began his ques- quite fit. I slowed my pace, then stopped for a moment tioning anew. in the middle of the hallway to try and catch the thought. “Although we never met, I understand Mr. Fleet was Nothing. I turned around and walked back to Captain a very difficult personality,” Tordorov’s calm, measured Lauer’s office. Poking my head in the doorway, I tones now came from inside Lauer’s office. “But I will go coughed slightly at the cigarette smoke. The captain over again what happened if you think that will help.” looked up from his table. The captain’s reply was inaudible. I got up and slowly “Dr. Tordorov?” walked down the corridor. I had another committee Captain Lauer’s eyes narrowed at the interruption. “I meeting that afternoon and was behind in my paperwork. finished questioning him, Mademoiselle. He is free to go People make fun of bureaucrats, but the truth is we work wherever he wishes — just as you are.” hard and accomplish a lot. When Tordorov had Most likely he’d be in his office. Not bothering to say expressed his hope to do some good in his role, he had anything more, I went back into the hall and up two put into words what many of us feel deep down. flights. Dr. Tordorov’s office was halfway down the cor-
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He looked over at me curiously, as if I had suddenly become some sort of interesting specimen to be examined under a microscope.
ridor to the right. I found him standing at his terrarium examined under a microscope. I pressed on. feeding his turtles. “I can imagine Eric Fleet didn’t welcome your request; “Liza, do you need something for this afternoon’s com- he was probably very rude. It’s easy to see how it could mittee meeting?” have happened. Fleet was behaving obnoxiously; you, Dr. “You were just in with Captain Lauer talking about Tordorov, were desperate. And someone had convenient- Eric Fleet again.” I was breathing hard from my hike up ly left a cafeteria tray with the dirty dishes near by. Since the stairs. you were trained as a physician, it must have been easy to “It is quite unpleasant, but it appears we must all do stab Fleet so that he made no cry and bled so little.” so.” Tordorov opened a small pillbox and brought some- “You misjudge me, Liza; it wasn’t easy.” His voice was thing out — dead flies. bleak. “It was very uncivilized, but it was necessary to pro- Suddenly I realized what didn’t fit. “You told Captain tect my work. After the many years I lost in my own coun- Lauer you never met Fleet. But you did — you told both try, I had this one opportunity for professional respect. Jay and me that he was a horrible man. How would you But in order to get more glory for his own boss, Mr. Fleet know that if you had never met him?” was going to destroy it all. That, of course, I could not Tordorov became still for a moment, then slowly allow.” dropped several flies into the turtles’ dish. “I didn’t for- He continued, “When I heard you coming down the mally meet him. Mr. Fleet just burst into my office yes- hall looking for him, I went into the connecting supply terday and started talking about your under secretary’s room and waited until a crowd had gathered. No one keynote address. He never introduced himself or asked noticed me coming out.” my name. He even ignored my hand when I offered to It was then that I realized I had ventured too far into shake.” Dr. Tordorov’s voice was tight with anger. Tordorov’s office. We were now in the middle of the room “Eric Fleet was going to have the under secretary take facing each other, and it would be difficult to back out the credit for the convention on TEDs,” I said. “A pre- gracefully. In fact, it would be difficult to get out at all if mature announcement would have jeopardized the agree- he didn’t cooperate. His eyes followed mine as I glanced ment’s success.” at the doorway and he reached the same conclusion. “You think it would only have jeopardized the agree- “Poor Liza,” he said. “You just wanted to find out ment? Oh no, an announcement would have killed the what had happened so those policemen would stop agreement! All the committee members, all the WTO harassing you, but that was a mistake. I must continue delegates, they all would have listened respectfully to the my work. This is my last chance, and I will not allow under secretary and applauded his words, but they would anyone to stop me.” have been secretly laughing at me. Because they all knew Tordorov took a step forward. I took a step back. that when we went back to the committee once more, the “What Eric Fleet did was wrong,” I agreed. “He was members would no longer respect my leadership or be evil. We should tell the police so that everyone will learn willing to follow my guidance. The entire negotiation the truth of how he was trying to destroy what we had would have failed. I would have been a failure!” worked on.” I continued slowly backing up as he moved I wanted to step back from the venom in his words, but forward. instead I took a step forward and spoke more softly. “And “That would not be very productive, Liza. I cannot that’s why you followed Eric Fleet down the corridor the work if I am locked up in prison. The authorities put me other night. You wanted to talk to him — to convince him there once, and I will not go back.” that the under secretary shouldn’t talk about the TEDs.” I was glad to see it wasn’t a knife Dr. Tordorov held in Tordorov looked over at me curiously, as if I had sud- his hand, until I realized that the heavy paperweight denly become some sort of interesting specimen to be could be just as effective a weapon. I had completely
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backed up against the wall and could feel the metal frame “I had nothing to do with it!” I protested, scrambling and the webbing of one of the turtle excluder devices bite to my feet. into my back. “I never thought you did,” the captain replied. “You don’t have to do this, Dr. Tordorov.” “But all the same, here we are and there is the mur- “I think I do, Liza. I’m really very sorry.” derer — snared in a trap just like the turtles he wished As he raised his arm over his head, I raised both mine to save.” in reflex and came up against the TED. Acting instinc- I turned to look down at Tordorov. He was lying tively, I grabbed on to the opposite sides of its circular motionless on the floor with the TED’s frame and web- metal frame and brought it down hard onto Tordorov’s bing still draped over him. His face was unnaturally pale upraised arm. The paperweight was knocked from his — likely the same shade his skin would soon fade to once hand as the metal frame was propelled over his torso, the he was back in prison. webbing enveloping the top half of his body. The momentum carried me forward onto Tordorov and, los- ing our balance, we both toppled awkwardly onto the everal months later the U.S. government successfully floor. Sdefended its TEDs policy against the lawsuit brought I heard a discreet cough behind me. I looked up, against it. I had to testify then, just as I had to testify a breathing hard, and saw Captain Lauer in the doorway. few weeks later at Stefan Tordorov’s murder trial. He inhaled deeply on his Gauloise. Neither action gave me any joy. “I am glad to see, Mademoiselle, that my instincts I gave away his pet turtles to a member of the about you were correct — you were the key to explaining Venezuelan delegation who sat across from me in the this murder.” General Council. ■ Home Suite Home
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JULY- AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 27 F OCUS
FRANK GOES FOR BAROQUE
t started innocently enough when Frank A few weeks later, when Frank arrived at post, he spotted Ambassador Denise Lefevre listing regretted not heeding the advice of a senior colleague down the dusty linoleum of a sixth-floor hall who had warned him: “Never bid on any post with in Main State. ‘Guinea’ in its name.” There was precious little with “Excuse me, Madam Ambassador. Please which to amuse himself as an upwardly mobile junior allow me to introduce myself. I’m Frank officer in the Pol/Econ Section. The substantive issues Lee, and I’ll be starting in the Pol/Econ seemed pedestrian, and it soon became clear that only a Section in Guineatown next month.” The devoted cult of two people back in Washington — a ambassador was a pinched, elderly woman. Lank hair at beleaguered desk officer and his maniacally micro-man- Ithe nape of her neck trailed dan- aging office director — ever read druff on the back of a frayed seer- anything he wrote. sucker suit. She smiled blankly. He began to wonder why “hit the “Yes, yes … I’ve heard good ground crawling” had not become things about you. I hope you’ll be the department’s jargon of choice. ready to hit the ground running.” And then he remembered the talis- Frank paused. There was no manic power that parroting a cliché trace of irony in her delivery. For seemed to have on the ambassador. the flicker of an instant, he consid- Proceeding cautiously at first, ered replying, “ In fact, I was plan- Frank began to lard his reporting ning on slowly easing myself into with soggy diction. A simple “now” the job, and was hoping you’d became “currently,” or, if he was feel- approve a week or two of leave as ing especially bold, “at this point in soon as I arrive at post. And I time.” After he realized that no one assume it won’t be a problem for seemed to know the original English me to work half-days for the first meaning of the word anyway, Frank few months, until I get settled in?” also used (er, “utilized,” or “availed
Instead, Frank flashed a tight smile Janet Cleland himself of”) “presently.” No one and said as earnestly as he could: seemed to object. “Yes, I’m really looking forward to AN UPWARDLY Warming to his mission, Frank jumping in with both feet and hit- pressed ahead. In one memo, he MOBILE JUNIOR OFFICER ting the ground running, as it substituted “prior to” for “before” in were.” IN A BACKWATER four different sentences. Instead of The ambassador grinned warm- DISCOVERS THE SECRET getting bounced back for editing by ly. Hearing her hoary phrase pass TO SUCCESS. the political counselor, the memo his lips seemed to rejuvenate her. fairly flew to the ambassador’s desk. Even the seersucker looked When she graced it with a “Solid crisper. “Good, good. I’m looking BY HANSCOM SMITH Work” — accented with a jaunty forward to working with you.” smiley face from the DCM on the
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way back down — he felt like displaying the memo on his attracted eager attention from his colleagues at post. As fridge like a grade-school triumph. Frank knew he had the deadline for submission of the annual Mission found a winning formula. Program Plan loomed, the administrative counselor Suddenly, “try” expanded to “endeavor” and, on one engaged in a breathless process of “back-and-forthing” (or occasion when Frank overflowed with confidence, was it “to-and-fro-ing”?) over how best to justify fresh “endeavor to try.” In a memo designed to “express strong funding. Frank transformed a straightforward “Post has concern” that the host government wasn’t “forward-lean- no money” into a “Mission lacks sufficient program ing” in implementing “robust” protection of intellectual resources,” a net gain of five syllables. property rights, Frank urged Washington agencies to put Unsatisfied, however, Frank persevered and produced the government’s “feet to the fire” and “cross the “Operating in a negative resource climate, mission agen- Rubicon” to revocation of trade preferences. If impact cies lack sufficient resources for implementation of pro- could be measured by applause, then Washington “end- gram goals.” Even though he had more than quadrupled users” were on their feet, and the ovation was thunderous. the original syllable count, Frank couldn’t be sure the sen- Like a shower of angry meteorites, Washington “princi- tence would produce the hoped-for largesse back in pals” (inevitably, some idiot kept using “principles”) fell all Foggy Bottom. Then, from a recent meeting with his over themselves to “impact” the situation. The timorous USAID counterparts, Frank recalled the shining allure of desk officer pleaded for consideration of all the “nuances” “sustainable.” If all “development” was “sustainable,” to the decision, although he was careful “not/not” to then why not all “implementation?” oppose any “emerging consensus.” The embassy was And, like a warm puppy, a State Department favorite summarily authorized to counterattack with a robust IPR nuzzled his ear. How could he have forgotten? enforcement policy of its own. Frank felt … rich, full- “Appropriate!” The department seemed obsessed with bodied, and aromatic. the notion that the embassy might somehow decide to At the next weekly staff meeting, the ambassador sin- intervene with inappropriate officials. Perhaps, Frank gled Frank out for special praise. “It strikes me (Frank imagined, a hapless junior officer had once delivered a made a subconscious note to use that one in his next deci- human rights demarche to the minister of posts and sion memo) that you’ve done some very solid work on the telecommunications, and FSOs were now forever bur- IPR issue, Frank.” Frank beamed in gratitude, although dened with “appropriate.” In any case, the final sentence he was becoming a bit concerned at the scatalogical tinge read: “Operating in a negative resource climate, mission that seemed to be creeping into embassy parlance. The agencies lack sufficient resources for sustainable imple- previous week’s CODEL had been rife with “solid” meet- mentation of appropriate program goals.” The adminis- ings and endless motorcade “movements,” at least one of trative counselor squealed with glee when she saw Frank’s which the GSO described as having gone “smoothly.” handiwork and Washington duly authorized a 10-percent Even the DCM insisted on pronouncing “processes” as budget increase, further embellishing Frank’s aura of “pro-cess-ease,” a name which Frank thought evoked memo-writing mojo. nothing more than a laxative. Soon his influence was everywhere. The embassy cafe- teria no longer sold “diet soda,” but did a brisk business in “low-calorie carbonated beverages.” If you asked the s the clichés spewed forth with inexorable flow, the counter staff for the specials, they’d chirp cheerfully: “In Achange in the mission was palpable. No longer a terms of sandwiches, we have tuna and Spam. In terms of bureaucratic backwater struggling just to be the merest burgers, we have cheese and Spam …” Frank caught blip on the Washington “radar screen,” the embassy was himself referring to his own car as “my privately-owned emerging as a white-hot nerve center of U.S. foreign pol- vehicle” and even, on one disturbing occasion, pronounc- icy. Frank’s peerless way with a tired turn of phrase ing the “h” in “vehicle.” And in a late-night revelation, he remembered that his name was not actually “Frank,” but Hanscom Smith, an FSO since 1990, has served in “Franklin,” and that Franklin was, in fact, one of his mid- Yaounde, Copenhagen, Phnom Penh and Washington, dle names. So he became “J. Franklin Lee,” and secretly D.C. He is now an economic officer in Bangkok. toyed with the idea of converting “Lee” to “Leigh.”
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Frank couldn’t be sure the sentence would produce the hoped-for largesse back in Foggy Bottom.
Only the Defense Attaché’s Office seemed immune to Pol/Econ Section would be known as the “Political and his powers, probably because the DATT once said Economic Analysis and Policy Reform Implementation “POTUS and FLOTUS are in CONUS” with a straight Division” (PEAPRID), and the counselor made a peti- face. Frank was, however, attracted to DAO’s seemingly tion, speedily granted, to become the “senior PEAPRID bottomless supply of laser pointers, and found they chief.” A few days later, he overcame the DCM’s initial unlocked the gateway to a dizzying world of increasingly resistance and succeeded in adding “Regional” to his title, elaborate Power Point presentations to serve as glitzy despite the fact that he didn’t even have a constituent post vehicles for his jargon. The embassy soon resembled a under his jurisdiction. Frank himself morphed from summer evening in the Loire Valley, as Power Point “Pol/Econ Officer” to “Foreign Policy Implementation sound-and-light extravaganzas dazzled meeting partici- Specialist.” In the linguistic megalomania sweeping the pants into submission. embassy, he took small solace that his EER testified to the fact that he had performed all of his duties “with aplomb,” single-handedly saved the American Republic from cer- rank’s passion for foggy phrases had a particularly tain demise, and, indeed, “walked on water.” Fpronounced effect on Amb. Lefevre. He was soon The last straw (Frank didn’t even have the energy to “tasked” (“assigned” has the same number of syllables, but dredge up “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” which suffers the relative disadvantage of being an actual word) would have offered a nice “segue” to a “camel’s nose to write all of her speeches. His grandiose mangling of the under the tent,” particularly loved by NEA “types”) came English language scratched some sort of inner itch for the when the Senior Regional Political and Economic ambassador, who took to styling herself as a cut-rate Analysis and Policy Reform Implementation Division Margaret Thatcher. Her coif grew steadily in volume, and Chief changed “happy” to “glad” in what would have been the frayed seersucker and scuffed flats were replaced with yet another robust policy memo. He should have cared blinding black patent leather pumps and stiff wool suits that he’d lost a syllable and “reclama-ed” the decision festooned with brass buttons. Although singularly inap- since he had vital “equities” at stake. But he didn’t. Frank propriate for the tropical climate, the woolen armor longed for simple, plain-spoken language once again. induced rivulets of sweat that resolved the ambassador’s At that moment, Amb. Lefevre burst into his office. dandruff problem. Afternoon sunlight shone through her bouffant and The ambassador began calling press conferences to sparkled on her brass-buttoned epaulets. “Franklin,” she announce even the most mundane of new initiatives from announced, “the strength of my work here has led me to Washington, hectoring the press into obeisance with her be named the first career ambassador to France in living hortatory renditions of Frank’s prose. At a joint press con- memory. I hereby invite you to join me and serve as my ference with the foreign minister, the moderator tried to speechwriter.” cut her off with a gentle “I’m afraid we’ve run out of time, Sweet salvation! The tortuous clauses and impenetra- so I must stop you there, Madam Ambassador.” “No, you bly layered tenses of French presented a virgin field on must not!” she trilled. “Robust implementation of appro- which to do linguistic battle. After all, the natural turgid- priately sustainable initiatives will impact all of us, now ity of the French language only enhanced its value as a tar- and forever.” “On the margins” of the press conference get for abuse. Small flecks of foam formed on his lips as after her speech, the ambassador “expressed regret” that he contemplated the damage he could inflict on la belle her “tour d’horizon” was so cruelly “nipped in the bud.” I langue francaise. had all of my “ducks in a row,” she lamented. His thoughts raced ahead to the prospects of Paris. Too late, Frank realized he had created the proverbial Perhaps there the euphonious sound of “J. Franklin monster. The ambassador decreed that, “henceforth,” the Leigh” might pass muster.… ■
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A COUNSELOR IN ROME
love my ambassador, thought John Lang. A dozen years earlier, Lang had spent three years in That’s not the same as saying I love my job. It Rome as a vice consul. His Italian had become — and it was six in the morning, on a day in April, and still was — fluent. He had gotten to know the country the sun was beginning to shine on the rooftops. and its politics, and he had acquired a wide range of Lang was doing his fourth loop around Piazza Italian friends. A number of them were fellow hikers and Navona. As he ran he had the place to himself, climbers, with whom he had spent many Sunday excur- save for the crazy old fellow who always came sions in the Apennines. Some of these hikers, he found out of the bar when he ran by, to wave at him when he returned to the embassy as counselor, were now and yell “Ho-ho-ho!” No matter. What mattered was run- prominent persons. Valerio Arata, a career magistrate, Ining, and spring. And love. had recently become Procurator In 10 minutes more, he was General of the Republic. Pietro back in his apartment on the top Ardito, an unassuming man who floor of the oldest building on Via possessed a thousand acres of pas- del Governo Vecchio. The build- tures and vineyards and the title of ing’s dirty stone facade bore the Marchese di Monteleone, was now date 1490. Inside, though, his president of the association of large apartment had been lately agriculturists; his wife Maria Teresa redone, and it was bright with the had just published her second book early sunshine now, while the on the Etruscans. Franco Fioret, an street below remained in shadow. expert climber and a member of the Lang had come to Rome from Society of Jesus, was the Substitute Quito a year ago, to head the Secretary of State in the Vatican. It embassy’s political section. The was fun to come back and pick up admin people had wanted him to again with these friends, and Lang move into the big apartment on Via was all the more content when he Pinciana that political counselors found that the high ridge of Pizzo
had occupied for decades. No, said Janet Cleland Deta and the beech woods under Lang. His wife had left him two Monte Autore were as unspoiled as years before, he had no children, AN FSO HAS AN ever. and he did not want so big a place. In the city, on weekdays, Lang UNEXPECTEDLY Let the consul general take it. had worked hard this past year at Eventually she did. The place on FULFILLING SECOND befriending members of parlia- Governo Vecchio had only one TOUR IN THE ment, top journalists and writers, bedroom, but it had a large living ETERNAL CITY. office directors in the foreign min- room and a good-sized dining istry. His six subordinate officers room, just right for small dinners were competent and assiduous. which were the only entertaining BY PETER BRIDGES Lang thought his number two, Jane he did at home. Farnham, might be the very best
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Foreign Service officer of Class 1. The department had clear that he did not much care for Romans, although he recently complimented the embassy, with some warmth, was living in their city. Florentines and Lombards, he did on its political reporting and analysis. Lang was satisfied not mind saying, were finer and more honest people. with his first year as the counselor for political affairs. What he did not say was that his Italian was at best halt- He had, however, encountered problems in the ing, and that he had no more friends among Florentines embassy. They did not include the ambassador. Her or Lombards than he did in Rome. Dustman and his name was Sally Lamkin and for 10 years she had repre- rather awkward wife liked best to stay home evenings and sented a prosperous part of Connecticut in the House of watch a video or two. Amb. Lamkin did not, Dustman Representatives — and had been a leading force among knew, dote on him. At staff meetings he sometimes the Italian-American members of the House; her moth- sensed that she was mocking, if always very gently, things er, who had raised her after Mr. Lamkin abandoned his he said. family, was a Caracciolo from Calabria. Congresswoman He was soon jealous of Lang, who had no wife; who Lamkin had been rewarded for her services to the spoke fine Italian; who, it seemed, had quickly gotten to Republican cause, by a Republican president who gave know everyone who counted in the capital — and whom her the Rome embassy a year before John Lang arrived the ambassador clearly doted on. there. She came to Rome alone; she had had loves but John Lang was no fool. He could suffer if he got never a husband. She quickly decided she liked Lang’s caught between the ambassador’s liking for him and the frankness, which seemed to be coupled with both a good DCM’s mistrust. After Lang had been in Rome for a cou- understanding of Italian matters and a sort of cold objec- ple of months, Sally Lamkin began calling him into her tivity that she had not often seen in Washington. office for information and advice. The approach to her The deputy chief of mission, Fred Dustman, was office was through the large room where the ambas- another matter. Dustman had been consul in Florence, sador’s secretary sat. The secretary was Marie Takala, Italian desk officer in the department, consul general in who had served with Lang in Prague. She was a good Milan — and he was going nowhere in Political-Military friend ... and to the left of her desk a door opened into Affairs in the department when he convinced a friend in Fred Dustman’s office, and the door was usually open. If Human Resources to put him on the list of candidates for he liked, Dustman could see Lang going into Sally the job as Ambassador Lamkin’s DCM. He had more Lamkin’s office, and Lang had no doubt that Dustman Italian experience than the others, so she picked him. did see. John Lang therefore took pains to keep the For two years now he had sat in his large office in the DCM well briefed on his conversations with the ambas- Palazzo Margherita, administering an oversized embassy sador. At least he did so until one Friday afternoon in that contained attachés from 30 federal agencies. He February. complained audibly that his burdens were such that he It was a dreary day for Rome, cold and cloudy. Lang had no time to get out and see Italians. He also made walked into the ambassador’s opulent office, which had been a ballroom when, a century earlier, the palace had Peter Bridges entered the Foreign Service in 1957 and belonged to Margherita, Italy’s queen mother. served in Panama, Moscow, Prague, Rome, Mogadishu “Good afternoon, Madame Ambassador. What’s up?” and Washington. After his second tour of duty in Rome, “Sit down, John, and tell me all I need to know about as Deputy Chief of Mission in 1981-84, he was named Italy’s relations with Korea. This instruction says I have ambassador to Somalia and served there from 1984 to to weigh in, in person, with the foreign minister. I would 1986. Since retirement from government service, he rather that you did so, but orders are orders. So tell me has served as executive director of the Una Chapman what I don’t know — but for God’s sake don’t tell me any- Cox Foundation, manager for international affairs of thing I don’t really need to know.” Shell Oil Company and the resident representative of He talked for 10 minutes. Fine, she said; just what I the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development needed; thanks. She looked at him, and he at her. Sally in Prague. He has published two books, Safirka: An Lamkin, Lang thought, was a really beautiful woman. American Envoy and Pen of Fire: John Moncure She was, he knew, just his age, 42. She was blonde, slim; Daniel, and around four dozen articles, some in the not tall. When she smiled, and she was smiling at him Foreign Service Journal. now, she dazzled him.
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She quickly decided she liked Lang’s frankness, which seemed to be coupled with a good understanding of Italian matters.
Sally Lamkin looked at John Lang, fit and trim and “Would you like to see my modest apartment? No handsome. He was smiling, too. Villa Taverna, to be sure.” “Why ... yes, thanks. Just for “John,” she said, “Sometime I think we would do well a minute.” to have a talk outside the office. I do like to escape from In 10 minutes, or it may have been 20, they were in bureaucracy sometimes.” bed. He thought afterward, she is glorious. She thought, “And so do I. ... I know how full your schedule is. You he is fine, strong, good. They slept then, and at dawn on wouldn’t, by chance, be free for dinner tomorrow Sunday he woke her and took her home. He was com- evening? Saturday, I mean.” mitted to a hike that day, and went with six friends to “I know tomorrow’s Saturday. I can ask Marie to climb Monte Navegna. That afternoon, back in Rome, check my schedule, but — yes, I’m sure I’m free. Shall he called her. we do it?” “I hope you do not think I am guilty of disrespect to And they did. A security officer was supposed to the Chief of Mission.” accompany the ambassador whenever she left Villa “You are my good counselor. My good friend. My Taverna, her residence set in seven acres of walled gar- buddy.” dens. But there was nothing scheduled for her, that “If I am violating laws and regulations and protocol ... Saturday evening. At eight o’clock Lang drove up to the I want to do it again.” villa gate and was instantly admitted by the guards. Ten “Me, too.” minutes later he and Sally Lamkin drove out. The question was, when. The next week passed Lang had thought carefully where they might have quickly. The ambassador told Marie Takala that she dinner with less chance that the American ambassador thought she had been overscheduled recently. She was would be recognized. He settled on the Osteria da not blaming Marie, but henceforth she wanted to keep Nerone, on the hill above the Colosseum. It was much Saturday evenings and Sundays free. That shouldn’t be frequented by Americans who, he thought, were less like- too hard, Marie said; other ambassadors, and prominent ly to recognize her, or anyway to comment on her pres- Italians, certainly did all they could to keep time free for ence, than people in a restaurant where most guests were themselves and their families. Romans. It was a warm evening for February so they sat outside and no one paid attention. The waiters recog- nized him; he ate there often. Their greeting for the lady ver the next two months, Lang and his ambassador seemed simple politeness. The two Americans had Ospent every Saturday night together, in his apart- antipasto and spaghetti alle vongole and broccoletti and ment, except for one weekend when she had to visit almost a liter of the house’s white wine. Turin and another when she had a speaking engagement They talked of nothing serious. Sally Lamkin said how in Naples. On Sundays, Lang took her to the mountains happy she was to get away from the round of diplomatic with his friends. Her Italian was not bad, and she was a dinners. John Lang said that he could stomach the diplo- strong hiker. Lang wondered what people might be say- matic life six days a week, but he tried to keep weekends, ing about the two of them, but he said nothing to her or anyway Sundays, free. about that. He looked at her and said, “You know, I live near Now it was April. The cruelest month, Lang thought Piazza Navona. What would you say to a coffee at the Bar as he dressed. He ate a quick breakfast, and skimmed the Navona?” “Fine,” she said, smiling. pages of the Corriere della Sera and La Stampa. He He parked his Lancia in Via del Governo Vecchio, a opened the window and took a long look at the street few yards from where he lived. They had their coffee in below. No one waiting, so far as he could see. Well, he Rome’s grandest piazza, and walked back toward the car. hoped not. It was 7:15; time to go to work.
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“Everyone in this embassy knows, Americans and Italians alike. Even I know, and nobody likes to share confidences with the DCM.”
Lang varied his routes through the city, for security On Friday, Lang told the DCM that he wanted to take reasons and for pleasure. Today, as he walked through a week of leave. There were no pressing matters, and the piazza in front of the Pantheon, he thought of the Farnham could handle anything that came up. Dustman annual efficiency reports due on his staff. He needed to had done his damning report on him, and it had gone for- complete them this week. It would not be too hard. He ward to the ambassador to add her reviewing statement had done as the book said, carefully keeping a folder on — when she returned; she had been called back to the each officer and reviewing their performance with each, department for consultations, and had left the previous several times. He had some hope that his report on Jane day. She and John Lang had seen each other only briefly Farnham might get her promoted to senior ranks. But before her departure, that Thursday morning in the what sort of report was Fred Dustman going to do on embassy. him? The DCM had given him no clue. Dustman agreed to his taking a week off, but added, It was just after nine when Dustman summoned “What then, John?” Lang. Dustman shut both doors to his office, pointed “I’ll let you know.” Lang to a place at his long conference table, and sat down across from him. “John,” he said. “You know it is all coming out. I mean t ten on Saturday morning, at Roma Tiburtina, a about you and the ambassador. I have told the regional Asturdy-looking hiker bought a ticket for Arsoli and security officer not to say anything to the department, but boarded the Pescara express. He was clearly off on I think they know. And I suspect everyone in this more than a Saturday excursion; he had a large back- embassy knows, Americans and Italians alike. Even I pack with a sleeping bag on top. Lang had decided to know, and nobody likes to share confidences with the do something he had long dreamed of, a three-day walk DCM. It is a bad situation. Certainly if you were mar- southeastward along the ridges of the Apennines, start- ried to the lady you couldn’t be here, since the anti-nepo- ing at the Arsoli station and ending on the summit of tism laws preclude one spouse supervising the other. You Monte Viglio, the highest peak in the Lazio region. know all that. I don’t suppose you realize, or care, what From there, he would come down to the village of kind of position you have put me in. What should I do? Filettino, to take a bus for Rome. If he reached I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I am going to write an Filettino too late in the day — buses generally left vil- efficiency report that rates you very low on discretion and lages for Rome in early morning — he could always judgment, and you are going to agree with it. You may spend another night in the woods. Before he left want to ask for a transfer.” home, he phoned Marie Takala and told her his plan, “Fred,” said John Lang. “Do whatever you want to. just so someone in the embassy would know. No need, You are, you know, the perfect bureaucrat. As for me, I’ll he said, to tell the ambassador (who was due back from consider my best course.” And he walked out. But he Washington later that day); he would come see her knew Dustman was right; he could not stay in this when he returned. embassy. It was past noon when he got off the train at the little As the week progressed, Lang completed his staff’s Arsoli station, and started tramping down the road. efficiency reports, in between conversations at the for- The first five miles, he knew, were all on road; no help eign ministry and the drafting of many cables and suc- for it. Before two o’clock, though, he had reached the cessive luncheons with an editor, a deputy trade minister, three-monk monastery of the Madonna dei Bisognosi, a senator, and Italy’s best political analyst. Jane Farnham a thousand meters above sea level. From there he glowed when he gave her the report he had done on her; started up the faint path along the rising ridge. He his other officers seemed pleased enough. passed through oaks, then pastures that alternated with
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He took a two-hour detour to walk down to the village of Cappadocia for two liters of San Pellegrino.
copses of huge stout beeches. Sundown was near when The next day he reached the summit of Monte he reached the high point, the Cima di Vallevona, Viglio, 2,156 meters, in early afternoon, after clamber- eighteen hundred meters above the sea. He gathered ing gingerly across the steep pitch called the wood, and made a fire below the ridge and out of the Gendarme. He had done it! Now for Filettino ... wind. His dinner was simple, and not long after dark Another hiker was coming up, someone in a red wind- he was asleep on the mountain. breaker climbing fast. A woman with blonde hair. The second day he started out at dawn. As he had Lang sat down and waited. expected, there was no water along his way, and he took She said, “I thought I’d do Viglio now, since I can’t a two-hour detour to walk down to the village of be sure when I’ll get back to Italy.” Cappadocia for two liters of San Pellegrino. That “I’m leaving. You don’t need to.” evening he reached his intended goal, the high round “We’re leaving together. Basta, per ora. You can top of Monte Cotento, and camped there. The weath- marry me at the National Cathedral. They have an er was holding; the stars were brilliant. It was a good hour open next month.” omen for his future. But what future? And that settled that. ■
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JULY- AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 35 F OCUS
THROUGH THE GLASS
’m not quite sure how I came to be here, in vendor, and wandered through Red Square, laughing a crowded, dingy room in the U.S. embassy, loudly and enjoying the warm evening air. The poplars staring through a thick sheet of glass at an were just beginning to bloom, and the parks were full American girl, not much older than me. of young people like us, out enjoying the night. We She shouts through the glass, introducing happened past a shop with a sign in the window: herself in accented Russian. She is the vice “Internet Café.” It was Olga’s idea to go in, just for a consul, she says, and she has some ques- laugh, she said. She’s studying computers at MGU, just tions for me. Questions for me? What can like me, so it was easy enough for us to find the she possibly ask that I’m not already asking myself? Internet bride sites. We laughed as we read the entries IMy palms are sweating, and I see — so brash, so pathetic, so obvi- my reflection in the glass, dis- ously untrue! Did anyone truly fall torted. I see myself clutching a for this stuff? So she entered her thick envelope of papers. I see own application into the registry. my coat with the fur collar — Of course, none of it was true, but normally I think it flatters my fig- she made us all laugh. Next it was ure, the shape of my face, but Nina’s turn. “Laugh if you want,” somehow, reflected in the glass, she said, “but I don’t think it’s a it looks dirty, a bit disheveled. I joke. Who wouldn’t want to marry see my makeup, so carefully an American?” Next was Lena’s applied just a few hours ago, but turn, and the mood had turned already looking mask-like. I’m serious. We all helped her think of sure this vice consul can see my the right phrases, anything that lips shaking as I fix my face into a could help catch an American’s smile. And I wonder again, how eye. Then my turn came. Name: did I get here? Why am I here, Ivanova, Valentina Alexandrovna. staring past my reflection at Age: 20. Brown hair. Green eyes.
some American girl in a crisp Janet Cleland Computer science major. Never business outfit? Is she staring been married. Down the list I back at me? Or is she simply A RUSSIAN GIRL went, trying to explain to this com- admiring her own reflection on puter exactly who I was. the other side of the glass? CONTEMPLATES When we were done, we went MORE THAN JUST back out into the city. The air had MARRIAGE AS SHE turned cold while we’d sat inside, t was seven months ago today APPLIES FOR A VISA. and we shivered in our miniskirts. Iwhen I celebrated my 20th Olga raised her can of beer in a birthday with a group of universi- mock toast and said, “May we all ty friends. We went downtown, BY DONNA GORMAN celebrate Valentina’s next birthday bought some drinks from a street in America.”
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This American vice consul, when she married, would marry her equal, would marry for love.
he American girl had a badge around her neck, but One day, Lena squealed out loud as she read: “He’s TI couldn’t see the name that was printed on it. She coming to see us! He’s coming to see you! He’ll be told me to raise my right hand and repeat after her, and here in four weeks. What will you wear?” so it was that I took an oath to tell the truth. I saw a Four weeks later, true to his word, he came to ring sparkling on her left hand, sending flashes of light Moscow. We spent three days together, and without my way. She asked for my name, and I told her. She my friends standing by, I couldn’t understand what he looked down at my passport and nodded, satisfied. She was telling me. When he talked, I smiled brightly and asked for the name of my fiancée, and I told her: tried not to notice his hair, thinning on top and gray Michael Evans. When she repeated the name, it around the edges. I tried not to look at his body, 18 sounded so foreign to my ears that for a moment, I years older than my own and showing its age. I thought she’d made a mistake. How could one name focused on his eyes, grayish and flat behind glasses, sound so different each time it was said? Michael. Mai- and I smiled harder so I wouldn’t cry. What was I cull. My-call. Different every time. “How did you and doing here? Where were my friends? What was this Michael meet?” man saying to me? We toured Moscow together each afternoon, and the heat was stifling. The poplars were shedding thick, white, cottony pukh — Moscow’s hen Michael Evans first sent me an e-mail, I summertime snow. The fluff made my eyes sting, Wrushed to tell my friends. Lena translated the made it hard to breathe. I explained to Michael how, letter while the rest of us sat around the table, eyes during Soviet times, Stalin ordered his city gardeners glued to that sheet of paper. I was secretly thrilled that to plant fast-growing trees to beautify Moscow. The I’d been chosen, and chosen first, but I pretended to gardeners came up with a plan to plant female think it funny, scoffing at each new bit of information. poplars, the fastest-growing trees they knew. But “Dear Valentina,” he’d written. “My name is Michael every summer the females drop this snowy fluff, and Evans. I am 38 years old, and I work in a bank in Los no one knows what to do about it. Everywhere, peo- Angeles …” Los Angeles! Hollywood, Beverly Hills, ple sneezing, coughing, covered with pukh. Michael Malibu, Rodeo Drive ... my friends and I called all of didn’t cough once. But I couldn’t breathe. these locations to mind, and before I knew quite what I took him to meet my mother on the last day. She I was doing, I wrote an e-mail back. My English was primped and preened and fussed over him at our practically nonexistent, but Lena helped translate the cramped table. He ate seconds, he ate thirds, and still ideas that the rest of us put to paper. We hit “send.” she forced more food on him. She fanned herself Every evening after school, we met to read with her apron — the stifling heat of Moscow’s sum- Michael’s latest letter. He wrote every day, without fail, mer lay heavy over our table — and she poured him flowery letters whose meaning was lost on me without shot after shot of the vodka she’d been hiding under Lena. And every night, we wrote him back, my friends her bed, waiting for a special occasion. When dinner and I. was finally over, Michael reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. He said something I couldn’t Donna Gorman is a free-lance writer who is currently understand and pried open the box, revealing a shiny posted in Almaty with her RSO husband, Bart, and golden ring set with a tiny stone. I stared at this their son Shay. Before her husband joined the Foreign stranger, not knowing what to say. My mother kicked Service, Donna worked as an advertising executive in me hard under the table. “Da, da, da! Yes, she will!” Los Angeles. She has a master’s degree in Slavic lan- she exclaimed, and joyfully poured more vodka. guages and literature. Continued on page 39
JULY- AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 37 ...INACTION Refusing to Reverse a Visa Decision This year’s Christian Herter Award for dissent by a senior-level Foreign Service officer was given to four members of the Embassy Moscow Consular Section: Consul General James Warlick, Deputy Consul General June Kinsman, Consul Kim Marie Sonn, and Vice Consul Natasha Franceschi. By refusing to reverse a controversial visa decision, these officers stood firm in their commitment to uphold the law and protect U.S. security interests, in the face of strong pressure to disregard both. Consul General James Warlick (right), is shown here giving Secretary of State Colin Powell a tour of the Embassy Moscow Consular Section, accom- panied by Ambassador Alexander Vershbow.
A Win for the Rule of Law Dean Kaplan was a first-tour officer at Embassy Abuja when he ques- tioned the U.S. government decision to accept the Nigerian govern- ment’s offer to hand over four criminal suspects during a special 48- hour window of opportunity. The handover bypassed judicial extra- dition procedures, and Kaplan was vocal in his opinion that expedien- cy in the area of law enforcement could not be reconciled with the mission’s commitment to help Nigeria build greater respect for the rule of law. His dissent was instrumental in the eventual Washington decision to urge reform toward legal extraditions and not to accept future offers that did not follow legal procedures. By 2002, the first judicial extradition from Nigeria had been accomplished. Kaplan is pictured here (left) in Kaduna, Nigeria.
Lending a Helping Hand in Greece Bonnie Miller is a psychotherapist and an educator who has been assisting battered women and victims of human trafficking for many years. She is being honored by A Lifetime of Advocacy for Foreign Service Families AFSA for making a difference in the lives of countless Mette Beecroft is being honored in 2003 with a special AFSA achieve- women and children in Greece through her courageous ment award celebrating over 33 years of service to the Foreign Service work combating human trafficking, and for her work on community. She has been, and continues to be, a strong and success- behalf of children with learning disabilities and the orga- ful advocate for Foreign Service families. She played a vital role in the nizations that assist them. She is shown here with her creation of the Family Liaison Office and the broadening of its mission husband, U.S. Ambassador to Greece Tom Miller, at a over the years. She is shown here in October 2001, when she was school for children with physical handicaps in Athens. president of the American Associates of the Foreign Service The Millers arranged for donations of dozens of wheel- Worldwide, with Mrs. Alma Powell opening the AAFSW Bookfair. chairs for the children of this school.
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He wrote every day, without fail, flowery letters whose meaning was lost on me.
Continued from page 37 think about her future, about her children’s future. Her mother wouldn’t push her, saying, “Think of your Michael smiled, relieved, and kissed me hard. Sweat family, Valentina. Think of the opportunity this gives from his forehead dripped onto my cheek. us.” My brain was spinning, and I couldn’t answer her And I was engaged. question. She looked at me closely, through the glass, and some glimmer of recognition seemed to cross her face. I opened my mouth, but no answer came out. ow did you and Michael meet?” she continued I closed my mouth and she looked back at my file. “Hin Russian. When she looked up again, she asked in a soft voice, I wanted to tell my story to the American vice con- so soft I could barely hear her through the glass, “Are sul, to tell her how my friends wrote the letters and you aware that Michael has invited three other my mother said “yes,” while I coughed and sneezed women to the States on fiancée visas, but he’s sent and the poplars shed their fluffy seeds. But I didn’t them all back?” know where to start. So when she asked how we met, My vision narrowed. All I could see was that thick I smiled my bright smile and replied simply, “on the pane of glass, with the vice consul behind it and my Internet!” reflection still in it. “No,” my reflection said. “No, I She frowned slightly and made a note in my file. didn’t know. Does it matter?” “How many times have you seen each other?” “Does it matter to you?” she asked. “Just once. For three days. But I have all of these I thought again of my mother. Of my friends. Of letters —” the poplar dust that choked me every summer. I pic- She cut me off with a quick wave of her hand, her tured Los Angeles. Hollywood. Malibu. I imagined ring glinting under the harsh fluorescent lights. my friends coming to visit me. I’d casually show them “Thank you, but I don’t need to see those.” Still I the sights as we drove through town. “Oh,” I’d clutched that envelope, useless now, and damp with remark indifferently, “I almost forgot to point out sweat. “Do you speak English?” Rodeo Drive. Michael and I were there just last “A little,” I lied. weekend.” “Does he speak Russian?” I watched my face in the reflection as it stretched I shook my head no. into that same big smile. I heard my own voice say to “How do you communicate?” the American vice consul, “Of course it doesn’t mat- Again, I thought of telling her about my friend ter. I love him.” Lena, the English translator, about my mother who She stared at me and I at her. I kept my smile kicked me under the table and said “yes” for me. But frozen neatly in place while the seconds passed. I I was too embarrassed. This girl, this American girl, waited for her to tell me that no, she was sorry, but would she understand? Would she laugh? Was she she couldn’t give me a visa today. I would thank her perhaps in love right now, with her very own politely, of course, gather my purse and my grimy American? Would she go home tonight and laugh envelope of letters and head back outside, to where with him and tell him about her day, tell him about my friends were waiting across the street. She would this girl who couldn’t speak English but had a whole set my file aside and call the next woman forward, packet of letters from a man she’d met just once? forgetting all about me. I smiled, waiting for all of This American vice consul, when she married, would this to happen, but she just looked at me, silent. marry her equal, would marry for love. She wouldn’t She fidgeted with her badge while she watched me.
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I saw my reflection in the glass, still smiling at me.
She spun her ring around on her finger, once, twice. about herself. I wanted to know if she was engaged too, She looked down at the ring pensively, and when she and if this is what it was supposed to feel like. I wanted looked up, I thought she would say something to me. to ask: what do I do now? But she was already gone, and But she just sighed, picked up her pen, made a nota- anyway, I didn’t have the words for those questions. tion, and pushed a paper under the glass. Our hands I saw my reflection in the glass, still smiling at me. I didn’t touch. “Congratulations,” she said in a quiet straightened out my crooked collar and wound my scarf voice. “Your visa will be ready this afternoon at 2 p.m. tightly around my neck. I picked up my packet of let- Please show this paper when you return to the ters and checked to make sure my own small ring was embassy.” She picked up my file from her desk, still firmly on my finger. I turned away from the glass, adding, “Good luck in America.” And she walked away from the space where the vice consul had been, away. and headed back out into Moscow, where the air was I stood for a moment, looking at the space where she’d already chilly with the onset of winter and my friends been. I wanted to ask her about America, to ask her were circling impatiently, waiting to hear my news. ■
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NITA AND THE FIRST NOBLE EIGHTFOLD PATH
he Buddha never met an ambas- plumber and a Buddhist social theologian. Tontai point- sador’s wife, yet he comprehended ed out that the concept of Right Speech, perhaps the most that life is rooted in suffering. This important of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Paths, with its is only one example of his perspi- emphasis on abstention from telling lies, harsh and abu- cacity. sive language, idle gossip, and backbiting, is essentially at Before narrating the unfortu- odds with the job of a modern diplomat as practiced in our nate incident of the 150 Cats of world. May I suggest that we do not give them sufficient Labor and the All-Night Full credit for the difficulty of their situation? Moon Residence Rave, I feel obligated to inform my hon- This is particularly the case with our Mrs. Ambassador. Tored reader about the circum- I feel she has her heart in the right stances of my humble narrative. My place. I found her master’s thesis in name is Nita, and I am a cook at the art history (which I had an opportu- residence of the U.S. ambassador. nity to examine in the cleaning As such, I am situated far from the process resulting from the decision ambassador’s office, which means to pack it for shipment in the same that the gossip and other news of box as Mr. Ambassador’s beloved importance are often intolerably maple syrup) to show an active and late. Still, I am an important link in inquisitive mind. However, experts the chain of humble laborers of this in pre-Raphaelite line drawing are embassy, and equally dedicated to sadly underappreciated here, and it the attempt to control our well- is therefore somewhat natural that meaning if headstrong American she should get herself mixed up in masters and their families and pre- an inauspicious, if well-intentioned, vent them from losing face. scheme with untoward conse- I am mindful of the many contri- quences. butions of those fortunate and brave His Excellency, the ambassador, enough to have preceded me into Janet Cleland by contrast, is apparently lacking in the homes of the American diplo- cultural refinement: he puts mats. During my long apprentice- MRS. AMBASSADOR ketchup on his eggs and has an ship in the ambassador’s kitchen unfortunate aversion to our national GETS MIXED UP IN A under my aunt, my ears were filled cuisine when it is prepared with the with chronicles, exploration and WELL-INTENTIONED appropriate amount of chili pep- analysis of our Americans’ lamenta- SCHEME WITH BIZARRE pers. Yet, the gardeners, maids, ble ignorance of certain truths as CONSEQUENCES. security staff and I grow fond of revealed by the Buddha. Especially him, as his unprepossessing pres- memorable was the assessment of ence inexplicably keeps his family Y AVID C ULEY the Honorable Tontai, beloved to all B D M A under control. So, it was with for his twin achievements as a apprehension that we heard the
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news one sultry morning in May of his imminent two- I could hear the ghostly sigh of the coffee maker com- month departure to attend to his duties as president of the pleting its duty, so I had to retreat. I arranged the second- American Fly-Fishing Enthusiasts’ Association. best cups, poured, and walked into the room to serve. “I don’t understand,” Mrs. Ambassador said. “Why do you need to bring cats to them? Why don’t they have their vents moved with the speed of a Peace Corps volun- own cats already? Thank you, Nita: black for Mrs. Eteer to a buffet table. The day after Mr. Ambassador’s Williamson.” departure, Mrs. Ambassador was in the small receiving “Because they’ve used them already and all. For food, room with Mrs. Williamson. Sixteen-year-old Fawn and I mean,” Mrs. Williamson said. her 12-year-old brother Cassidy were at school, and I had “Eeeewww,” Mrs. Ambassador said, not unreasonably. settled in for a morning of contemplative papaya-chopping “Don’t be that way,” Mrs. Williamson said. “They’re when Mrs. Ambassador came into the kitchen. poor, very poor, after all. It’s heartbreaking just to see the “Nita, please,” she said, holding up two fingers. “Two ... children sometimes. That’s why they need this eco- coffee ... cups. Understand?” tourism project to work. And that’s why I need you.” To be honest, I have not shown Mrs. Ambassador the Thus did Mrs. Williamson entangle Mrs. Ambassador true level of my mastery of English. in the plan of the 150 Cats of Labor. It was Mrs. I nodded my head with the socially appropriate level of Williamson’s plan to take in as many strays as she could, servitude. rent a truck and driver, and deliver her feline cargo to her “One cup ... black ... you know black?” she asked. friends in the eco-tourism business. On its face, the plan “Yah, ...” I said. “Black ... coffee.” was levelheaded enough, as our capital is overburdened “O.K.,” she said. “One ... cup ... black ... and ... one ... with pitiful strays and the cost of renting a truck is minimal cup ... with milk. O.K., understand?” for a group of wealthy foreigners. “Uhhh,” I said, affirmatively. She returned to Mrs. But the difficulties were also obvious, as Mrs. Williamson. Williamson knew. Trapping even the leanest and hungri- It only takes a moment to set up a coffee maker, so I est cat is a time- and labor-intensive process. Trapping was able to quickly get into position near the small receiv- 150, especially if you are a foreign guest in our society and ing room door to document their remarks. eager to escape unfavorable attention, takes time. While “They just have one terrible problem and all,” Mrs. you search for your 50th cat, your 100th cat, or your 150th Williamson said. “I mean, there are some perfectly nice cat, you need a place to put your first, second, and etc., young men trying to get an eco-tourism operation started cats. The place must be isolated and free from prying eyes and all. They are doing the whole thing out of bamboo, I and wagging tongues. It must be well secured and well mean, bamboo everything, walls, floors, dining rooms. guarded. The ambassador’s residence, she calculated, is They’d do bamboo pillows and all if they could, I mean. the ideal spot. But for Mrs. Williamson, there was one It’s very charming, really.” drawback to the residence: Mr. Ambassador already lived “So what is this problem?” Mrs. Ambassador asked. there. Now, although the ambassador tolerates Mrs. “I mean, the rats and all,” Mrs. Williamson said. “Just Williamson’s presence, he still remembers the incident in so many. I mean, everywhere. I saw a young German lady the large reception room with the string quartet, when leap the bamboo counter top and hurl an entire set of dar- Mrs. Williamson interrupted a violin solo to announce that ling bamboo beer steins off the back of the bar at a family the embassy’s money would be better spent on condoms of them. They’re everywhere. And poison is so expensive for local teenagers. She later apologized to the ambas- and all, and using poison would really be against their prin- sador, but certain things, once said, cannot be unsaid. ciples; I mean, eco-tourism is all natural, right?” Thus we see one of the advantages of Right Speech. So, when Mrs. Williamson saw the photo in the news- David McAuley, an English teacher and husband of paper of the ambassador boarding the flight to the United Vientiane DCM Susan M. Sutton, has worked for the States with fishing rods strapped to his briefcase, she felt State Department in London, Bucharest, Chisinau and that the heavens had come into alignment in order to favor Washington. No ambassadors’ wives were harmed in her plan. It is at moments like these that one should be on the making of this story. keenest lookout for disaster.
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lthough the classic definition of Right Speech is the next day by the gardener. (They were later invoiced as A“speaking truthfully,” that is, calling a green thing smoke detectors.) This, too, was a violation of the precept green, and not purple, it has also been observed that of Right Speech, but one feels it is for our Americans’ own silence is a paradoxical component of Right Speech. In good that we act this way. this case, Mrs. Ambassador, by keeping silent, failed to I felt Mrs. Ambassador’s enthusiasm for this compli- participate in Right Speech. She kept silent about the 150 cated act of charity grow as she enjoyed both the sudden- Cats of Labor when Mr. Ambassador called to see how ly clandestine element in her life and the sense of using Mrs. Ambassador was doing in his absence. She kept privileged surroundings to serve a worthy goal. Mrs. silent to the regional security officer when he called the Ambassador and her willful daughter Fawn even declared next day to schedule the installation of new security light- a truce in their ongoing battle over how much midriff it is ing, and to the general services officer when she came the seemly for a teenage girl to expose for public considera- following day to inventory the crested glassware. tion at school. A brief but memorable period of domestic She kept silent to the local employees as well, of harmony reigned over the residence, which was broken course, but our vigilant network sprang into action, alert- when Mrs. Williamson, carried away by her own enthusi- ing all sections about this imminent threat to the asm, added a new wrinkle to the plan. embassy’s tranquility. Mrs. Williamson’s plan called for “It will be a great adventure,” Mrs. Williamson said one the cats to reside in the large reception room, which all day, inspecting the rows of cages with the relaxed panache agreed was inappropriate. Therefore, suitable cages were of a contented commander-in-chief. “I mean, you must hastily procured and “aged” by rubbing dirt in them and come. I found this very nice man and all, and his truck is hitting them with shovels. They then were placed in the very reasonable, but I just decided that I had to follow the rear shed by the night security team, so as to be “found” truck myself in my car to make sure that it was done right.
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J ULY-AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE J OURNAL 43 F OCUS
One has to think of the poor kitties and all.” with various compounds to make a potent new substance, Mrs. Ambassador did not require much convincing. A which improved their popularity with their peers. Fawn departure was set for the next Saturday morning, and Mrs. exercised her charms on one young chemist and, inspired, Ambassador and Fawn happily discussed appropriate he came up with a new mood-altering substance, based on attire for an ambassador’s wife on such an outing. the species Valeriana officinalis. Fawn gained face Many of us are blinded by love. Mrs. Ambassador did amongst her peers by announcing that this new substance not notice that Fawn’s enthusiasm for her mother’s trip would debut at the All-Night Full Moon Residence Rave. was not motivated by an interest in promoting eco- This ensured attendance by many, because the substance tourism. While promising to spend a quiet evening baby- was both novel and not yet, technically, illegal. sitting Cassidy, Fawn — in the most extreme abuse of Right Speech in this narrative — put out the word at the International High School that an All-Night Full Moon n such circumstances, a cook can take refuge in her art. Residence Rave would take place on Saturday, blissfully II cooked my specialities for the assembled youth, who bereft of parental supervision. perhaps lack discernment but not appetite. I endured the We waved good-bye that Saturday morning to Mrs. hours of loud repetitive music from the back yard, Ambassador and Mrs. Williamson, following the aged unpleasant smells, mock-outraged screams of young Chinese truck in Mrs. Williamson’s Ultra-Destroyer 6000 ladies being thrown into the pool, and the occasional Sport Utility Vehicle. We feigned cheerfulness, but the interruption of my kitchen solitude by trysting youth in gardeners, maids, security staff and I were uneasy. We search of privacy. knew that young amateur chemists at the International The party was entering an especially fevered state High School were harvesting local plants and mixing them when Soh, the security guard at the front gate, came run-
THE REMINGTON
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ning in, his eyes betraying panic. “They’re here!” he “I wouldn’t drive this truck there for all the money in hissed. the world,” the driver said. “Who?” I asked. “Why not?” I asked. “Mrs. Ambassador and Mrs. Williamson! And the “Spirits. The people at Long Ning Village told me truck! Outside! They came back! I had to pretend to that the previous driver of this same truck had died break the key in the lock on the gate to keep her out!” Soh right there in the parking lot, at the wheel, after a meal said. “What should I do?” of Peppered Ants’ Eggs in Spicy River Weed. Clearly “I’ll come outside,” I said. the truck must be cleansed of spirits before we pro- Soh informed me of further details as we walked to the ceed,” he said grimly. front gate. Mrs. Ambassador and Mrs. Williamson said Mrs. Ambassador was at my shoulder. “What’s going that the driver had gotten partway to the destination. He on here? Can you ask him what’s the matter?” she said. had stopped the truck for a snack at Long Ning Village. “He ... say ... brake ... no ... good,” I said. After he was finished, the driver announced that the truck At this point, the driver turned off the motor of his was broken, and he would go no further. After some dis- Chinese truck, which idles with the sound of a disabled jet agreement, the driver agreed to drive back to the capital, landing in a thunderstorm. In the comparative quiet that even though the truck was “broken.” followed, the noise of the All-Night Full Moon Residence Mrs. Ambassador and Mrs. Williamson were deep in Rave was painfully clear. an argument about what to do next, so I was able to make “What on earth is that?” said Mrs. Ambassador. my way to the driver unnoticed. As successive expressions of bewilderment, compre- “Look here,” I said. “What’s all this about? Do you hension, and rage crossed her face, Soh opened the gates. want more money?” The vehicles rumbled onto the grounds. Mrs.
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Ambassador seemed to rumble herself as she strode oung people sometimes have a gift for low cunning. It toward the epicenter of the noise. Then, she turned Yseems that the mild mood-altering effect of around and came back to us. Valeriana officinalis on humans is achieved only by “Not a single one of our ... guests leaves this place chemical alteration, whereas the plant has a much until I say so, understand?” she said. “Anyone disobey- stronger effect on cats even before being artificially ing me will be looking for a new job.” intensified. So, while Mrs. Ambassador seethed, the The guards locked the gates as Mrs. Ambassador son of the embassy’s engineering security officer — the strode off into the darkness along the side of the house, best friend of the young chemist — silently picked the and let herself in the back door. A moment later, the flimsy lock on the Chinese truck. The chemist then music burped to a stop, followed a moment later by dosed the caged cats with modified Valeriana officinalis thin and anguished shrieks. A phalanx of expatriate and released them. youth ran toward us, only to find an embarrassed yet “You people are in big trouble! Big trouble! You’ll determined guard force blocking their departure. Mrs. be collecting social security by the time your parents Williamson came and announced Mrs. Ambassador’s are done punishing you. ... ” Mrs. Ambassador began. intention to call the parents of all in attendance. One Her speech was interrupted by the howl of a single pale and sullen boy, whom I recognized as Fawn’s ama- cat, drunken and wild, followed by a second, then two teur chemist, pulled several similar-looking creatures more in duet, and finally by dozens more. A gray tabby into a tight conspiratorial circle. Then they ambled off shot past a crowd of girls and mounted Mrs. with studied casualness. Williamson’s trouser leg as if it were a teak tree. Mrs. Mrs. Ambassador stalked out of the front door in a Williamson shrieked and batted the cat away. It fell towering rage. She glared for quite some time. limply to the ground and lay there, serenely content.
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Other cats appeared running, walking, waddling, howl- am happy to report that a suitable shaman was ing, alternating between placid happiness and manic Ifound to cast out the spirit of the dead man from agitation. the truck (later invoiced to the embassy as “consul- “My God,” Mrs. Williamson said. “My cats, they’re tant fees”). The cats, mostly in a drowsy, drugged out! They ... ” stupor in the upper limbs of various trees on the res- Cassidy came running from the house. “Mom, idence grounds, were recovered and recaged. Mrs. Mom, Mom!” he said. Ambassador and Mrs. Williamson followed the truck “Not now, Cassidy,” Mrs. Ambassador said. to the eco-tourism site a few days later. “But Mom, Dad’s on the phone from the U.S.,” Unfortunately, news of the arrival of the cats had Cassidy said. spread, and too many people showed up for their dis- Cassidy suddenly had Mrs. Ambassador’s attention. tribution. Discord followed. Residents of the south “And Fawn’s talking to him!” Cassidy said. “She says side of the village accused residents of the north side of to tell you to let her friends go right now or she’ll tell taking all the cats for themselves. In the resulting riot, him all about Mrs. Williamson and the cats. She says if the entire village, including the eco-tourism site, was I’m not back in 60 seconds she’s gonna tell him any- consumed in a bamboo conflagration, which also elim- way!” inated most of the rats. At this moment, many emotions ranged over Mrs. However, the eco-tourism site was insured separate- Ambassador’s face. I even thought I saw, for a brief ly for 800 percent of its actual value by both the World moment, as she sighed and turned toward the house to Bank and the Regional International Bank develop- take Mr. Ambassador’s call, a comprehension of the ment authorities, so the village is being rebuilt. In con- importance of Right Speech. crete. ■
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JULY- AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 47 STILL TELLING THEIR STORIES: ADST’S ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
THE ASSOCIATION FOR DIPLOMATIC STUDIES AND TRAINING IS ABOUT TO GO ONLINE WITH ITS EVER-GROWING COLLECTION OF ORAL HISTORIES. HERE ARE SOME EXCERPTS.
BY KENNETH L. BROWN AND VEDA ENGEL
arry Eagleburger, Chas Freeman, lishing program, which includes such authors as former Arthur Hartman, Robert and Phyllis ambassadors Herman J. Cohen, James Goodby, Francis Oakley, Robert Strauss, Terry Todman, Terry McNamara, and Robert H. Miller. It also produces John Whitehead — these are but a few exhibits, and inspired the “Brief History of American of the American diplomats whose sto- Diplomacy” exhibit on long-term display in the State ries can be found in the Diplomatic Department’s central hall and at the Foreign Service Oral History Collection of the Institute. (See sidebar, p. 52.) Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. The col- ADST was founded in 1986 to enhance training at FSI Llection has grown considerably since the Foreign Service and advance understanding of U.S. diplomacy. Although it Journal last profiled ADST (“In Their Own Words,” May is located at the George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs 1999). Training Center, it is a private, nonprofit organization. This In addition to recording oral histories, the association special public-private partnership links ADST with U.S. increases knowledge of U.S. diplomacy though its book pub- diplomats and the profession of diplomacy, past, present and future. Ambassador Kenneth L. Brown has been the president of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Providing a Legacy (ADST) since May 2001. His many overseas postings as a Under the direction of retired senior FSO Stu Kennedy career FSO from 1961 to 1995 included ambassadorships and with the assistance of a small staff and a few volunteers in Congo-Brazzaville, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana. In and interns, the personal oral histories of more than 1,400 Washington, he served as deputy director of U.N. Political former career Foreign Service members and political Affairs, associate spokesman for the State Department, appointees have been recorded thus far. These efforts pre- director of the Office of Central African Affairs, and serve for posterity and future historians diplomatic experi- deputy assistant secretary for African Affairs. After retir- ences and insights that would otherwise be lost. The process ing from the Foreign Service in 1995, he was director of continues daily and involves hours of interviews, recording the Dean Rusk Program in International Studies at on audiotape, editing by the interviewee and a volunteer Davidson College until 2001. editor, corrections, and final transfer to disk and hard copy. Veda Engel has been on detail from the State Some 1,300 of the interviews are available to the public Department as executive director of ADST since July on three CD-ROMs produced by ADST. In a major new 2002. After accompanying her husband on five assign- development, ADST plans to begin putting the entire cur- ments overseas, she became a career member of the Civil rent collection and future interviews on the Internet in 2004 Service. Before joining ADST she was the branch chief of at the Web site of the Library of Congress (loc.gov) for free the Recruitment Division in State’s Bureau of Human access by the public. Resources. She has also served as deputy editor of State ADST has consistently stressed the importance of having magazine and as a Navy Department editor. a thriving oral history program to provide a legacy for
48 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/JULY-AUGUST 2003 younger members of the Foreign Service, who can learn the plane. It was a very exciting way to start. from their retired colleagues how difficult situations were I was sent as the American government representative to handled, policies were formulated and implemented, and the North Vietnamese press conferences. Now, they were insights were gained into foreign cultures and personalities. held, the peace talks were generally on Thursday, and the Using a military analogy, Oral History Program Director North Vietnamese would give their press briefing in one Kennedy sees the collection as continuing and inspiring the place and we would give ours in another afterwards. But we Foreign Service’s own “long grey line” of tradition and link- would wait until theirs was over. So I had to go with a tape ing past generations of American diplomats to their succes- recorder and take full notes on their press conference, and sors. then call our delegation to give them a briefing on what they “All of the interviewees have something valuable to had said. … I had to basically then fight the journalists impart to current members of the service and to anyone because there were only a certain number of pay phones else interested in U.S. diplomacy,” at this site where the North Kennedy adds. “Most are candid as The personal oral histories Vietnamese had their press confer- well, and the subjects mentioned run ence, and I would have to compose the gamut of issues important to the of more than 1,400 former my cable in my head from the time United States since the 1920s and the I left my chair until I got to the tele- problems of daily life and career career Foreign Service phone and then fight the journalists common to the Foreign Service.” to use the phone. All I can say is, if Former ambassador to Israel and members and political somebody asked me to do that now, ADST board member Samuel Lewis I’d be too nervous to do it. But notes that “the most significant diplo- appointees have been when you’re 22, you can do any- matic exchanges rarely get into offi- thing. cial documents in this age of secure recorded thus far. The press conferences were only telephones and overwhelming fear of in Vietnamese and French. There leaks.” He believes that without oral histories to draw on, was no English used, so I’d be translating and writing my “tomorrow’s scholars would get much of the history wrong.” cable in my head and running to the telephone and really, In the past, the great majority of interviewees were white basically competing with the wires to try to do something. males, but that has changed with the shift in the demo- Then I would have to go back to the embassy, and I’d com- graphics of the Foreign Service. The number of women and pletely transcribe the entire text from French to English and minorities interviewed has increased significantly. Jim do a textual transmission to Washington by immediate Dandridge, a retired senior Foreign Service officer and a [cable] of the press conference. Senior Fellow at ADST, is documenting an important ele- ment in the changes in demographics as he heads up a pro- mbassador Tony Quainton found himself in ject to interview retired minority officers under a grant from ANicaragua among nuns and priests calling for the the Mellon Foundation. Dandridge’s interviews will also be overthrow of the U.S. government in 1982. available on videotape. Throughout the time, I maintained an open-door policy. To give some idea of the scope of the program, here are Any American citizen who wanted to come and see me just a few excerpts from the hundreds of oral histories added could do so. There were enormous numbers that came. to ADST’s collection in the past few years. They came from all sorts of different perspectives, although the vast majority were hostile to the Reagan administration. mbassador Frances D. Cook recalls her first tour There was a steady stream of journalists, church men and Aas a U.S. Information Service officer in Paris dur- women from all the major denominations, etc. They were ing the Vietnam peace talks. very suspicious of the Reagan administration’s policy toward I was commandeered to work in our press center Central America. They were much caught up with the (because I was a USIS officer), which was the entire ball- social justice agenda propounded by the Sandinista gov- room of the Hotel Crillon. I forget how many hundreds, I ernment. think at least six hundred journalists came from the United I remember one of the very first groups that came to see States to cover the opening of the Vietnam peace talks. me was a group of priests and nuns. After I had laid out for Every journalist that I had ever heard of or seen on televi- them our policy with regard to Nicaragua, they asked if they sion the whole time I was growing up was there. Walter might pray. This was a new experience for me, at least in Cronkite, Charles Collingwood, you name it, they were the ambassador’s office, but we all stood up. They asked to there. And I was working with them a week after I got off join hands. So there was the American ambassador holding
JULY-AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 49 ADST has consistently stressed the importance of having a thriving oral history program to provide a legacy for younger members of the Foreign Service.
hands with a group of nuns and priests [who were] praying for the overthrow of the Reagan administra- tion! After that, I decided I would always be accompanied by at least one junior officer who needed this exposure to the views of his/her fel- low citizens.
SEVEN MINUTES TO STATE DEPARTMENT s consul general in Sao Paulo Ain 1985, Stephen Dachi dis- covered the physical anomaly that led to the identification of the remains of Nazi war criminal columbia plaza Josef Mengele. [Forensic specialists] projected a apartments chart of the skull on the wall. On that Capital Living slide, they had over 40 numbers or With Comfort and Convenience labels attached to each anatomical Beautiful, Spacious Efficiencies, 1 and 2 Bedrooms angle, curvature, and point on the skull. Through a technique called SHORT TERM FURNISHED APARTMENTS AVAILABLE craniometry, you can match that up Utilities Included 24 Hour Front Desk with photographs of the person you Complimentar Voice Mail Garage Parking A ailable are trying to identify and measure Court ard St le Pla a Shopping on Site those same features. Then you over- Polished Hard ood Floors Cardke Entr /Access lap them and if they match, you can Pri ate Balconies Ri er Vie s Huge Walk-In Closets Minutes to Fine Dining make a pretty good identification. Well, they put this thing up on the Walk to the Kenned Center and Georgetown wall. They had everything on that Minutes to Foggy Bottom Metro skull numbered for every single (202) 293-2000 anatomical feature of the skull. 2400 Virginia Ave., N.W. There was only one thing on that Washington, D.C., 20037 skull that didn’t have a number next Managed by Polinger, Shannon & Luchs Co. to it. That was a hole in the left
50 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/JULY-AUGUST 2003 cheekbone which was clearly not an abnormality and not an anatomical anatomical feature. It was a hole that, feature. to me at least, was obviously caused “At least 600 journalists by a pathological process. With all the hile ambassador to Chile experts and scientists who were sitting came to cover the Wfrom 1988 to 1991, Tony there looking at it, not one of them Gillespie helped alleviate Chilean had noticed it. opening of the Vietnam ire when cyanide was discovered I took a look and said, “What the in a shipment of grapes, and fruit hell is that hole doing there?” They peace talks. And I was imports into the U.S. were halted. said, “What hole?” I said, “See that This incident presented me and our hole over there? You don’t have a working with them a embassy with a challenge which was number by that one and that’s not an not unique but not often paralleled in anatomical hole.” They said, “Really? week after I got off the Foreign Service. It was really What do you know about it?” I said, something, because it colored and con- “Well, in my younger days I not only the plane.” tinues to color, to some degree, U.S. was a dentist, but I happen to have and Chilean relations. This incident specialized in oral pathology and was — Amb. Frances Cook probably cost the Chileans something a diplomate of the American Board of in the neighborhood of $350 million, Pathology. Come and take a look at which is not inconsequential. this skull.” We took a closer look at In any event, in seven days we got the skull and, sure enough, it became al days of discussing and weighing the the exports of fruit to the United apparent to everyone that this was options, they asked me to do the States going again. I must say that the most likely to be a pathological hole, pathology work together with a U.S. and Chilean governments not an anatomical feature. I am skip- Brazilian specialist and try to establish worked together to this end. The inci- ping over a lot of details. After sever- that this hole really was a pathological dent completely changed the relation-
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JULY-AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 51 MARKETPLACE ADST’s Other Activities
Web access to major advertisers. ADST facilitates the publication of books on foreign affairs through its Diplomats Go to www.afsa.org and Diplomacy Book Series in cooperation with Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Click on Marketplace tab on the marquee Retired (DACOR). Under the direction of Margery Thompson, the series is designed to increase public knowledge and appreciation of the involvement of American diplomats in world history. Bukkehave Eighteen books have been published so far, and many more are in various stages www.bukkehave.com of production. Two received the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Dillon Award Charles Smith Corp. Living for a book of distinction on the practice of American diplomacy: Cursed Is the www.smithliving.com Peacemaker: The American Diplomat Versus the Israeli General, Beirut 1982, by Clements International John Boykin, and Intervening in Africa: Superpower Peacemaking in a Troubled www.clements.com Continent, by Herman J. Cohen. A third, The United States and Pakistan, 1947- Diplomatic Auto Sales 2000: Disenchanted Allies, by Dennis Kux, received “Special Recognition” from the www.diplosales.com academy. A second ADST publication program is its Memoirs and Occasional Papers Book Executive Club Suites www.execlubdc.com Series. Through it, with support from the authors, the association arranges for the publication of diplomatic memoirs and related works that may not command a suf- Georgetown Suites ficient market to meet the financial needs of trade and scholarly presses. Copies of www.georgetownsuites.com the books are produced on a “print on demand” basis. The first book in the series, Intelsat currently in production, is American Diplomats, by William Morgan and Stuart www.intelsat.com Kennedy. Harry Jannette International Enhancing training at the Foreign Service Institute has been central to ADST’s www.jannetteintl.com mission since its inception. This role has been pursued through programs ranging Hawthorn Suites from the sponsorship of practice diplomatic receptions and other events for the www.hawthorn.com Officer Orientation Course to provision of logistical support for foreign policy sem- Hirshorn Company, The inars and international language roundtables. Every year ADST also organizes the www.hirshorn.com competition and judging for the Una Chapman Cox Excellence in Language Laughlin Management Teaching Award for FSI instructors. Two Cox awards and two honorable mentions www.century21laughlin.com are funded jointly by the State Department and the Una Chapman Cox Foundation. Long & Foster Biennially, the association recognizes excellence in diplomacy by presenting its www.simunek.com Ralph J. Bunche Award for Diplomatic Excellence. Since its creation four years NPCA ago, the Bunche Award has been bestowed on Amb. Donald McHenry, former Sen. www.rpcv.org Sam Nunn, and former Secretary of State and Treasury George Shultz. ADST gave its first International Business Leadership Award to AOL founder James V. Kimsey Oakwood www.oakwood.com in 1999 and will resume presentation of that honor, along with the Bunche Award, next year at a gala dinner. Remington www.remington-dc.com ADST is an active participant in preparations for the diplomacy center and muse- um being created in the east wing of the Harry S Truman building (Main State). A SDFCU www.sdfcu.org member of the concept committee, the association will make available to the cen- ter its oral histories, books and diplomatic artifacts, as well as services to organize State Plaza museum docents. www.stateplaza.com As a membership organization, ADST offers its members the opportunity to join WJDManagement in its activities in support of U.S. diplomacy. They also benefit from discounts on www.wjdpm.com association products and access to the Ralph Bunche Award dinner. ADST’s oral histories and publications are available to the public through its For more information about advertisers in the Web site at www.adst.org. Anyone interested in the association’s programs can Journal go to: learn more by visiting that site or by calling (703) 302-6990. www.afsa.org/marketplace — Kenneth L. Brown and Veda Engel
52 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/JULY-AUGUST 2003 “So there was the American ambassador holding hands with a group of nuns and priests praying for the overthrow of the Reagan administration!”
— Amb. Tony Quainton ship of the U.S. ambassador and the foreign minister and, to a large degree, the U.S. embassy and the Foreign Ministry. Not necessarily other parts of the Chilean govern- ment, but we developed that shared sense of having been through a crisis together, having agreed on an objec- tive, and having achieved it. Even though there had previously been some differences and antagonisms which did not disappear on certain issues, nonetheless we had this shared and positive experience which you cannot discount. At that point I was Tony to the foreign minister, and he was Don Felipe to me. It was pos- sible, then, to deal with a lot of other issues in probably a different tone of voice than might otherwise have been the case.
ynthia Perry describes some Cof the challenges of serving as U.S. ambassador to Burundi from 1989 to 1993. I was not the first female American ambassador [there], nor the first black American ambassador — I was the first who was both black and a woman. Although the women embraced my strength and felt empowered by my presence, the men
JULY-AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 53 in government were somewhat ready for combat; the troops all stood threatened. Traditionally, the ambas- tall, disciplined; the drums were fear- sador had been a male — all of my “I turned to one of the some, their deep and strong sounds colleagues heading the 15 or so reverberating through one’s chest, embassies were male. Some men Burundian authorities stomach, head. The army in its state (and especially the military) made a of readiness was indeed impressive. point to salute my husband when he and said, ‘Who’s the I turned to one of the Burundian accompanied me. authorities and said, “Who’s the I found all the people to be very enemy?’ He looked at enemy?” He looked at me like gentle, kind, and respectful — but “Stupid.” I continued to ask that inscrutable. It was impossible to read me like ‘Stupid.’” question. If there is no threat from their thoughts. They would say that the outside, why such a war effort? Burundi is one country, with one peo- – Amb. Cynthia Perry Rwanda has no interest in Burundi; ple, with one language, but you had Zaire doesn’t want any part of it; the sense it wasn’t a nation of peace or Tanzania shows no interest. Who is one without division. For all my time the enemy? When I finally asked the in the country, I did not always know I guess my first real memory of right person, he informed me that it’s which were Hutu and which were coming face to face with the underly- the Hutus — they are the enemy, the Tutsi by their features or their speech ing friction was my first attendance at internal threat. So that well-oiled mil- patterns. But I learned to recognize Armed Forces Day. All ambassadors itary machine I was looking at was all differences, although they were not were invited to come out and sit in Tutsi; no Hutu could serve in the consistently identifiable due to the covered stands to watch the parade of fighting military. Of course, I had pattern of intermarriages between the French-made tanks and mounted been briefed about this, but it was two. They were all handsome and guns. They were polished, shining in nearly overwhelming to observe the intelligent people. the bright sunlight like new money, hundreds of these men, six-feet and
Year-End Roundup of FOREIGN SERVICE AUTHORS As we have done each year since 2000, the November 2003 Foreign Service Journal will include a list of recently published books by Foreign Service-affiliated authors in a special section: “In Their Own Write.” FS authors who have had a book published either by a commercial or academic publisher last year or this year (2002-2003) that has not previously been featured in the roundup are invited to send a copy of the book, along with a press release or backgrounder with information on the author, to:
Susan Maitra Associate Editor Foreign Service Journal 2101 E Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20037-2990
Deadline for submissions is Sept. 1.
54 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/JULY-AUGUST 2003 over, pass before you. When you hear these conferences. The result was that king’s guest hotel in Riyadh, between at the same time the amazing drum- we were able to help each other a Baker, several of his entourage, mers of Burundi, definitely a part of good deal. Schwarzkopf, and me (now mind you, the war machinery, not just drum- I knew from, I suppose, mid- this was Jan. 10, only seven days before mers, you saw them as a part of this November, two prospective dates that the actual unfolding of the battle for ferocious military. The ceremonial were crucial. One was the date of Jan. Kuwait), at which Baker mused out drums built fear in the hearts of the 17, 2:40 in the morning, which was the loud that he wondered what our war Hutus. That’s the impression I had of moment that Gen. Schwarzkopf had aims ought to be. … So it was clear that the country on my arrival. recommended for the air assault on there had really been no thought at all Iraq to unfold. The second was the given in Washington, at high levels, to has Freeman recalls serving date of Feb. 21, 1991, which was the what specific results we wished to Cas ambassador to Saudi Arabia date that he had set for the unfolding achieve from the war, notwithstanding during the Persian Gulf War. of the ground assault. … I was quite the many telegrams that I had sent and General Norman Schwarzkopf and clear on the general nature of the bat- the many representations Gen. I had a very close and cooperative rela- tle plan [and so] was rather surprised, Schwarzkopf had made in military tionship, rather unusually. As part of in January 1991, to discover that the channels, asking for two things: a defi- that relationship, although I never president and Sec. Cheney had not nition of war objectives and, second, a took part in military planning sessions, confided it to Secretary of State Baker. war termination strategy. during visits by Secretary [of Defense He came to Saudi Arabia to meet That led me, several days later, on Dick] Cheney, Chairman of the Joint with the king and various others, espe- the eve of the attack, having failed to Chiefs Colin Powell, and others asso- cially Foreign Minister Saud al-Faysal. get for Gen. Schwarzkopf and myself ciated with them, Gen. Schwarzkopf During that meeting, a couple of and others any statement of war aims, would fill me in, in broad terms, about things happened that I found really to draft a cable saying that, unless his thinking, not only before they rather shocking. One was a meeting, instructed otherwise, here is what he arrived, but also about the results of actually in a sort of side room of the believes he has authority to do — a
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JULY-AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 55 cable that was informally coordinated which meant we did not have to put with Gen. Schwarzkopf and that sank anything into the fuel flow itself. It without a trace into the Washington was an acoustic process by which you morass. “In fact, the North could tell the rate of flow by, I sup- pose, the Doppler effects on the hile in North Korea in 1995, Koreans were right and reflected sound. Was part of a delegation to The North Koreans were adamant oversee that country’s compliance our figures were wrong, that their figures were correct. They with the new framework agree- used an old propeller system directly ment on nuclear energy, Kenneth despite all of our high- in the flow of the oil. The number of Yates discovered that high-tech times it went around indicated the isn’t necessarily the last word. tech equipment.” amount of fuel flow. What happened, Some of the positions of the North as it turned out, was that the fuel going Koreans that we thought did not have — Kenneth Yates through the line was at a colder tem- any merit turned out to be based on perature than we expected. Since the things of which we had no under- acoustic properties of the fuel change standing. That happened a number of under those conditions, we had to times in my North Korean experience. showed less and ours showed more. recalculate our own totals. In fact, the You may remember in the press a We said, “Aha!” The press had a field North Koreans were right and our fig- couple of years ago, we had accused day saying that they were stealing the ures were wrong, despite all of our the North Koreans of siphoning off fuel. It turned out that our technolo- high-tech equipment. Nonetheless, the fuel oil of the first shipment and gy was overly sophisticated and had the American press had made much diverting it to other purposes. Their given us incorrect readings. We used about the possible fraud, but made tally of how much had been taken in technology utilizing sound waves to much less about our foul-up of the was different from ours. Theirs measure the flow of the heavy fuel oil, data. ■
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56 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/JULY-AUGUST 2003 REMEMBERING USIA
THIS YEAR MARKS THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE U.S. INFORMATION AGENCY’S FOUNDING. A RETIRED USIA OFFICER RECALLS THE AGENCY’S MANY ACCOMPLISHMENTS.
BY WILSON DIZARD JR.
his year marks the fiftieth anniver- (and what not to do) in practicing the uncertain art of sary of the creation of the United influencing overseas public opinion about this country, its States Information Agency. Set up ideas and its global policy agenda. This subject, now rela- in August 1953 as part of the new beled “public diplomacy,” has taken on new urgency since Eisenhower administration’s deter- the events of 9/11. mination to deal with the growing In that regard, it is noteworthy that the United States propaganda challenge coming from the Soviet Union, the was a latecomer to the practice of international propagan- agencyT thrived for over 45 years before it was closed down da. Before World War II, it was the only major power that in 1999 and its remaining operations transferred to the did not have a strategy, with a supporting bureaucracy, for State Department. carrying out ideological programs beyond its borders. But Defunct federal agencies do not normally encourage after Pearl Harbor, that changed: an Office of War nostalgia. But there is a case for revisiting USIA’s role in Information was given the double mission of strengthen- U.S. diplomatic history. In many ways the agency was an ing home-front morale and explaining American war aims extraordinary undertaking, carried out with a distinct to foreign audiences. American flair. It set important precedents on what to do Within two years the OWI was running the largest pro- paganda operation in the world, including the radio net- Wilson Dizard Jr. is a retired Senior Foreign Service officer work still known as the “Voice of America.” Yet the whole who specialized in international communications policy until operation was closed down just two weeks after the war his retirement in 1980. During his 28-year career in USIA ended. Its tattered remains were relegated to the third and the State Department, he served in Istanbul, Athens, level of the State Department while Congress and gov- Dacca, Warsaw and Saigon. A former writer and editor for ernment officials debated whether we should be in the Time, Inc., he is the author of seven books: The Strategy of propaganda business at all. Truth (Public Affairs Press, 1961), Television: A World View A few years later, however, Cold War developments (Syracuse University Press, 1966), The Coming of the convinced the Eisenhower White House that a new orga- Information Age (Longman, 1985), Gorbachev’s Information nization, separate from the State Department, was need- Revolution: Controlling Glasnost in the New Electronic Era ed to deal with the Soviet ideological threat. The decision (CSIS/Westview, 1988), Old Media, New Media (Longman, to create an independent agency was prompted in large 1993), Meganet (Westview, 1997), and Digital Diplomacy: part by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles’ belief that U.S. Foreign Policy in the Information Age (Praeger, 2001). propaganda operations were not a proper diplomatic His latest work, Inventing Public Diplomacy, will be pub- function — an attitude many Foreign Service officers lished next year in the ADST-DACOR Diplomats and would continue to hold long afterward. Diplomacy Series. Dizard has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of The Early Years Technology and at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign The U.S. Information Agency began with several Service, and was affiliated with the Center for Strategic and strikes against it. Its operations were weakened by a International Studies from 1983 to 2000.
JULY-AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 57 city. Available to all comers, the Year-End libraries were filled with students The United States was a throughout the day. In Morocco, the traffic was so heavy that USIS Roundup of latecomer to the practice issued library cards in seven colors, allowing borrowers entry only once FOREIGN of international a week. In Calcutta, students had to sign up in advance to assure a read- propaganda. ing-room seat. SERVICE Most libraries had large street- front windows which became conve- AUTHORS nient targets for political demonstra- rogue investigation by Sen. Joseph tions by students and others. A New As we have done each year McCarthy, R-Wis., centered on alle- Yorker cartoon in the 1960s depict- since 2000, the November gations of left-wing influences with- ed a USIA training class where 2003 Foreign Service in the information program. Other employees were being taught win- Journal will include a list of congressmen were also suspicious of dow glazing. In agency lore, the the new agency and its operations. libraries were wryly described as recently published books by The result was a one-third cut in being just a stone’s throw from the Foreign Service-affiliated USIA’s first budget, and the firing of local university. authors in a special section: 25 percent of its employees. The agency’s officer corps was, by “In Their Own Write.” Despite this inauspicious start, and large, a pick-up crew that got its the agency quickly thrived. Within a training as propagandists on the job. FS authors who have had a few years, it had operations in over As such, they were exceptions to the book published either by a 270 cities and towns around the traditional Foreign Service officer commercial or academic world, with the major expansion tak- pattern. Most came from the publisher last year or this ing place in Asia and Latin America. media industries or from academia. year (2002-2003) that has This was a broader overseas pres- Several were Hollywood actors, ence than that of any other U.S. gov- including one who had starred as a not previously been featur- ernment agency, then or since. The child in the “Our Gang” comedies. ed in the roundup are U.S. Information Service — USIS Gene Karst had been a press agent invited to send a copy of the (as the overseas offices of USIA for the St. Louis Cardinals. John book, along with a press were known) — post in Kathmandu Maddux was a former Jesuit. Ed predated the establishment of the Harper wrote successful detective- release or backgrounder embassy by five years. Similarly, story paperbacks. Patricia van with information on the USIA was operating in Kirkuk in Delden served in the anti-Nazi author, to: northern Iraq well before State underground, later returning to opened a consulate there. For many Europe to run the USIS post in Susan Maitra years, USIS posts were the sole Holland. Steve Dachi had been a American presence in scores of dentist in Budapest, while Frank Associate Editor other cities, from Rajshahi, Bang- Snowden had been head of Howard Foreign Service Journal ladesh, to the Norwegian town of University’s classics department. 2101 E Street, NW Tromso, 200 miles north of the Overall, USIA officers brought Washington, D.C. Arctic Circle. professional diversity and different 20037-2990 Most USIS posts were small, perspectives to the Foreign Service. staffed by two or three officers (ini- John McKnight, a former newspa- tially limited to Foreign Service per reporter, illustrated this new Deadline for Reserve status) together with a local nimbleness. As head of the USIS submissions is support staff. The posts’ most promi- post in Rome, he was once sum- nent feature was usually a street- moned to testify before a congres- Sept. 1. front library, which was often the sional budget committee. What first open-shelf lending library in the would he do, one congressman
58 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/JULY-AUGUST 2003 asked, if he had only $15 to spend In addition to the Voice of for post operations for the year? America, USIA managed a wide McKnight replied that he would Despite attacks by Sen. variety of other media programs. take the minister of education to The “Wireless File” was a daily news lunch and lobby him on the need for Joseph McCarthy and a transmission of official U.S. govern- more American studies programs in ment statements and other materials Italian universities. one-third cut in USIA’s that kept American embassies and other missions informed on current On the Air first budget, the agency policy. Translated into dozens of By the 1970s, the reconstituted languages, the file was also a prima- Voice of America radio network was quickly thrived. ry channel for reaching local news- broadcasting in over 40 languages. papers and other opinion outlets. It used communications satellites to The Wireless File tradition contin- link its stateside transmitters with a ues today as a round-the-clock network of overseas relay bases in VOA’s most popular single offering Internet service. Europe, Asia and Africa. for over 30 years. Conover, a knowl- Before long, USIA became the Perhaps the best-known of VOA’s edgeable jazz fan, built his program biggest international publisher of hundreds of radio professionals was around his own large collection of books, magazines, pamphlets and Willis Conover, host to the station’s records, interspersed with inter- other printed materials. One of its jazz show, “Music USA.” A Wash- views with leading musicians, from most successful projects was to ington disk jockey, Conover was Duke Ellington to Frank Sinatra. encourage a consortium of U.S. hired temporarily in 1954 to host the His interviews and commentaries, book companies to sponsor an over- program, despite warnings from delivered in a smooth, bottled-in- seas project, Franklin Publications, some VOA officials that the project cream tone, made him arguably the which set up a string of affiliates was frivolous. The show was, in fact, most recognizable American voice throughout the Middle East and an instant success and stood as the abroad for decades. Asia to produce and market low-
JULY-AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 59 large cities abroad. However, the most lasting impact was made by the The agency’s officer cultural exchange programs, which were jointly managed by USIS posts corps was, by and large, overseas and by the State Depart- ment in Washington. Beginning a pick-up crew that got with a small Fulbright scholarship program in 1947, the scope of cul- TEN TOP its training as tural exchanges was expanded to REASONS TO encompass students, academics, propagandists on the job. media leaders and government offi- JOIN cials, along with performing groups ranging from the New York Philharmonic to Appalachian square dancers. DACOR In the 1940s there were fewer priced paperbacks in local lan- than twenty thousand foreign stu- (Diplomatic and guages. Tens of millions of books dents in American colleges and uni- Consular Officers, were issued under the program, with versities; today there are a half-mil- the additional benefit of giving lion, with students from China mak- Retired) American publishing firms their first ing up the largest overseas contin- significant export presence in mar- gent. Several years ago, an industri- 10. Guest rooms at less than kets previously dominated by ous researcher attempted to calcu- half of per diem British, French and Soviet publish- late the federal government’s total 9. Sunday musicales with ers. financial contribution to cultural rising stars The agency also became the exchange operations during the 8. Annual conference on key largest producer of documentary postwar decades. He put the overall issue or country films on earth, including hundreds figure at about $5 billion, arguably 7. Receptions for A-100 produced by the agency’s local posts. one of the most effective budgetary classes and new These productions attracted large outlays in U.S. government history. ambassadors audiences in urban movie theaters USIS posts in Communist-bloc 6. Scholarships for Foreign and in remote villages. The means countries operated under particular- Service dependents of delivery in rural areas without ly tight restrictions imposed by local 5. Top lecturers on foreign electricity was by “mobile units” — regimes. Eventually, cultural agree- affairs and culture sturdy jeeps equipped with a gener- ments with the Soviet government 4. Reasonable dues (half off ator, together with a reinforced roof (and, less successfully, with the for active-duty personnel) from which a film could be project- Chinese) provided limited openings 3. Memorable venue for ed at night over the heads of audi- for agency operations. USIA’s pavil- private or representational ences in town squares, often against ion-size exhibits in the USSR and functions a whitewashed wall. During the Eastern Europe attracted enormous 2. Five blocks from State Cold War years, over 350 USIS audiences eager for a look at the 1. Congenial collegiality in mobile units roamed the world’s out- world beyond their closed borders. an elegant, historic home backs. The results were often startling: on the opening day of a Moscow exhib- Richard McKee Cultural Diplomacy it in 1959, visitors stole dozens of Executive Director Any assessment of USIA’s long- books from a display sponsored by 1801 F St., NW term effectiveness would have to American publishers. The Kremlin Washington, DC 20006 give major credit to its cultural oper- insisted that the replacement vol- 202-682-0500 ations. These included the library umes be bolted down — a demand [email protected] network as well as the cultural cen- that was rejected. www.dacorbacon.org ters the agency helped set up with A particularly useful exchange local sponsors in over a hundred operation focused on inviting up-
60 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/JULY-AUGUST 2003 and-coming young foreign leaders attitudes. At other times, the here for a first-hand look at results were less useful. One exam- American society. The trick was to ple was a poll that sought to mea- spot them early. It didn’t always sure international opinion on which work, but when it did it was effec- country was the greatest threat to tive. In the early 1980s, the embassy world peace. The expectation was in Kabul proposed a relatively that the Soviet Union would head unknown young journalist, Hamid the list. In Bolivia, the local polling Karzai, for a grant. It was a good response was loud and clear: the hunch, given Karzai’s later promi- greatest threat to world peace came nence as the interim president of from Paraguay. Afghanistan following the overthrow What are USIA’s lessons for of the Taliban regime. Other leader today’s more complex public diplo- grantees included Britain’s Tony macy tasks? Despite some mishaps Blair and Margaret Thatcher, and bad judgment calls, its media Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, and Tanzania’s and cultural operations clearly had Julius Nyerere. During the USIA an impact. The agency’s most obvi- years, over 40 other leader grantees ous failure, despite its best efforts, became heads of government or was its inability to establish itself chiefs of state. firmly as a strong influence in the The pattern of their visits varied. formation of key foreign policy deci- Tours usually lasted about a month, sions. Ed Murrow identified this involving a personalized itinerary. shortcoming 40 years ago when he Given the shortness of time, most said that USIA should be in on the grantees traveled by plane. An excep- takeoffs as well as the landings in tion was Eleni Vlachou, publisher of a such decisions. leading Athens newspaper, Kath- The agency’s influence on policy imerini. She asked for a Greyhound was strongest at the embassy level. bus ticket and then crossed the coun- Good ambassadors listened to their try meeting with mayors, editors and USIS staff and factored in local pub- ordinary citizens before returning to lic attitudes when making policy rec- Greece where, years later, she played ommendations to the State Depart- an important role in helping bring ment. This still happens, but public down an authoritarian government in diplomacy concerns tend to get the 1970s. diluted in the mix of other interests back in Washington. Assessing USIA There is no formulaic solution for How effective were USIA pro- this problem. If anything, diploma- grams? Television reporter Edward cy is more complex than ever today, R. Murrow, the best known of the given the fact that policy decisions agency’s directors, famously told a increasingly involve dealing with congressional committee that no shadowy international forces that are cash register rang when someone immune to conventional appeals. overseas changed his or her opinion The answer does not lie in resurrect- as a result of a USIA program. The ing old USIA practices; changes in agency had a large research opera- global information and cultural pat- tion to track overseas public opin- terns have outmoded many of them. ion in general and the impact of Yet it is undeniable that USIA set a USIA operations in particular. standard of imaginative nimbleness When polling focused on specific in projecting American ideas abroad short-term opinion trends, it was that continues to have relevance often helpful as a measure of local today. ■
JULY-AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 61 TO ANITA KILLED BY THE BANDITS
BY GORDON KING
Such improbable names: Dadshah, King’s Gift; louder than all the rest. Sense may have forbade Dozdab, Thieves’ Water; Pip, near where you ended, violence against the woman but fear would prevail clad in a light summer dress. Had you offended a man called Ghaderdad? Was Dadshah miffed and at some stage, perhaps within the hour, because you would not cry? Kevin, we know, someone (men say Ghaderdad) turned with a gun was killed before your eyes. So were the rest. and shot you. Their dusky women would have run What were your thoughts? I judge from how you dressed, screeching about, then come close to you to stare white shoes, dark glasses, frock like a rainbow, at the blond hair, at the pale foreign face, before listening to the shouting of their men... that nothing could have been further off than death, I joined the searching parties in Kerman, nothing more improbable in your life than leaving; scoured the Baluchi Mountains, but no trace only the death of birds was cause for grieving; and then suddenly to turn a corner in your thirtieth of you. We heard that you had left us clues year, off in that God-forsaken Baluchistan, of scraps of cloth. We heard Dadshah would save and face the fury of bullets. What did you feel your life to sell you into Africa, a slave seeing the metal tear through the United States’ seal to some dark chief. We heard Dadshah would use on the door of that old workhorse of a Jeep? American your charms himself but that his jealous wife sided with Ghaderdad against such cold certainties were abruptly gone, terrible cries and foreign love. We heard Dadshah, of old, jerked out of the dying men, the bandits came had been a Sardar’s bodyguard whose knife plunging down from the rocks, shouting. You, dumb with shock, took the sunglasses slowly off your eyes killed his then-wife and her lover. He set with your left hand. Did you then remember, off as a brigand, and when I traveled through fleetingly, that I had driven there first those months earlier — before I came to know some months earlier, told you about it in a burst you and your Kevin — I very nearly met of enthusiasm? You would only tremble. his band, but the gendarmes were there first and I was spared to come to you and display Panic was not your way. When I had told you my fateful zest. Above Pip on the day about the bird my driver had tried to kill, the gendarmes found you, when the final worst you stopped at the kitchen door, and looked, until, silenced, I felt the shame of it, and knew was known, a plane from Tehran en route he would not do that again. In your left hand with VIPs, I built an air strip for you — the sunglasses were still clutched as if the time for them — marshalling together a motley crew had come to go indoors, wash off the grime. of tribal kids, a ragged destitute Instead, you were pulled along by that wild band. forgotten bunch, but we together cleared Dadshah must have, in his way, been as aghast and marked the strip, found the white stones to find his trap for gendarmes had brought these to form an arrow. Here were unknowns pale-skinned Feranghee. His inhumanities working for an unknown. Here where you disappeared had been against his own. Suddenly this last insurgency was of a different scale, a modest housewife, you became the star, men cursing against men and Ghaderdad wheeling up in an Army truck, boarding
62 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/JULY-AUGUST 2003 the little plane, all of us according Author’s Note: you total attention. Back at Iranshahr, I was the American consul in Isfahan, the consular dis- generals saluted you, garlands of scarce flowers trict covering all of southern Iran, from 1955 to 1957. In the softened the sky for you, we were your court fall of 1956, I made a very rugged trip, down through the and all paid quiet tribute. The airport Baluchi Mountains of southeastern Iran to a town called held its breath. The silences were yours Chakhansur on the coast (a possible warm-water port for the Iranians?), the first American ever to do so. The next until we sent you skyward with a plane’s roar spring, from their headquarters in Kerman, perhaps and turned and went our ways. I sent a kind inspired by me, the regional USAID director for southern colleague to collect what he could find Iran and his wife, Kevin and Anita Carrol, accompanied by of yours and Kevin’s things. There were far more their American staff member (whose name, I think, was in Kerman at your home, all the household Brewster Wilson), an interpreter and a driver, attempted to be accounted for and packed in sturdy wood the same trip. (except for the items damaged by your blood) They were ambushed in the mountains by a Baluchi and shipped to Tehran and home. We were controlled, bandit gang. All were killed in the initial clash — except for Anita, who was kidnapped. A delegation of embassy efficient and dispassionate. Were forms officers and Iranian officials came down. Two search required we did them, cabled the embassy, planes scoured the area (with me as navigator). In a light counseled the local staff, did the emergency Cub plane over the actual ambush spot (which only I things, wrote kudos to the gendarmes, knew) we took photos, then tried to fly out of that savage but eventually it ended and we made terrain — when the plane’s engine stopped. The pilot, a our way back to the consulate. Dadshah crop duster, calmly changed tanks as the engine sputtered, was cornered by the gendarmerie and saw and we stopped just short of becoming more American his men and women killed, his renegade casualties. In a couple of days Anita’s body was found; the bandits existence ended. Sooner then because had killed her too. With the help of a Baluchi village, I of you. And you and yours because of me. rapidly cleared a mountain spur for an airstrip; an Iranian Well ... time explains some things. This could be, military plane came in, Anita was carted off and that sad had I not met you. Death might not pause chapter was closed. for agents or contrivances. You wanted That’s about it. The poem itself may leave out a couple peace, and it came, but in a way of details — but what’s in it is all accurate. I also remem- you had not dreamed of. You wished to stay ber that the Carrols were from Washington state original- with Kevin, and your desire was granted. ly. I suppose there may be details of the affair hidden somewhere in the department’s archives — but I should It is here in what you had not wished that I think the above will suffice to give the readers the back- remember you: your quietness stopped with sound, ground of this poem. your caring blasted away by a rifle round, your fine mind trashed by an illiterate Baluchi, Gordon King grew up in central Illinois, Abraham Lincoln your love a casualty of an ignorant hate. country, attended Illinois Wesleyan University and saw ser- I think the universe was lessened when you left. vice in World War II in northeast India. Later, with a mas- Everywhere people, but without you we are bereft. ter's degree from Johns Hopkins University, he served for 30 We should have known you better, but too late years in the U.S. diplomatic corps, posted to embassies or consulates in cities as diverse as Kabul, Peshawar and for all such wishes. I still relive those days. Lahore, Tehran and Isfahan, as well as Bonn, London, and God made the funny world that it should be Washington, D.C. (at Peace Corps Headquarters and the left to bemused inheritors like me. National War College). Retired, he and his wife, the artist The world’s forgotten, but the scene replays: Josephine deBeauchamp, moved in 1998 from the coast of on an earth where mass killing numbs the heart, Maine to Surrey, to be near their daughter and her English yours was a personal, distinctive end family. Three books of his poetry have been published in the to someone meaningful. And now we tend U.S. Individual poems have appeared in a number of U.S. you still, those few of us who played a part. ■ and U.K. magazines including The Spectator.
JULY-AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 63 CAPITALISM AND THE MEXICAN POOR
UNTIL USAID AND OTHER INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AGENCIES LEARN HOW THE LIVES OF THE WORKING POOR REALLY FUNCTION, THEIR AID AND LOANS WON'T BENEFIT THOSE WHO NEED HELP THE MOST.
BY JAMES OLSEN
t’s early on a Monday morning on the streets of assess how they operated their stalls? So until about 20 Mexico City but the street vendors are already years ago, this part of the economy simply didn’t exist as lined up hawking their wares. These men and far as officialdom was concerned. women offer everything from television sets, When the World Bank, the International Develop- auto supplies, CDs and all kinds of appliances, ment Bank, the U.S. Agency for International to hot tamales and fresh tortillas. If one has Development and other international development agen- any doubt about how vital capitalism is in cies finally began to examine this sector globally in the Mexico, one need only see all 250,000 of these entrepre- 1980s, they were surprised at how productive it was. In Ineurs busily buying and selling from their small, cramped fact, the analysts were so shocked that they had trouble and crowded locations on the city’s many streets and side- even coming up with a label for it. walks. At first they called it the “parallel economy,” which In fact, only a very small fraction of the Mexican implied that this economic stream of goods and services working poor are employed in factories or in medium- went along with the formal national economy but func- size companies. Many, perhaps the vast majority (we tioned outside it. Then the terminology changed and the don’t really know), are out on the streets. The street ven- people selling matches, single cigarettes, candy bars, sodas, dors may well outnumber the portion of the Mexican food, clothes, motor oil, and building supplies were classi- working poor employed in factories or in medium-size fied as the “informal sector.” Through this shift the econo- companies. mists belatedly acknowledged that businesses operated by Yet until fairly recently, the economic activity of this the poor do indeed constitute a significant, productive “sec- group was never even counted as part of Mexico’s gross tor” like housing or health or education. domestic product (the sum of all goods and services pro- In fact, subsequent studies have found that the infor- duced within a nation’s borders). After all, what self- mal sector contributes from 20 to 40 percent to the GDP respecting Mexican government official or World Bank of many countries. Thus, the real engine of capitalistic economist would walk the dirty streets to count the num- growth in any country, Third World or developed, is not ber of vendors, calculate their annual sales volume, or the corporation — which, on average, requires a capital investment of one million dollars to create one new job James T. Olsen is an international consultant currently liv- — but new small businesses, many of which are micro- ing in Mexico. He has been an editor-in-chief at McGraw- businesses started and managed by the poor. Reflecting Hill Publishing, an educational expert for the Organization that finding, the “informal sector” has now graduated to a of American States, and a chief of party with USAID in the new term: “micro-business.” Dominican Republic. He holds a B.A. and M.A., both in 17th-century English literature, from Columbia University Taking Care of Business and a Ph.D. in international education and economics What is it like to manage a micro-business on the from The Union. streets of the capital?
64 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/JULY-AUGUST 2003 To answer that question I took to the streets to talk to recognized by government authorities, even though they these vendors. In a series of interviews they explained would then have to pay taxes. They unanimously assert- that to operate a stall, a vendor has to pay five levels of ed they would. First of all, if they were recognized as weekly (and some monthly) bribes (mordidas). Every legitimate vendors, they and their families couldn’t be level of authority has a hand out, from the cop who walks harassed by criminals, cops and low-level bureaucrats. the beat to the police in the patrol cars and the local For a change, the law would work for them. Similarly, if politicians. In addition, for lack of any alternative, many they held legal title to their businesses, they could collat- of the vendors store their goods overnight in the subway eralize their assets and obtain loans from established system, so they count this “rent” as a bribe as well. financial institutions instead of paying extortionate rates Based on these conversations and other research I to loan sharks. have conducted, I estimate that approximately $1.2 bil- Second, it would be far cheaper for them to pay taxes 1 lion is being paid in bribes every year just in Mexico City. of up to 2 /2 percent on their first $250,000 worth of busi- Even granting that there are fewer vendors in the cities ness to the Mexican Treasury (Hacienda) and have some- of the other 20 states that comprise Mexico, we are still thing to show for it than to keep paying multiple bribes, talking about many billions of dollars on a national basis which end up being many times greater anyway. — to say nothing of the dozens of other countries around Finally, making this change would likely increase the world with similar systems. respect for the law throughout society, since everyone In addition, because the vast majority of micro-busi- knows that the only people who benefit from the current nesses do not officially exist even now, they are ineligible system are the corrupt officials who exploit the working for short-term loans from commercial banks or finance poor. companies. Thus, most vendors have to borrow from moneylenders to cover their ad hoc capital needs. (Since The De Soto Example the going interest rate is 15 percent per week or 780 per- Fortunately, there are signs that at least some govern- cent per year, perhaps a better term for these moneylen- ments have recognized the wisdom of legitimizing and ders would be “loan sharks.”) Needless to say, if a loan nurturing micro-businesses instead of harassing them. A isn’t repaid, the consequences for the debtor and his fam- key crusader in such efforts has been the noted econo- ily can be dire. mist Hernando de Soto, who has long focused on the Between the cost of bribery and the cost of capital, problem of obtaining access for the poor capitalist. vendors have a hard time of it. But their troubles don’t Curiously, de Soto didn’t start out with any special end there. Even when they pay up, their business can be interest in poor people. Born in southern Peru some 60 destroyed in one fell swoop by greedy or overzealous law years ago, the son of a diplomat stationed in Geneva, he enforcement officials who want to make a point that the went to college in Peru and then on to Switzerland for his bribe was late or not the agreed-upon amount, or by the master’s degree. After working for the General goons who work for the moneylenders. In such cases, the Agreement on Tariffs and Trade for awhile, he ran a vendors have no legal recourse. Paris-based organization of copper-exporting nations. There is one other hardship street vendors all face: the Swiss bank executives lured him away from that job to cost of acquiring merchandise to sell. In many cases, become the CEO of an engineering company owned by such goods are brought into Mexican ports in large ship- the bank. By the age of 39 he was financially indepen- ping containers, off-loaded at the docks, and then trucked dent and no longer had to work, so he decided to return to their destination. We are not talking about single cig- to Peru. arettes or packs of gum here, but huge items like washing As he walked down the busy streets of Lima one day, machines, furniture, stoves and refrigerators, toilets, he observed the intense commercial activities of the stalls sinks, bathtubs, and all kinds of building supplies — the selling everything under the sun: food, building supplies, sort of goods known as fayuca, the old Spanish buccaneer appliances, equipment, car parts, etc. All of these stalls term for bootlegged goods or contraband. The cost of were illegal, yet they were supporting entire extended purchasing such items is significantly higher than it families. A short distance outside the capital he saw innu- would be for established stores or companies. merable squatter shacks; they, too, were illegal despite With all these disincentives in mind, I asked these the fact that tens of thousands of families lived in them. entrepreneurs whether they would prefer to be officially In 1983 he began to study these “micro-businesses”
JULY-AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 65 to loan sharks for their financing. The next step was for the banks to Until fairly recently, the formalize the phase of the project that was to grant short-term credits economic activity of and loans. Unfortunately, at this point de Soto broke with President street vendors was not Fujimori because of his refusal to enact democratic reforms of Peru’s counted as part of political process, and not long after- ward, Fujimori was ousted as presi- Mexico’s gross domestic dent and forced into exile. As a result, de Soto’s credit reforms have product. not yet been implemented in Peru, but he has turned his attention abroad. Several major politicians have contacted him in the past sever- al years to discuss implementing his and concluded that the traditional ideas, including President Hosni Marxian analysis, which saw the Mubarak of Egypt, former President poor as exploited proletarians rather Joseph Estrada of the Philippines, than budding capitalists, was, at President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of best, inadequate and, at worst, mis- Haiti, several African presidents, and leading. True, they are exploited the president of the World Bank, and discriminated against, not by James Wolfensohn. greedy capitalist bosses but by the As de Soto has consistently point- legal system itself, which leaves them ed out, by changing their legal system at the mercy of corrupt officials and to recognize micro-businesses, gov- venal moneylenders. Nevertheless, ernments are simply acknowledging he recently calculated that the assets something that already exists and of the world’s poor exceed nine tril- functions. He calls the current sys- lion dollars, which is 20 times the tem “legal apartheid” and points out total amount of direct foreign invest- that the major difference between www.stayatresidenceinn.com/ ment in the Third World. the developed and developing world embassyevacuees In 1986, de Soto wrote a book set- is that in the former realm, legal ting forth these conclusions, The titles, property rights, and business Other Path, which made him well- licenses are taken for granted at all known throughout Latin America. levels of society. In developing coun- When Alberto Fujimori became tries, only the upper and middle president of Peru in 1990, de Soto classes are able to acquire titles and became one of his top advisers. Soon pay taxes. 1.6 million of the country’s 2.3 million Clearly, the change will take time illegal buildings were registered and and effort to implement on a practi- titled. For the first time in Peru’s his- cal level. The initial process of tory, this type of asset could be used assigning title to individual owners, as collateral by the poor to finance and resolving the inevitable spate of the start of a small business or to ownership disputes, will be tricky. meet the needs of an ongoing one. In (This is especially true because many addition, 280,000 formerly illegal of the beneficiaries of the change lack businesses were made legal so that education or even literacy, and are their owners didn’t have to pay cor- used to operating in the shadows.) rupt cops or greedy politicians any But in countries like Mexico where more bribes. Nor did they have to go the state already owns all land, trans-
66 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/JULY-AUGUST 2003 Whether classified as the “parallel economy,” the “informal sector,” or “micro-business,” the working poor’s output is substantial.
ferring titles should be relatively simple. It will also be crucial to simplify the labyrinthine requirements for obtaining deeds, titles and licenses and complying with the regulations governing business activity, to make compliance easier and less costly, particularly for those who can least afford to do so.
A Revolution from Below Existing businesses will be sure to object to any steps that make life eas- ier for street vendors, contending that they already underprice them thanks to lower operating expenses (for example, their electricity is often stolen from power lines) and boot- legged goods. This concern is cer- tainly understandable, but given the huge disparity in scale of economic activity and the strong constituency for keeping established businesses going, such small owners are not likely to have a major impact. But even if they did, some special con- sideration by the government to legitimate retail shop owners would level the playing field. Similarly, there will be political and social conflict because all those who currently profit from the sys- tem will suddenly be denied their ill-gotten gains. In particular, the
JULY-AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 67 police, some politicians and union long hours they put in with only the officials, and moneylenders will be most limited tools. Imagine how pre-empted because the poor will no It is likely that Mexico much more productive they could be longer be dependent upon them. if they had legal title to what they However, to implement what is tanta- would not need foreign own, like land and buildings and mount to a social revolution will give houses, and could collateralize those whatever political administration investment at all if it assets for financing. implements it enormous power and While he was still governor of the credibility with the people. could turn its state of Guanajuato, before being Why? It means that poor people elected president of Mexico in 2000, who work at their own businesses — “dead capital” into Vicente Fox consulted closely with perhaps five to 10 million people in Hernando de Soto about his ideas. As Mexico — will no longer have to live money for growth. a businessman, Fox was already sym- in fear that they will be discovered, pathetic to de Soto’s approach and thrown off their land, have their busi- well-equipped to implement it. Yet ness disrupted or closed down, and be even though de Soto has consistently denied the commercial tools they their lives, they will be legitimate warned that the process takes from 10 need to make a living. With legal title businesspeople with all of the rights to 15 years to carry out, President Fox as collateral, they should be able to and prerogatives due them. has done little to start. So the ques- secure loans at current rates like any It is likely that Mexico would not tion is: when will Mexico begin? other businessperson. With proper need foreign investment at all if it It is long past time for the Mexican documentation, they should be able could turn its “dead capital” into government to put into practice its to transfer assets to heirs. In short, money for growth. After all, Mexicans recognition that micro-businesses they will be able to sleep better at are already respected around the not only exist but benefit the nation- night because, for the first time in world for how hard they work and the al economy. Doing so will bring in additional public tax revenues, which are badly needed to finance schools, health services, and other social services for the working poor. Last fall, Hernando de Soto’s new book, The Mystery of Capital, was published. It has sold 100,000 copies in Peru alone and is currently being translated into a dozen lan- guages. De Soto has a wonderful metaphor for his work as an econo- mist: in Bali, when you cross onto someone else’s property, a different dog barks. He says his job is to trans- late those barks onto paper so that people can use these documents pro- ductively. The same is true for USAID and the other international development agencies operating throughout the Third World. Until they learn the cul- ture of the streets and how the lives of the working poor really function, and encourage governments to act on that knowledge, their aid and loans won’t benefit those who need help the most. ■
68 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/JULY-AUGUST 2003 BOOKS
The Problem sometimes acts like a cowboy in cer- “When you have tain situations, he maintains that in of Nails general, America is a benign cowboy a hammer,” — in other words, a sheriff, trying to Of Paradise and Power keep the peace. Robert Kagan, Alfred A. Knopf, 2003, Kagan quotes a Or, to use another of Kagan’s analo- $18.00, hardcover, 103 pages. British critic, “all gies, the U.S. is from Mars, respond- ing to threats with military force, and REVIEWED BY PAULO ALMEIDA problems start to Europe is from Venus, responding “through engagement and seduction, “A vulgar extravagance...” When look like nails.” through commercial and political ties, Europe’s top diplomat — E.U. Com- through forbearance and patience.” missioner for External Affairs Chris Indeed, throughout the book he Patten — says that about an analysis of seems to reduce threat perception to a transatlantic relations, then the analyst simple function of response capability, (like a good clinician) must have been for all their economic strength, can- or lack thereof. “When you have a probing a sore spot. not. Besides representing a compet- hammer,” Kagan quotes a British crit- Published in February, Of Power ing model, the American predilection ic, “all problems start to look like and Paradise is an elaboration of an to resort to military might to settle nails.” Choosing which nails need hit- essay Robert Kagan wrote last sum- conflicts also implicitly reminds the ting, as was the case in the first Persian mer for Policy Review which sought to Europeans that their present paradise Gulf War in 1991 and in Kosovo in explain why the U.S. and the E.U. was only made possible by the applica- 1999, is the unaddressed challenge in approach international problems dif- tion of large doses of U.S. military the transatlantic relationship. ferently. So what is it that Kagan said power, first to destroy Nazi Germany, Disappointingly, Kagan’s slim vol- that provoked Patten’s decidedly then to contain the Soviet Union. This ume tells only half the story. He ded- undiplomatic comment to the Fin- disparity in power is at the root of the icates himself largely to analyzing the ancial Times in March? differences between the U.S. and preconditions and consequences of Truth be told, it could have been Europe on the best way to deal with the lack of power in Europe, giving any number of things, but I suspect terrorism and other threats. less attention to the analysis of how the final straw was Kagan’s assertion One of Kagan’s many droll (and and why the U.S. wields its over- that Europe’s common foreign policy possibly even “vulgar”) analogies for whelming military force … rather is the most “anemic” of the European the two sides’ respective perceptions ironic for a book about “paradise and Union’s institutions. That sounds like of such threats is a Wild West town power.” For example, Kagan simplis- fightin’ words, but that’s Kagan’s point: where the U.S. is the sheriff and tically implies that there is a uniform the Europeans won’t fight. Europe tends the bar. “Outlaws American response to external threats, Or, to put it more precisely, they shoot sheriffs, not saloonkeepers,” heedless of possible internal con- have chosen instead to follow the path Kagan observes. “In fact, from the straints (e.g., political opposition, eco- of incremental economic integration, saloonkeeper’s point of view, the nomic costs, body-bag syndrome, pub- which is the E.U.’s model for interna- sheriff trying to impose order by lic indifference, isolationism) on the tional conflict resolution. force can sometimes be more threat- continuing projection of American Ever since the end of the Cold War, ening than the outlaws, who, at least power around the globe. Kagan contends, the U.S. has been for the time being, may just want to Still, despite such shortcomings, Of able to project power around the buy a drink.” But while Kagan grants Paradise and Power is a thoughtful, world unchallenged; the Europeans, the European complaint that the U.S. sometimes witty, description of why so
J ULY-AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE J OURNAL 69 B OOKS
many Europeans react the way they were chosen to represent a variety of that the entrepreneur seeks autonomy do to their American allies. economic circumstances from robust in his dealings with the state and that markets to struggling backwaters. Part achievement of autonomy is part of Paulo Almeida was an FSO from 1985 of the survey had been used in Taiwan, the path to political change. In reality, to 1992, serving in Lisbon, Oporto, where it demonstrated that entrepre- in market economies we often see Harare and Washington, D.C. Since neurs were indeed agents for political Western businesses establish govern- 1992, he has been an international change. ment affairs offices to engage in influ- affairs specialist at the U.S. Environ- The survey results make clear that ence peddling and attempt to influ- mental Protection Agency. today’s Red Capitalists come from a ence policy. Prof. Dickson’s survey variety of backgrounds. Some are suggests that contrary to theory, Communist Party officials who quit increased embeddedness, not greater It Is Glorious the party to start a business, some are autonomy, is the current preferred self-made entrepreneurs. On the path for the successful businessper- to Be Rich emerging belief structure of Chinese son. He concludes that these shared entrepreneurs, the survey finds that all interests make it “less likely that entre- Red Capitalists in China: engage in some charitable activities, preneurs will serve as agents of politi- The Party, Private Entrepreneurs, with businesspeople from the poorest cal change…” and Prospects for Political Change counties more supportive of local civic That conclusion may be prema- Bruce J. Dickson, Cambridge activities than those in richer counties. ture. For one thing, at this stage in University Press, 2003, $65.00 Dickson concludes that the local China’s development, government (hardcover), $23.00 (paperback), entrepreneur is providing common policy is decidedly business-friendly, 187 pages. goods that a poorly funded local gov- so there is little incentive for friction. ernment cannot supply. In addition, Dickson’s data indicates REVIEWED BY DAVID REUTHER Crucial to the Western theoretical that entrepreneurs strongly favor the debate about entrepreneurs and the government’s policy of more transpar- Western political scientists have road to pluralism and democracy is ent laws and regulations instead of the long noticed that wealth and educa- their ability to influence government traditional Chinese personalized way tion, and a few other variables, corre- policy. So the survey queried entre- of doing business. late with the development of democra- preneurs and officials on the efficacy One pending test of the current cy. As Barrington Moore succinctly of business organizations, examining business-government relationship will put it, “no bourgeoisie, no democracy.” whether these associations are respon- be China’s implementation of its Since the late 1980s, scholars have sive to businesspeople or merely WTO responsibilities. We can expect been studying economic reforms and organs of control by the Leninist Chinese entrepreneurs to support the resurgence of private entrepre- authorities. Strikingly, almost 70 per- WTO rules which, in their eyes, help neurs in China. Acknowledging the cent of the businesspeople believe the economy to grow — but if the gov- role of entrepreneurs, the Communist business associations can influence ernment, or the local entrepreneurs, Party accepted businesspersons into its policy, whereas 75 percent of the gov- want to be more protectionist, there ranks in 2001. Red Capitalists in ernment officials responded that busi- may come a parting of the ways, open- China: The Party, Private Entre- ness associations cannot influence pol- ing a new path to political change. preneurs, and Prospects for Political icy. The survey also indicates that the All in all, Dickson’s findings will be Change is based on research Professor likelihood of a convergence of inter- disconcerting to those who seek to Bruce Dickson carried out to test ests between the state and business portray China in totalitarian terms and whether these “Red Capitalists” will be associations rises with economic confounding to those Chinese conser- agents of future political reform as for- development. Entrepreneurs in the vatives and Western liberals who want eign liberals assume and Chinese con- most developed counties were much to label the Red Capitalists a prima servatives fear. more likely to agree that their business facie agent of change. ■ He conducted surveys in 1997 and associations represented the govern- 1999 of entrepreneurs and Chinese ment’s point of view than those in the David Reuther, a retired Foreign government officials in eight widely less developed counties. Service officer, is a member of the scattered counties. These counties Western political theory assumes AFSA Governing Board.
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JULY-AUGUST 2003/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 75 REFLECTIONS A Peaceful Sunday in Guanajuato
BY JOHN J. ST. JOHN
The year was 1962. The place was After the show, I wandered around the Teatro Juárez, a tiny, century-old That day in the Jardín Unión, the triangle-shaped jewel of an opera house in the colonial plaza adjacent to the Teatro. As I Mexican city of Guanajuato. Guanajuato passed the theater, the three singers On leave from my first Foreign introduced me to a emerged together from the front Service posting as vice consul in indus- entrance. Reflexively, I checked my try-rich Monterrey, I had set out to see world of musical shirt pocket. Yes, the concert program the “real Mexico.” At the recommen- pleasure that was still there. It would be easy to dation of several Mexican friends, I walk up and ask the three to autograph put Guanajuato, a hidden gem and, in brightened the my program. But wouldn’t that be a bit its day, the source of more than half subsequent 40 years. undignified? I was a vice consul of the the world’s silver, at the top of my list. United States, for God’s sake. And As the guide proudly showed us the wouldn’t I be invading their privacy? gold-leaf and red-velvet richness of So I walked away. Big mistake! the Teatro, he noted sadly that it now I wondered then, and for a couple remained dark most of the year. He of years thereafter, if what my added, however, that the following day best, part of the recital, each of the untrained ears had heard that day was would bring an opportunity to see the three took turns at the piano while one really as good as I thought. I decided theater come to life as three young or both of the others sang from a gen- I would commit the performers’ opera singers from Mexico City’s erous selection of the best known arias names to memory, just in case one of Conservatory were coming to give a and duets in the popular repertoire, them might some day make it to “the one-time concert. including much of the first act of “La big time.” One of the three, Javier I almost didn’t go. My vacation Boheme,” the glorious duet from “The (stage name “Franco”) Iglesias, was time was limited, and my appreciation Pearl Fishers” and many, many more. from Monterrey, and thus already of opera nearly nonexistent. And I And the voices! I had never heard familiar. The name of the other male thought, in my gringo complacency, such singing! No one was protecting singer, the one I thought was perhaps how good could three unknowns from their voice or giving a minimal effort even better than Iglesias, would have Mexico City be? How good indeed! to a provincial audience. To the con- been harder to remember, but luckily The performance the following day trary, they sometimes put the crystal I noticed it could — by stretching a was spectacular! lamps at the rear of the auditorium at point — be translated into English as During the first, and for me the serious risk. The atmosphere in the “Peaceful Sunday.” theater was electric. For over two That day in Guanajuato introduced Jack St. John began his Foreign hours the public and performers fed me to a world of musical pleasure that Service career in Monterrey in 1961, off each other. The three artists were brightened the subsequent 40 years. and retired as director of Mexican obviously enjoying every moment, and And although I don’t have an auto- Affairs in 1989. He also served in we in the audience were ecstatic. graphed program to show off to London, Managua and Geneva, and After intermission, they staged — in friends, I do have one helluva good held two office directorships in the its brief entirety — Gian Carlo cocktail party story and the knowledge Economic Affairs Bureau. The stamp Menotti’s “The Telephone.” The that I was one of the very first is courtesy of the AAFSW Bookfair standing ovation at the end was long Norteamericanos to be enthralled by “Stamp Corner.” and heartfelt. the voice of Plácido Domingo. ■
76 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/JULY-AUGUST 2003 AFSAAmerican Foreign ServiceNEWS Association • July-August 2003
FOREIGN AFFAIRS DAY This Issue in Brief: AFSA Hosts Retirees and NEWS BRIEFS: Adds Names to Plaque AFSA MEDICARE SUCCESS ...... 2 DAY ON THE HILL...... 4 undreds of Foreign DISSENT AWARD WINNERS...... 5 Service retirees came PERFORMANCE AWARD WINNERS ..6 Htogether for Foreign ACHIEVEMENT AWARD WINNERS ....8 Affairs Day 2003, a day of VOLUNTEER AWARD WINNERS...... 9 homecoming ceremonies and SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS...... 10 briefings celebrated on May 9. THE FS TRIBE ...... 12 AFSA’s main event tied to A NEW START...... 13 Foreign Affairs Day was the dedication of six new names to JAY MALLIN the AFSA Memorial Plaque in Secretary of State Colin Powell dedicates this year’s additions to honor of Foreign Service mem- the AFSA Memorial Plaque. bers who died in the line of duty, a solemn LIFETIME CONTRIBUTIONS TO AMERICAN DIPLOMACY reminder of the danger and hardship that can be part of a Foreign Service career. AFSA George Shultz also hosted a ceremony during Foreign Affairs Day to bestow Merit Awards on tal- FSA is honored to present the 2003 AFSA Award for ented Foreign Service students (see page 10). Lifetime Contributions to American Diplomacy to for- Foreign Affairs Day began with a keynote Amer Secretary of State George Shultz. Previous recip- address by Director General Ruth A. Davis ients of this award were U. Alexis Johnson, Frank Carlucci, that included her reading of a presidential George H.W. Bush, Lawrence Eagleburger, Cyrus Vance, proclamation. (The full text of President David Newsom and Lee Hamilton. “His is a name that the Bush’s message is posted on the AFSA Web American people connect with selfless public service and solid site at www.afsa.org.) The day concluded with integrity,” Secretary of State Colin Powell said about Shultz, an informal reception at AFSA headquarters “a name that is synonymous with American statesmanship, offering a chance for retirees to relax and catch a name that people all over the world recognize and which up with old friends. they associate with principled international engagement.” AFSA also took advantage of the pres- Shultz was a beloved Secretary of State from 1982 to 1989, one who always looked out ence of the retirees in Washington to host for the interests of the Foreign Service and all State Department employees. our third annual Day on the Hill on May Secretary Powell is scheduled to present the award to George Shultz at the AFSA Award 8 (see page 4). Ceremony on June 26 in the Department of State’s Benjamin Franklin Diplomatic Reception Room. All of this year’s awards will be presented at this ceremony. (See the interview Memorial Plaque Ceremony with Secretary Shultz in the June Foreign Service Journal, p. 47. Articles about the Dissent This year, the AFSA Memorial Plaque Award winners and the Exemplary Performance Award winners start on page 5 of this Ceremony was held in front of the plaque issue of AFSA News. Look for coverage of the awards ceremony in the September in the C St. lobby before a gathering of some AFSA News.) Continued on page 5 Continued on page 3 AFSANEWSBRIEFS
New Staff at AFSA AFSA Achieves AFSA welcomed two new staff members in May, Steven Tipton and Bonnie Brown. Steven has joined the AFSA staff as our Success for Retirees accounting assistant. He is a graduate of the University of South AFSA has been urging State to give Foreign Service retirees the same Alabama and currently enrolled at the University of Maryland as annuity deduction options as Civil Service retirees. We have had success an accounting major. on this for AFSA dues, CFC donations, long-term care premiums and sav- Bonnie Brown has taken over responsibilities for AFSA liaison ings bonds. What was still pending until recently was Medicare B premi- with retirees as the retiree activities coordinator. Bonnie is an ums, which required more software. The condition from Medicare was attorney and Foreign Service spouse with many years of distin- that at least 20 annuitants had to request it. AFSA put the word out to guished service overseas. retirees, which resulted in 50 requests to State. Because of this, State will soon offer such allotments. AFSA is pleased to have achieved this success on behalf of current — AFSA Building Constituency and future — retirees. for the Foreign Service The mission of the Fund for American Diplomacy, a nonprofit organization coordinated by AFSA, is to build a domestic constituen- Life in the Foreign Service cy for the Foreign Service. It does this by conducting outreach and ■ BY BRIAN AGGELER, FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER & CARTOONIST education programs throughout the U.S. For the first time in 2002, the FAD participated in the Combined Federal Campaign, the federal employee workplace fund drive. With reporting from 80 percent of the more than 430 individual campaigns that comprise the federal CFC, pledges to the FAD total $7,000. Of that, $5,000 came from the National Capital Area CFC (Washington, D.C.-area) while the remaining $2,000 was donated from folks across the U.S. and over- seas. Given that pledges are just that, the FAD should expect to receive about 80 percent of any pledge figure as individuals can stop their CFC deduction at any time (and for any reason, including change of employment). The CFC contributions to the FAD illustrate that there is an inter- est in supporting public affairs initiatives that stress the importance of America’s leadership role abroad. The FAD will continue to par- ticipate in the CFC and offer programs such as Elderhostel and AFSA’s Speakers Bureau. For more information on the Fund for American Diplomacy, con- tact Lori Dec at 1 (800) 704-2372, ext. 504 or [email protected]. “I SEE WHY THEY CALL IT THE PARIS OF FRANCE.” Briefs continued on page 12
AFSA HEADQUARTERS: Staff: Governing Board: Executive Director Susan Reardon: [email protected] (202) 338-4045; Fax: (202) 338-6820 PRESIDENT: John K. Naland STATE DEPARTMENT AFSA OFFICE: Business Department STATE VICE PRESIDENT: Louise K. Crane (202) 647-8160; Fax: (202) 647-0265 Controller Kalpna Srimal: [email protected] Accounting Assistant Steven Tipton: [email protected] USAID VICE PRESIDENT: Joe Pastic USAID AFSA OFFICE: FCS VICE PRESIDENT: Peter G. Frederick (202) 712-1941; Fax: (202) 216-3710 Labor Management General Counsel Sharon Papp: [email protected] FAS VICE PRESIDENT: Edwin Porter Labor Management Attorney Zlatana Badrich: [email protected] RETIREE VICE PRESIDENT: Robert W. Farrand AFSA Internet and E-mail addresses: Labor Management Specialist James Yorke: [email protected] AFSA WEB SITE: www.afsa.org USAID Senior Labor Management Advisor Douglas Broome: [email protected] SECRETARY: F.A. “Tex” Harris AFSA E-MAIL: [email protected] USAID Office Manager Suzan Reager: [email protected] TREASURER: Thomas D. Boyatt AFSA NEWS: [email protected] Grievance Attorneys Harry Sizer: [email protected], and Neera Parikh: [email protected] FSJ: [email protected] Office Manager Christine Warren: [email protected] STATE REPRESENTATIVES: Pamela Bates, PRESIDENT: [email protected] John P. Boulanger, George W. Colvin, STATE VP: [email protected] Member Services Roy Perrin, Lynn G. Sever, John Weis RETIREE VP: [email protected] Director Janet Hedrick: [email protected] Representative Lindsay Peyton: [email protected] USAID VP: [email protected] USAID REPRESENTATIVE: Woody Navin Administrative Assistant Ana Lopez: [email protected] FAS VP: [email protected] FCS REPRESENTATIVE: James Joy FCS VP: [email protected] Outreach Programs RETIREE REPRESENTATIVES: Retiree Liaison Bonnie Brown: [email protected] AFSA News Director of Communications Thomas Switzer: [email protected] William C. Harrop, David E. Reuther, Editor Shawn Dorman: [email protected] Congressional Affairs Director Ken Nakamura: [email protected] Richard C. Scissors, Theodore S. Wilkinson, III
How to Contact Us: to Contact How (202) 338-4045 x 503; Fax: (202) 338-8244 Corporate Relations/Executive Assistant Marc Goldberg: [email protected] Scholarship Director Lori Dec: [email protected] IBB REPRESENTATIVE: Vacant On the Web: www.afsa.org/news Professional Issues Coordinator Barbara Berger: [email protected] FAS REPRESENTATIVE: Eric Wenberg
2 AFSA NEWS • JULY-AUGUST 2003 FOREIGN AFFAIRS DAY Continued from page 1 among the attendees hon- 400 people. Secretary of State Colin oring the memory of Powell and USAID Administrator Andrew USAID FSO Laurence Natsios assisted AFSA President John Foley. Naland in dedicating six new names Secretary Powell, in his inscribed on the plaque. Five of the six died remarks, said: “It is fitting in years past but were honored now due to that these memorial the 2001 change in the criteria to include plaques grace our lobby. Foreign Service members who died over- They remind all of us who seas in the line of duty (in addition to the work here, and visitors previous criteria of “heroic or other inspi- from across the globe who JAY MALLIN rational circumstances”). This year’s hon- enter this hall, that ours is USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios speaks at the plaque cere- orees were: a mission of service: service mony. — Laurence Foley, USAID, Jordan 2002 to the nation, service to — Jerry Cook, State, Madagascar 1978 each other, service to mankind. ... It is also over the most recent 43 years another 141 — Richard Coulter, State, Iran 1975 a mission that frequently entails hardship, names have been added to the plaque — — Howard Funk Jr., State, Kenya 1972 and often, all too often, it is a mission that a rate of more than three a year. Since 1975, — Oscar Holder, USAID, Nepal 1962 carries great risks, for surely, as our fellow employees have been killed in 36 different — Sidney Jacques, USAID, Nepal 1962 Americans in uniform do, the dedicated countries. Among the guests at the ceremony were men and women of the Department of State the families and friends of these six Foreign family serve and sacrifice on the front lines Service members who paid the ultimate of freedom ... The men and women whose price for serving our country. AFSA names are etched before you ... did not President Naland extended to them AFSA’s expect to leave the people they loved so soon. sincere gratitude for the contributions that But on the day that they died, each one of their loved ones had made serving America. them got out of bed and set forth on their He also recognized the family members and chosen mission of service, service to their friends for the sacrifices that they had made fellow citizens and to the values that we hold and the pain that they had endured. The dear and share with the rest of the world, Jordanian ambassador to the U.S. was and service to the men, women and chil- dren of other lands whose hopes for a bet- ter future are linked to ours.” The AFSA Memorial Plaque ceremony received substantial coverage by the broad- cast media. CNN, MSNBC, and FOX car-
ried excerpts. NBC and ABC fed coverage JAY MALLIN for use by their local affiliates. C-SPAN Family members and guests at the plaque cer- Radio and Associated Press radio also broad- emony. cast the ceremony. AFSA warmly thanks Secretary Powell, The first memorial plaque was erected Director General Davis, and Foreign Affairs by AFSA in 1933 at a ceremony presided Day Coordinator Peter Whaley for helping over by Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson. to make the Memorial Plaque ceremony With this year’s additions, the AFSA such a success. Thanks also go to the fol- Memorial Plaque honors a total of 215 fall- lowing AFSA staff: Executive Director en colleagues. The first, William Palfrey, was Susan Reardon, Executive Assistant Marc chosen by the Continental Congress in 1780 Goldberg, Professional Issues Coordinator to serve as Consul General in France, but Barbara Berger, Legislative Affairs Director was lost at sea en route to post. During the Ken Nakamura, Communications Director
JAY MALLIN following 180 years, 73 other Americans died Tom Switzer, and legislative intern Suzanne New names added to the memorial plaque. while serving abroad in foreign affairs. Sadly, Sivertsen. ▫
JULY-AUGUST 2003 • AFSA NEWS 3 DAY ON THE HILL AFSA Members Go to the Hill BY ASGEIR SIGFUSSON, PUBLIC AFFAIRS INTERN
group of approximately 50 Foreign ings, the group boarded a bus and head- provided a sympathetic ear. Frederic Service retirees, AFSA Governing ed to the Hill. Baron, a member of Maryland Demo- ABoard officials and AFSA staff made The first stop was the Senate Foreign cratic Senator Barbara Mikulski’s staff, was the journey to Capitol Hill on May 8. This Relations Committee hearing room in the especially enthusiastic receiving the AFSA was AFSA’s third annual Day on the Hill Dirksen Senate Office Building. Brian delegation, since he had been a Foreign event, timed to coincide with the visit of McKeon (Democratic Chief Counsel for Service officer himself. He emphasized many State Department retirees to the Foreign Relations Committee and a the senator’s support for the Foreign Washington for Foreign Affairs Day. The staffer for Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del.) Service and its concerns, but warned that day was a great success. Following a rough addressed the group and answered ques- because of a potentially “ugly budget year” start in 2001, when Day on the Hill took tions. He welcomed the AFSA members ahead, increased budget allocations might place on Sept. 11, this event has become one and thanked them for the dedication that be hard to come by. The AFSA delega- of AFSA’s highest-profile efforts to increase they had shown throughout their careers. tion visiting Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., its visibility and secure con- gressional support for leg- islative initiatives of greatest importance to the FS. The AFSA delegation went to speak to lawmakers about the administration’s Fiscal Year 2004 budget request for international affairs as well as other pro- fessional and bread-and-but- ter issues. The group urged increased funding for secur- ing “soft targets” abroad. Retired FSO Bruce Byers and other retirees arrive at Capitol Hill (left). There has been progress AFSA Governing Board members and retirees are briefed by a Senate Foreign making U.S. embassies more Relations Committee staffer. secure, but less has been done to provide security for members of He then discussed the recent agenda of both was pleased when his office promised the Foreign Service and their families when the committee as well as the Senate itself. strong support on the issue of securing not on the embassy or consulate grounds. McKeon acknowledged that in the post- soft targets. The tragic October 2002 murder of USAID Sept. 11 era, there is a natural increase in Overall, the AFSA Day on the Hill par- employee Laurence Foley in Amman, awareness of foreign affairs and diploma- ticipants received a positive and support- Jordan, while standing in his driveway, fur- cy, which could lead to further funding in ive reception and left the Hill satisfied that ther illustrates the serious need for more some cases. However, he cautioned that their concerns were heard by those with the resources. the current situation does not look promis- power to address them. This year, the AFSA delegation includ- ing for further increases in foreign assistance Thanks go to AFSA’s Legislative ed members from Maryland, Virginia, the funding. Director Ken Nakamura, Legislative Affairs District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, Following McKeon’s speech, the Intern Suzanne Sivertsen, and Executive California, Idaho, Ohio, New York and AFSA group fanned out and met with 23 Assistant Marc Goldberg for the tremen- Florida. During a brunch at AFSA head- different congressional offices, including dous effort that made the visit a success. quarters, the participants received a brief- meetings with four members of the House AFSA will build on the success of this year’s ing, as well as talking points, from AFSA of Representatives. The AFSA groups visit to Congress to ensure even greater suc- on key issues of concern for the Foreign were warmly received during their meet- cess on the legislative front in the coming Service. Following the preparatory meet- ings, and many members of Congress year. ▫
4 AFSA NEWS • JULY-AUGUST 2003 AFSA’S 2003 DISSENT AWARD WINNERS These awards publicly recognize individuals who have demonstrated the courage to challenge the system from within.
Christian A. Herter Award The W. Averell Harriman Award FOR A SENIOR-LEVEL FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER FOR A FOREIGN SERVICE JUNIOR OFFICER James B. Warlick, June H. Kunsman, Dean Kaplan Kim Marie Gendin, Natasha Franceschi uring his first tour in the Foreign Service, Dean Kaplan exercised his right to dissent in a bold and professional Dmanner, and he got results. In late 2000, the government of Nigeria offered a 48-hour win- dow of opportunity for the U.S. to take custody of four criminal suspects whose extradition the U.S. had been seeking for over five years. The U.S. government accepted the offer, pleased to take cus- tody of the suspects, even though the full legal extradition process was not completed. First-tour officer Dean Kaplan questioned the wisdom of circumventing the judicial extradition process, asking how expediency in the area of law enforcement could be reconciled Left to right: Vice Consul Natasha Franceschi, Deputy Consul General with the mission’s June Kunsman, Consul General James Warlick and Consul Kim Gendin. explicit commit- member of Congress invited Dragomir Karic, a Serb resident ment, stated in the in Moscow, to attend the February 2003 National Prayer Mission ABreakfast in Washington. When Karic applied for a visa at Performance Plan, Embassy Moscow, the visa was denied. Karic had been a key aide to help Nigeria to then-President Slobodan Milosevic; he and his family were on a build greater European Union list of people — a list including the Milosevic fam- respect for the rule ily and other war criminals — banned from entering E.U. coun- of law. tries. Karic’s name was also in the visa lookout system. Kaplan worked The congressman did not take no for an answer, and began to put his way through the embassy chain pressure on the State Department to expedite processing and to issue Dean Kaplan in Ghana. the visa. Pressure to issue was then put on the Embassy Moscow con- of command, sular section, under the leadership of Consul General James Warlick, arguing that in this case, the goal of combating narcotics trafficking from several bureaus in the department, including by senior-level per- and international crime conflicted with its goal of promoting the sonnel. rule of law, due process and respect for human rights. He then James Warlick, Deputy Consul General June Kunsman, Consul drafted a dissent cable arguing for a change of policy that would Kim Marie (Gendin) Sonn, and Vice Consul Natasha Franceschi — emphasize legal extradition as the means of access to criminal sus- working together and in agreement — sent a message back to pects in Nigeria. Before sending the cable, he sought the advice of Washington stating that “someone may want to check further into the principal officer, who encouraged Kaplan to hold the cable until Karic’s background (and) carefully consider whether authorization is the arrival of the incoming ambassador. Kaplan did so, and then warranted. Post is not in a position to recommend authorization.” discussed the issue with the newly-arrived ambassador. He The Consular Affairs Bureau in the department supported Embassy informed him of his discontent with the policy and suggested that Moscow’s position, but further urging to issue the visa came to the he seek the opinions of the law enforcement community, the for- embassy from another bureau. Still the embassy refused, a decision mer chargé and others, before reaching a conclusion. The ambas- subsequently upheld by the Department of Justice. sador convened a meeting, during which Kaplan argued his posi- Embassy Moscow’s consular officials stood firm in their commit- tion. The ambassador decided the mission would make the case to ment to upholding the law and protecting U.S. security interests in Washington that the U.S. government should reject such renditions, the face of strong pressure to disregard both. It is well-known within while urging reform toward legal extraditions. the Foreign Service that many members of Congress routinely ques- By the time the Nigerian authorities offered up three more sus- tion visa decisions made by consular officers around the world and pects for rendition, a new policy was in place and the offer was often urge reversal of a visa denial if they have an interest in a particu- rejected. While there was considerable dissatisfaction in some lar case. Consular officers respond to these inquiries with profession- quarters with the new policy, the clear U.S. stance that judicial extra- alism, and each case is reviewed on its merits. The handling of the ditions were the only route to stronger bilateral law enforcement Karic case by officials of the Embassy Moscow consular section fur- cooperation focused Nigerian attention on the importance of ther illustrates the integrity that is present in our consular corps. adhering to the rule of law. By 2002, the first judicial extradition James Warlick is minister counselor for consular affairs and con- from Nigeria had been accomplished. sul general in Moscow. Previous posts include Bonn, Manila, Dhaka, “The outcome would not have been possible,” says Kaplan, and Washington, where positions included special assistant to “without the open-minded and flexible management of Secretary of State Eagleburger and a stint on the executive secretariat Ambassador Howard Jeter, Chargé Nancy Serpa, PO/DCM Tim of the Operations Center. Kim Marie Sonn joined the Foreign Andrews, Political Counselor John Bauman, and the support — Service in 1997 and has served in Shanghai and Sarajevo. Natasha whether in agreement or disagreement — of many colleagues in Franceschi was a Presidential Management Intern at State before join- Abuja and Lagos.” ing the Foreign Service. Embassy Moscow is her first Foreign Service Kaplan is part of a tandem couple with his wife, Crystal. They posting. June Kunsman has served in Mexico City, San Jose, Krakow, have one daughter. His next posting is to Kathmandu. Islamabad and Washington. Dissent Awards • Continued on page 6
JULY-AUGUST 2003 • AFSA NEWS 5 AFSA’S 2003 EXEMPLARY PERFORMANCE AFSA’S 2003 DISSENT AWARD WINNERS AWARD WINNERS Continued from page 5 These awards honor exemplary performance and extraordinary contributions to effectiveness, professionalism and morale. The Tex Harris Award FOR A FOREIGN SERVICE SPECIALIST Delavan Award Charles A. O’Malley FOR A FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICE MANAGEMENT SPECIALIST harles O’Malley served in New Delhi, India, from 1999 to 2002 as the information programs supervisor. He also Laura Baer Cserved the community as the AFSA representative at this er dedication, interpersonal grace and professional excel- large embassy, and it is in that position that he was instrumental lence have sustained this post during the most trying in calling attention to the serious and deleterious work environ- “Htimes,” writes Embassy Islamabad’s economic counselor. ment and poor morale at post. His activism led to improvement “She is an extraordinary example for all of us in the Foreign Service in the situation. and her performance in As an active AFSA rep, O’Malley kept his finger on the pulse Islamabad warrants extraordi- of staff morale. He kept his constituents informed by setting up nary recognition.” an AFSA page on the embassy’s Web site, which fast became a During two of the most well-appreciated source of useful information. Embassy New challenging years ever for Delhi was already one of the busiest missions in the world before Embassy Islamabad — includ- it became a front-line ing the aftermath of 9/11, state in the war against Operation Enduring Freedom terrorism. In the fall in neighboring Afghanistan, of 2001, following the two war scares with India, the arrival of a new chief March 2002 terrorist attack on of mission, embassy a church that took the lives of morale began a dra- two members of the embassy matic decline. community, and several evacu- Demands from the ations (including evacuation Laura Baer ambassador exacer- of her three children) — Charles O’Malley bated pressures Economic Section Office Management Specialist Laura Baer served as already imposed by a constant source of strength for the mission. As Pakistan was trans- the tense political climate. Some staff members requested their formed into a front-line state in the war on terrorism, Baer became tours of duty be cut short. Many of those that did not curtail the obvious choice for coordination of the flood of high-level visitors argued that the front office’s requests were diverting resources and 200 temporary-duty personnel. She worked day and night to and attention from more urgent tasks. The work environment support the numerous visits by the Secretary of State, the Secretary of deteriorated further. Defense, the Treasury Secretary and over 40 members of Congress. Out of concern for the staff and the impact poor morale was Baer played a central role in the embassy’s response to the tragic having on the mission’s ability to meet important national secu- church attack, serving as the de facto crisis secretariat, relaying infor- rity objectives, O’Malley alerted AFSA headquarters to the situa- mation to embassy staff and families and tracking down unaccount- tion. His action focused AFSA’s attention on what had largely ed-for staff. Embassy staff and families found comfort and strength been anecdotal evidence forwarded to AFSA via individual e- in her calm demeanor as news of the death of two members of the mails and phone conversations. He later briefed the Inspector embassy community came in and the full depth of the tragedy was General’s staff as well. realized. It was O’Malley’s balanced, non-polemical approach that Her extraordinary professional skills and performance attracted made the difference. It was clear he bore no personal grudge; his assignments usually reserved for FSOs. In 2001 and 2002, Baer coor- was an concerned but objective voice. When department staff dinated the Mission Program Plan review and drafted reporting went to post to investigate the actual state of morale, O’Malley cables relating to U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. She was an was one person every visitor needed to meet, and his voice was essential resource for newcomers to post, as she expertly oriented heard. them on everything from life in Islamabad to the drafting of cables. The department’s focus on New Delhi had an impact; work- Her carefully cultivated contacts in the Pakistani bureaucracy ensured ing conditions and morale improved. O’Malley credits AFSA that almost any appointment needed would be secured. with keeping him on track, “during a time when many others When the commissary was without American management due encouraged me to drop the issue for fear it would hurt my to the evacuations, Baer served as acting general manager and cut career.” This case serves as an example of how AFSA can help costs in response to sharply decreased business. Displaying creative focus the problems of individuals into a coherent call for change problem-solving skills and sensitivity to the needs of others, she for the whole mission, a call that management must answer. launched a successful charity drive to donate unused food to a local O’Malley has also served in Bujumbura and Singapore, and is orphanage. The commissary avoided a financial loss, the orphanage currently serving in Bridgetown. He was the AFSA representa- received needed assistance, and the embassy projected a positive tive in Singapore and is playing the same role in Bridgetown. He image to the local community. joined the Foreign Service as an information management spe- Baer joined the department 20 years ago, and has served in cialist in 1994 following 10 years as a U.S. Navy cryptologic tech- Damascus, Brussels, Khartoum, Rabat, Paris and Islamabad. Her nician. He tells us, “My career with the Department of State has next posting is Beirut. “I love my job,” says Baer, “and the people I been amazing and I cannot possibly imagine myself doing any- have worked with who are the very best of the Foreign Service. After thing else, anywhere else.” He and his wife Salvacion Agero all these years, I am as thrilled going to Beirut this summer as 20 years O’Malley have a 7-year-old son. ago when I went off to my first assignment in Damascus.”
6 AFSA NEWS • JULY-AUGUST 2003 AFSA’S 2003 EXEMPLARY PERFORMANCE AWARD WINNERS
Avis Bohlen Award M. Juanita Guess Award FOR A FOREIGN SERVICE FAMILY MEMBER FOR A COMMUNITY LIAISON OFFICER Bonnie Miller Joy Bacik escribed as “an elemental oy Bacik could not be a better and positive force of nature community liaison officer. Her Din the rocky Greek- Jindispensable support to the American landscape,” Bonnie Embassy Jakarta community during Miller has made a difference in the the longest-lasting drawdown from lives of countless women and children in Greece. She courageously Jakarta in five years serves as an illus- moved obstacles thought immovable in the war against human tration of the true and best meaning trafficking, and brought a warm light of empathy to thousands of the words “community liaison.” of families in Greece struggling with their children’s learning With little notice, Bacik was evacu- disabilities. ated from Jakarta along with all other Her interweaving of the personal and political, whether in a embassy family members and half of classroom or on Greek national television, has advanced the embassy staff. During the five-month evacuation, Bacik stood America’s interests in Greece in unexpected ways and beyond watch over the community from the Family Liaison Office in the the normal channels of conventional diplomacy. State Department. “Joy’s enthusiasm motivates everyone with whom Miller first became involved in efforts to end human traf- she comes in contact. I receive weekly testimonials from grateful ficking in Bosnia, and continued this involvement in Greece. evacuees and their family members still at post about the extent to Her 30-plus years as a psychotherapist and her skills as an edu- which their ability to withstand the months of separation is due large- cator, organizer and networker, have made her a truly effective ly to Joy’s great efforts,” says Ambassador Ralph Boyce in Jakarta. advocate for victims of trafficking. Miller’s efforts helped build In his nomination, the ambassador called Bacik “a superb com- the public momentum that lead to the successful passage of a municator, a staunch advocate, a creative planner, an enthusiastic tough new law to organizer, a terrific motivator, and a tremendously effective CLO prosecute human coordinator.” During months away from post, Bacik served as the traffickers. critical focal point in Washington for evacuees and for embassy staff Working on many still in Jakarta. She routinely telephoned and e-mailed evacuees fronts, Miller’s influ- wherever they were to check in, listen to their concerns and pass these ence has been broad. concerns on to the right people. In this way, many problems were As a psychotherapist solved before they turned into crises. Bacik wrote weekly newsletters who has worked with to the evacuee community to keep them informed and help them battered women, she with administrative processes. She organized town meetings and has assisted non- Embassy Athens volunteers with kids from the maintained a dialogue with department management and with the governmental organi- Ark, an organization that provides food, cloth- ambassador in Jakarta. zations in establishing ing, recreation, and education for refugee and Evacuations can be extremely stressful, especially when weeks and programs to help res- homeless children. months go by without a clear indication of when community mem- cued women. As an bers might return to post. Bacik was always ready to listen to individ- organizer and master networker, she has forged productive links ual concerns of evacuees and then to help them navigate the some- between NGO activists and Greek officials. As an educator, she has times overwhelming bureaucracy and unfamiliar territory of the State taught Greek college students about the problems of human traf- Department. ficking. As a noted personality with a high media profile in Greece, In April, the evacuation and as the ambassador’s wife, she has brought wider attention to the ended and Bacik returned to human trafficking issue. post to continue her impres- A strong advocate for children with learning problems, sive activities there. Her Bonnie Miller is a founding member of the Greek Institute for many other activities in the Study of Learning Disabilities and has mobilized educators Jakarta included facilitating and parents to actively seek to help children with learning dis- a teen-produced video on abilities. She wrote and produced a training video on learning life in Jakarta for the disabilities that has been distributed to educators and interested Overseas Briefing Center; parents through the Greek Ministry of Education and setting up an innovative UNESCO. She has also authored books on parenting and edu- Joy Bacik on a visit to the island of Bali. teen security program; cational reform, which have been translated into both Bosnian lining up informative and and Greek and distributed to thousands of educators in both entertaining lunchtime guest speakers; and developing a two-day countries, as well as in neighboring countries. orientation program for newcomers. “All of our Foreign Service posts have been interesting in Joy is married to Byron Bacik, the assistant regional security offi- their own unique ways and offered much opportunity for cer at the embassy. She was born in Malaysia and came to the U.S. in growth,” says Miller. She was the runner-up for the Bohlen 1989 to study music. She has a bachelor of music in piano perfor- Award in 2001 and 2002 for her work in Bosnia. Bonnie is mance from Pittsburg State University in Kansas and an MBA from married to Tom Miller, ambassador to Greece, and they have the same university. She has worked as a senior consultant for Cap been part of the Foreign Service family for 27 years, serving in Gemini Ernst and Young in Chicago. She was naturalized as a U.S. Chiang Mai, Sarajevo, Athens and Washington, D.C. citizen in 2001. Jakarta is her first Foreign Service posting.
JULY-AUGUST 2003 • AFSA NEWS 7 2003 AFSA ACHIEVEMENT AWARD WINNERS
AFSA Special AFSA Retired Member Achievement Achievement Award Award Richard (Dick) Thompson ichard (Dick) Thompson is a dedicated member of AFSA Mette Beecroft who has given of himself in the past and continues to give to he unifying theme in Mette Rthe association and to the Foreign Service. “I am very grate- Beecroft’s 33 years of ful to AFSA for this honor,” Dick said, on being named for the Mette Beecroft (right) with TForeign Service life (as both award. “My years of involvement with AFSA have made me spouse and employee) has been Alma Powell in May 2001. understand clearly the importance of the work of the association, advocacy for “quality of life” issues for FS employees and their fami- which many members of the Foreign Service do not seem to rec- lies. AFSA is honoring her with a special achievement award for her ognize.” countless efforts and achievements that have made life better for Following retirement in January 1988, Dick joined the AFSA members of the Foreign Service community. staff as coordinator for professional issues, a position he held until A quarter-century ago, as a board member of the Association of 2000. Throughout these 12 years, Dick’s service went far beyond American Foreign Service Women (now the Associates of the his part-time salary. American Foreign Service Worldwide, or AAFSW), Beecroft was a “Dick came to the driving force behind the creation of the Family Liaison Office and the office on an almost full- overseas Community Liaison Offices. A major AAFSW report — time basis although he based on a 6,000-person survey — proposed the opening of a family was only paid for a liaison office to half-time position,” Secretary of State Cyrus says AFSA Executive Vance in 1978, and Director Susan Beecroft was selected as Reardon. “I believe he the first deputy director did this due to his dedi- of the newly-created cation and love of both FLO. “As we had no the Foreign Service and specific instruction, it AFSA.” was up to Janet Lloyd As professional (the first FLO director) Beecroft, joined by Sec. Powell, presenting the issues coordinator, and me to shape the AAFSW/Secretary of State Awards for Dick’s chief responsibili- program,” Beecroft Outstanding Volunteerism in May 2002. ty was for the memorial says. plaque and awards pro- Over the next 15 years, accompanying her husband abroad, Dick Thompson grams. But he also Beecroft worked tirelessly and imaginatively to expand and organized speaker strengthen the FLO-CLO infrastructure. She served as CLO in lunches, served as acting scholarship administrator and develop- Bonn (1980-83) and in Brussels (1991-94), and as temporary ment director, helped establish AFSA’s speakers bureau and minor- CLO or CLO adviser in Cairo (1983-85), Ouagadougou (1988- ity internships in the State Department, and staffed AFSA elections. 91) and Amman (1994-96). After retiring from the AFSA staff, Dick has continued to serve Since 1996 Beecroft has been in Washington, D.C., where she has as a volunteer on the AFSA Election and Awards and Memorial served three terms as AAFSW president. She is now AAFSW presi- Plaque Committees. He also proofreads the Foreign Service dent-emerita. Wearing her AAFSW hat, she has worked with AFSA Journal each month, and his eye for detail and extensive knowl- on numerous initiatives, including scholarships, Elderhostel, legisla- edge of the Foreign Service and key personnel contribute signifi- tive initiatives and other programs. Since 2000 Beecroft has also cantly to the accuracy of the Journal. He continues to be a fount been a full-time employee of the State Department’s Transportation of knowledge – shared regularly and with good cheer — on the office, helping make the division more customer-friendly. history of AFSA and the Foreign Service for AFSA staff members. The winner of many previous awards, including the Department Dick was born in Spokane, Wash., in 1933, and grew up in of State Superior Honor Award, Beecroft cites the FLO/CLO “men- Pullman, Wash., home of Washington State University, where his tality” to explain her extraordinary career of outstanding dedication father was a professor of French and later Dean of the College of and energy in the service of FS families. “This mentality is character- Arts and Sciences. Dick received a B.A. in political science from ized by the will to safeguard and improve the quality of life for us all, WSU in 1955, an M.A. (Oxon.) from Oxford University in the patience to advocate for change no matter how tedious, the con- England as a Rhodes Scholar, and an M.A. in government from cern to provide people with individual, non-bureaucratic support Georgetown University. when they need it, and,” says Beecroft, “a sense of outrage in the face Following two years of service in the U.S. Army, Dick entered of situations, regulations or practices that are unacceptable and need the Foreign Service in 1960. Service included postings to Aruba, to be changed.” Curacao, Niamey, Saigon (two and one-half tours), Paris, Algeria Mette Beecroft attended Wellesley College and Middlebury and Washington, D.C. The highlights of his Foreign Service College, and received a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. career were participation in the Paris Peace Talks on Vietnam, Her husband, Robert Mason Beecroft, is currently serving as ambas- which led to the 1973 Paris Agreement, and supporting the talks sador and chief of mission at the OSCE in Sarajevo. The Beecrofts in Algiers that resulted in the freeing of the Tehran hostages in have two grown children, Pamela and Christopher. January 1981.
8 AFSA NEWS • JULY-AUGUST 2003 FOREIGN AFFAIRS DAY Secretary of State’s Volunteer AFSA Active-Duty Awards Achievement FSA congratulates the Award winners of the Associates Aof the American Foreign Cecile Shea Service Worldwide/Secretary of State’s Award for Outstanding s AFSA representative at Embassy Tel Aviv, Cecile Shea has been tire- Volunteerism Abroad. The Aless in her advocacy on behalf of winners were presented with embassy employees. Her term in Tel their awards by Secretary of State Aviv has coincided with a period of extreme tension in Israel: suicide Colin Powell during Foreign bombs have been frequent in residential neighborhoods and the intifada has reached all corners of the country. Issues of safety and Affairs Day on May 9. PAUL KOCSAK security have been paramount in the minds of members of the The volunteer winners Volunteer Award winners at the Foreign Service community in Israel, and they have relied on AFSA demonstrated a remarkable May 9 ceremony. Left to right: Frank Representative Shea to represent them with embassy management. commitment to their respective J. Weicks; Christopher Paul “Norman” Their trust was well placed. communities and showed that Bates; Kristine Luoma-Overstreet and When the U.S. was getting ready to go to war with Iraq and the Karie Ennis. State Department and post management were considering whether one person can make a differ- to authorize an evacuation, Shea ensured that the concerns of ence. The awards were created in 1990 by Susan Baker (wife of for- employees and of AFSA were heard. Her representation was effec- mer Secretary of State James A. Baker III), who was impressed by the tive, and evacuation was authorized. outstanding volunteer service performed by Foreign Service families She also worked with post management on a number of morale- boosting measures. These included successfully advocating for a sec- abroad and who wanted to ensure that it was recognized. ond R&R for employees on the grounds that they needed to get away The 2003 winners, by bureau, are: from the constant stress of life in Israel and that they needed to visit African Affairs: Christopher P. “Norman” Bates, Dakar family and friends who were not comfortable coming to Israel to see East Asian and Pacific Affairs: Frank J. Weicks, Chiang Mai European and Eurasian Affairs: Anne C. Bridgman, Prague South Asian Affairs: Karie Ennis, New Delhi Western Hemisphere Affairs: Kristine Luoma-Overstreet, Merida
CHRISTOPHER PAUL “NORMAN” BATES, DAKAR: An informa- tion management specialist, Norman Bates solicited sporting equipment from manufacturers and secured hundreds of dollars worth of balls, bats and gloves for poor Senegalese children. He also organized events for the West African Invitational Softball Tournament. FRANK J. WEICKS, CHIANG MAI: During his five years with the DEA in Chiang Mai, Frank Weicks supported a fledgling foster care program at a government orphanage by organizing a gala Cecile Shea and ARSOs Tony Neves and Laura Williams survey the dinner and auction that raised an unprecedented $10,000. He damage at the site of a suicide bombing near the embassy. served as vice chairman for the Foundation for the Education of Rural Children. He led fundraising efforts to build a preschool in them. This issue was of special concern for non-custodial parents. a remote Karen hill tribe village, to supplement basic education Shea also pushed for a danger pay allowance for employees, which was established. She also enlisted AFSA’s help to correct a long- with music and field trips and to provide volunteer medical pro- standing error in the calculation of Thrift Savings Plan payments to a fessionals for routine health care. He also wrote grants to Rotary class of diplomatic security agents. International to match retired teachers from the U.S. with com- Shea’s work to ensure that the evacuation policy taken during the munities in Thailand and to aid infants with poor vision. 1991 Gulf War — no evacuation was implemented — was not repeated in the 2003 Iraq War, and her other employee morale- ANNE C. BRIDGMAN, PRAGUE: Anne Bridgman helped organize building efforts had a positive impact on the whole mission. the Green Tree Early Learning Center for preschoolers making it Employees were confident that their interests were being taken into affordable for embassy families. She wrote the book Prague for consideration. As Shea moves on to another assignment, her advo- Kids, which provides a wealth of information in English for cacy has left a legacy. Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are seen as posts that take employee concerns seriously. This should help keep these cru- Prague’s non-Czech speaking population and generates profits for cial posts fully staffed. Continued on page 13
JULY-AUGUST 2003 • AFSA NEWS 9 2003 AFSA Merit Award Winners AFSA IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THE WINNERS OF THE 2003 Applications were received from 17 students for Merit Award competition. There were 27 Foreign the Art Merit Awards, each submitted in one of the Service high school seniors chosen to receive the awards following categories: visual arts, musical arts, drama, this year. The total amount awarded was $27,600. The dance or creative writing. Jacob Thielman was the one-time-only awards were bestowed during a cere- Art Merit winner for his piano submission. mony on Foreign Affairs Day on May 9. AFSA con- To date, four named Academic Merit scholar- gratulates these students for their academic and artis- ships have been established for the highest-scoring tic achievements. Winners received $1,500 awards and students in the competition. The named scholar- honorable-mention winners received $500 awards. ships are: Association of the American Foreign This year, 62 students competed for the 14 Service Worldwide Scholarship, John and Priscilla Academic Merit Awards. Applicants were judged Becker Family Scholarship, John C. Leary on their grade point average and Scholastic Scholarship, and Donald S. and Maria Giuseppa Art Merit Winner Assessment Test score, a two-page essay, two let- Spigler Scholarship. Jacob Thielman: son of Sara ters of recommendation, extracurricular activities, For more information on the AFSA Merit com- and Sam Thielman (State), and any special circumstances. A best essay win- petition, the AFSA Scholarship program, or how to graduate of Rosslyn Aca- ner (Sarah Taylor) and a community service win- establish a named scholarship, contact Lori Dec at demy, Nairobi, Kenya; attend- ing Wheaton College in ner (Jane Symington) were selected from the (202) 944-5504 or [email protected]. Please visit the AFSA Wheaton, Ill. Awarded for his Academic Merit Award applicants. Web site at www.afsa.org/scholar/index.cfm. piano performance.
Academic Merit Winners
Brandon Cook: son of Sabrina Christine Elliott: daughter of Matthew Keegan: son of Sally Jesse Laeuchli: son of Elizabeth Mariel Murray: daughter of (State) and Jeffrey Cook Angela and William Elliott Lindfors and David Keegan and Samuel Laeuchli (State); Vigdis Jacobsen and Jeffrey (State); graduate of American (USAID); graduate of G.C. (State); graduate of Thomas homeschooled in Chengdu, Murray (State); graduate of International School of Marshall High School, Falls Jefferson High School for China and Budapest, Hungary; American International School Budapest, Budapest, Hungary; Church, Va.; will be attending Science and Technology, will be attending University of of Lisbon, Sintra, Portugal; will will be attending Yale University of Virginia. Alexandria, Va.; will be attend- Notre Dame. be attending University of University. ing Williams College. Pennsylvania. Also AFSA Honorable Mention Art Award winner for flute.
Peter Quinzio: son of Connie Erica Schlaikjer: daughter of Julie Schwartz: daughter of Johanna Smyth: daughter of James Steele: son of Naiyana and Tom Quinzio (State); Imoi and Stephen Schlaikjer Ellen and Larry Schwartz Janice Sullivan Smyth (State) and Earl James Steele (State); graduate of HB Woodlawn (State); graduate of Watkins (State); graduate of Walter and Richard Smyth (State); graduate of Herndon High High School, Arlington, Va.; Mill High School, Gaithers- Johnson High School, graduate of American Inter- School, Herndon, Va.; will be will be attending Princeton burg, Md.; will be attending Bethesda, Md.; will be attend- national School of Kingston, attending Harvey Mudd University. Also AFSA Northwestern University. ing Brandeis University. Kingston, Jamaica; will be College in Claremont, Calif. Honorable Mention Art Award attending College of William winner for alto saxophone. and Mary.
10 AFSA NEWS • JULY-AUGUST 2003 PMA Donation to AFSA Scholarship Fund On the occasion of its 35th anniversary in May, the Public Members Association of the Foreign Service presented two $3,500 scholarship checks to AFSA to be awarded under AFSA’s Financial Aid Scholarship Program. These awards were given in memory of Dr. R. Gordon Hoxie, PMA president from 1973 to 1979, and in memory of the founding members of PMA. A Foreign Service child who is a college junior or senior majoring in foreign affairs will be the recipient of each Winning scholars at the May 9 ceremony. Back row, from left: James award. PMA mem- Steel, Michael Swigert, Jessica Barth, Jane Symington, Matthew bers sit on promotion Ambassador Ed Dillery accepts two scholarship Keegan. Front row, from left: Peter Booth, Sarah Wood, Julie Schwartz, panels of Foreign checks from PMA’s Nick Frankhouser and Odette Brock, and Christine Elliott. Service employees. Rita Johnston.
Michael Swigert: son of Nancy Jane Symington: daughter of Sarah Taylor: daughter of Sarah Wood: daughter of Neubert and James Swigert Susan and Stuart Symington Betsy and Dr. Brooks Taylor Cynthia (State) and Robert (State); graduate of Wash- (State); graduate of American (State); graduate of American Wood (State); graduate of ington-Lee High School, School of Niamey, Niamey, School, New Delhi, India; will Washington-Lee High School Alexandria, Va.; will be attend- Niger; will be attending Yale be attending Haverford in Arlington, Va.; will be ing Tufts University. University. Jane is also the College in Pennsylvania. attending Furman University AFSA Community Service Sarah is also the AFSA Best in Greenville, S.C. Award winner. Essay winner.
Academic Merit Honorable American School in Switzerland, Art Merit Honorable Mention Mariel Murray: Mariel won for her Best Essay Winner Mention Winners Montagnola, Switerland; will be Winners flute submission. Sarah Taylor: Peter Booth: son of Anita (State) attending Barnard College at Angela Garland: daughter of Gail and Donald Booth (State); grad- Columbia University. and Rick Garland (USAID); grad- Peter Quinzio: Peter won for his Sarah’s essay, entitled uate of McLean High School, uate of Academia Cotopaxi, alto saxophone submission. “Tinctures for a Gaping McLean, Va.; will be attending Jesse Robbins: son of Katrin and Quito, Ecuador; will be attend- Wound,” will be pub- University of Virginia. Gary Robbins (State); graduate ing Seattle Pacific University. Art Merit of St. Stephen’s School, Rome, Angela won for her vocal per- Special Commendation Winner lished in an upcoming William Hendrickson: son of Italy; will be attending Brown formance submission. Odette Brock: daughter of Odile issue of the Foreign Anne Derse (State) and Hank University. and Samuel Brock (State); grad- Service Journal. Hendrickson (State); graduate of Jessica Barth: daughter of Debbi uate of The Washington Lab International School of Brussels, Shayda Vance: daughter of and Philip Barth (State); gradu- School, Washington, D.C.; will be Brussels, Belgium; will be attend- Ladan Doorandish-Vance (State) ate of W. T. Woodson High attending Anne Arundel Community Service ing University of Virginia. and Anthony Vance (USAID); School, Arlington, Va.; will be Community College in Arnold, Winner graduate of Cairo American attending James Madison Md. Jane Symington Courtney Keene: daughter of College, Cairo, Egypt; will be University. Jessica won for her Sharon Cromer (USAID) and attending Harvard University. mixed-media (visual arts) sub- Arnold Sobers; graduate of The mission.
JULY-AUGUST 2003 • AFSA NEWS 11 V.P. VOICE: STATE ■ BY LOUISE CRANE AFSANEWSBRIEFS
The Foreign Service Tribe Continued from page 3
ecently an AFSA member wrote to question the custom AFSA Participates in of having FS employees serve as “duty officer,” the indi- “Michigan and the World” Rvidual on call to deal with weekend and after-hours emer- The U.S. Department of State, the gencies. Employees at overseas posts rotate the responsibility Coalition for American Leadership weekly. American citizens get arrested or injured; parents back Abroad (which includes AFSA), the city of home call to ask for help in locating a child who hasn’t phoned Dearborn, and numerous national and Michigan-based organizations home in a while. Sometimes an important cable arrives in the co-sponsored a state-wide conference middle of the night: the duty officer must go to the embassy titled: “Michigan and the World.” to read it and decide whether its contents warrant waking the The conference explored the issues, ambassador. At larger missions, employees may be tapped no more than once a year, views and roles of Michigan citizens and while at the smaller ones, duty is more frequent. citizen-based organizations regarding U.S. The complaint prompted me to think foreign policy and world affairs. It took about the role of duty, of hardship tours, of place on May 6, 2003, at the Ford Like former Marines, as soon other experiences unique to the Foreign Community and Performing Arts Center as you learn that a stranger Service and how they serve to bond us into in Dearborn. Some 200 members of the a distinct clan or tribe. Michigan foreign affairs community par- you’ve just met was in the Recently there has been a spate of ticipated, and follow-up activities are being planned. Foreign Service, you movies about the bonding experienced by those in the military. “Band of Brothers” immediately feel a kinship. extols the ties forged by combat. Marines BOOKFAIR share boot camp. Members of the Foreign The Associates of the American Foreign Service share similar bonds, like duty. Service Worldwide need your donations Foreign Service employees routinely take themselves and their families off to difficult for BOOKFAIR, an annual October event places and work long hours to advance America’s foreign policy objectives. They do for the last 43 years. Books in good con- this not for the compensation, the glory or the ease of life overseas, but to serve their dition (but no textbooks except for lan- country. As I write this, many posts are bidding farewell to families departing due to a guage instruction), artwork, collectibles, SARS outbreak or terrorist bombings. As Secretary Powell noted in recent congressional stamps and coins would all be gratefully testimony, “I send State Department officers out to the most difficult places ... where accepted. Handicrafts from around the they may be separated from their families for a longer period of time than the average world are especially welcome — such soldier gets separated from his family.” Like former Marines, as soon as you learn that items are popular and sell quickly. a stranger you’ve just met was in the Foreign Service, you immediately feel a kinship. In the Washington, D.C. area, pick-ups The value of these shared experiences may have been what prompted Director General can be arranged by calling Virginia Jones Ruth A. Davis to suggest that promotion boards take into consideration community at (202) 223-5796. service such as serving on a promotion panel, participating in a mentoring program, In the State Department, donations or serving on a housing board. She understands that these activities contribute to employ- may be dropped off at the BOOKROOM ee welfare and strengthen the State Department and the Foreign Service as institutions. (now located in B816) Monday through AFSA concurred with her request and it also chose not to challenge the custom of Friday, from noon to 2 p.m. or by “taking the duty,” believing instead that it strengthens the bonds among us. appointment. Call (202) 223-5796. I recently had a moment to roam the Web site of the Diplomatic and Consular Officers From Overseas, donations may be Retired (www.dacorbacon.org) and read several accounts of incidents of life in the Foreign pouched to: AAFSW BOOKROOM, B816 Service. One gentleman posted the account of his role in saving State employees when Main State (HST). the American Embassy in Benghazi was stormed by mobs in 1967; they all got out alive, but the embassy was reduced to a burned shell. There’s the former consul general in FSYF Reminder Tangier who valiantly rescued two American staff of a USIS center during the 1984 riots The Annual Welcome Back Potluck Picnic, in Tetuan, Morocco. And there are colleagues who lifted off from the embassy com- hosted by the Foreign Service Youth pound in Somalia just as it was being overrun and those who lived for months in Embassy Kuwait under Iraqi occupation in 1991. Foundation, will be held on Sunday, Sept. Is there another career that, in spite of the danger and hardship, can provide such 21, 4 p.m., at Lubber Run Park in Arlington. satisfaction? I doubt it. ▫ For more information e-mail [email protected]. ▫
12 AFSA NEWS • JULY-AUGUST 2003 AAFSW • Continued from page 9 V.P. VOICE: FCS ■ BY CHARLES FORD charities. She writes a monthly maga- zine column, “Things To Do with A New Start Kids.” She also resurrected an ineffec- tive soup kitchen to feed needy Czechs. want to thank you for your vote in the recent AFSA elec- KARIE ENNIS, NEW DELHI: OMS Karie tion. Bill Crawford, our new representative, and I are Ennis spent several hours each weekend Ianxious to take up our responsibilities and work effec- at the Missionaries of Charity tively with you to advance our professional interests. We Orphanage for Handicapped Children in look forward to turning a new page and starting a new chap- New Delhi. She provided physical thera- ter in our relationship with USFCS management. py for the children, taught Indian staff to Our Director General Maria Cino, Deputy Director feed the children properly and spent General Carlos Poza, and DAS Karen Zens are making great time talking, playing with and holding strides in modernizing our profession and redefining our the children. She organized the Marines mission. We look forward to working together as a team on the development of Toys for Tots campaign to benefit the new initiatives to advance the cause of commercial diplomacy and professional devel- orphanage, and obtained a grant from opment, while also engaging constructively on the range of issues that influence the J. Kirby Simon Trust to buy mat- our working conditions and quality of life. tresses, therapy mats and other supplies. As I indicated in my campaign statement, I believe that our profession as com- She also promoted, organized and facili- mercial diplomats is at a cross- tated the first “Health Fair” for Embassy roads, and I am excited about the New Delhi attended by over 500 staff. opportunity to be your vice KRISTINE LUOMA-OVERSTREET, I believe that our profession president at this crucial time. MERIDA: In a city without an interna- as commercial diplomats is When I return to Washington in tional school, Kristine Luoma- August, I will contact you direct- Overstreet worked with a local school to at a crossroads, and I am ly to solicit your views on what create a “Reading is Fun” program excited about the opportunity should be our most important increasing English-language literacy. priorities. She organized story hours, introduced to be your vice president I see our program as having the concept of a lending library, at this crucial time. three components, and would obtained donations of books and began welcome your thoughts on each what is now an annual catalogue book of them: personnel issues, USFCS sale where members of the community working conditions, and profes- purchased over $2,000 worth of books. sional development and outreach. Together, we will set realistic and achievable objec- She is also the mainstay of the Merida tives for the first year of our term. English Library, an all-volunteer opera- Peter Frederick, our outgoing vice president, has done an outstanding job. I tion that serves as Merida’s premier look forward to building on his achievements. As I write this column in May in public library. Brussels, the business agenda that I inherit includes key issues like: adoption of our The following nominees received new selection board precepts; agreement on a new, long-term language training honorable mention for their contribu- pilot program; and USFCS support for the new AFSA immediate insurance ben- tions to their respective communities: efit program. Later this month, at the worldwide USFCS managers conference in Athens: Bonnie Miller Washington, Peter and I will have a chance to discuss these and other issues with Bangkok: Theodore Osius our members. Berlin: Barbara and Jim Brown I made the commitment in the campaign to involve everyone in both the def- Budapest: Lisa O’Sattin inition of our agenda and in the position we take on the issues. Many of you know Conakry: Judie Pruett that that is my management style anyway. I will use our e-mail network plus an Guatemala City: Lt. Col. Linda Gould informal committee system with members in each region and in the U.S. to ensure Guatemala City: Rian and Chris Harris that all of your views are taken into account every step of the way. The Hague: Robert McDaniel For those of you who don’t know me, I joined the USFCS in 1982 after eight The Hague: Nancy Tokola years in the private sector. It has been my privilege to serve in Latin America and Nicosia: Ann Chenevey Europe as well as in senior positions at headquarters. My ambition now is to give Kampala: Giovanna Brennan something back to a profession and to an agency that have given so much oppor- Warsaw: Stacy Mansager tunity to me. I very much look forward to establishing a new partnership with man- Yaounde: Laurie Meininger ▫ agement. ▫
JULY-AUGUST 2003 • AFSA NEWS 13 AFSACLASSIFIEDS
DENTAL SERVICES ROLAND S. HEARD, CPA PROPERTY MANAGEMENT FAMILY DENTISTRYJOSIES.KEATD.D.S. 1091 Chaddwyck Dr. REALTY GROUP, INC. 2579 John Milton Dr., Suite 250 Oak Hill, VA Athens, GA 30606 20171. Tel: (703) 860-8860. Dr. Keat is a Tel/Fax: (706) 769-8976 DC PROPERTY MANAGEMENT Foreign Service spouse and understands E-mail: [email protected] AND SALES Foreign Service needs. Open 7 A.M.; evening • U.S. income tax services of single-family homes, and Saturday appointments available. 50%* • Many FS & contractor clients condos & small apartment bldgs. off on first check-up and cleaning appointment • Practiced before the IRS We serve owners who appreciate personalized with this ad. *Excludes third-party payments. • Financial planning • American Institute of CPAs, Member service & quality maintenance. LEGAL SERVICES FIRST CONSULTATION FREE Amy Fisher, CRS: (202) 544-8762 ATTORNEY WITH 22 years successful FREE TAX CONSULTATION: For over- E-mail: [email protected], experience SPECIALIZING FULL-TIME IN FS seas personnel. We process returns as Visit our Web site: GRIEVANCES will more than double your received, without delay. Preparation and rep- dcpropertymanagement.com chance of winning. 30% of grievants win before resentation by Enrolled Agents. Federal and the Grievance Board; 85% of my clients win. all states prepared. Includes “TAX TRAX” Only a private attorney can adequately devel- unique mini-financial planning review with rec- KDH PROPERTIES serves the property op and present your case, including neces- ommendations. Full planning available. Get the management needs of clients who are locat- sary regs, arcane legal doctrines, precedents most from your financial dollar! Financial ed inside the beltway from American Legion and rules. Call Bridget R. Mugane at Forecasts Inc., Barry B. De Marr, CFP, EA, Bridge to the Annandale exit. We have over Tel: (202) 387-4383, or (301) 596-0175. 3918 Prosperity Ave. #230, Fairfax, VA 22031 30 years experience in renting and managing. E-mail: [email protected] Tel: (703) 289-1167, Fax: (703) 289-1178, We are REALTORS and belong to the Free initial consultation. E-mail: [email protected] Northern Virginia Association of REALTORS. We manage: single-family homes, town- ATTORNEY FINANCIAL ADVISOR: Stephen H. houses, condo units, as well as small com- ATTORNEY HANDLING GRIEVANCES at Thompson, Legg Mason Wood Walker Inc. munity associations. We would be honored State, Commerce,USAID. Appeals to FSGB, Member NYSE/Member SIPC (Retired to serve as your property manager. Our man- Foreign Service Officer). MSPB, EEOC, DOHA, and federal court litiga- ager has earned and holds the designation of Tel: (202) 778-1970, (800) 792-4411. tion re employment discrimination. Will write your Certified Property Manager and Certified complaints, represent you at hearings in federal Web site: www.sthompson.fa.leggmason.com E-mail: [email protected] Manager of Community Associations. Contact court. Offices in VA and D.C. Call George Elfter us for more information: Tel: (703) 522-4927, at (202) 237-2047, Fax: (703) 354-8734. JACOB FORBAI, CPA/MS: Affordable or e-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] expatriate tax solutions, compliance, planning, www.georgeElfterLaw.com preparation for U.S. citizens & aliens world- WJD MANAGEMENT IS competitively GRIEVANCE ATTORNEY (specializing wide. 18+ years exp. Tel: (301) 608-2248. priced, of course. However, if you are consid- since 1983). Attorney assists FS officers to cor- E-mail: [email protected] ering hiring a property management firm, don’t rect defective performance appraisals to forget the old saying, “You get what you pay reverse improper tenuring and promotion ATTORNEY, FORMER FOREIGN SER- for.” All of us at WJD have worked for other board decisions, secure financial benefits, VICE OFFICER: Extensive experience w/ tax property management firms in the past, and defend against disciplinary actions and obtain problems peculiar to the Foreign Service. we have learned what to do and, more impor- relief from all forms of discrimination. Free Initial Available for consultation, tax planning, and tantly, what not to do from our experiences at Consultation. Call William T. Irelan, Esq. preparation of returns: these companies. We invite you to explore our Tel: (202) 625-1800, Fax: (202) 625-1616. M. Bruce Hirshorn, Boring & Pilger E-mail: [email protected] Web site at www.wjdpm.com for more infor- 307 West Maple Ave., Suite D, mation, or call us at (703) 385-3600. WILL/ESTATE PLANNING by attorney Vienna, VA 22180 Tel: (703) 281-2161, who is a former FSO. Have your will reviewed Fax: (703) 281-9464. H.A. GILL & SON, INC.: Family-owned and updated, or new one prepared: E-mail: [email protected] No charge for initial consultation. and operated firm specializing in the leasing M. Bruce Hirshorn, Boring & Pilger, 307 PROFESSIONAL TAX RETURN and management of fine single-family hous- Maple Ave. W, Suite D, Vienna, VA 22180 PREPARATION: Thirty years in public tax es, condominiums and cooperatives in Washington, D.C. and Montgomery County Tel: (703) 281-2161, Fax: (703) 281-9464. practice. Arthur A. Granberg, EA, ATA, ATP. E-mail: [email protected] since 1888. While we operate with cutting- Our charges are $65 per hour. Most FSO TAX & FINANCIAL SERVICES edge technology, we do business the old- returns take 3 to 4 hours. Our office is 100 feet fashioned way: providing close personal TAX RETURN PREPARATION AND from Virginia Square Metro Station, Tax attention to our clients and their properties. We PLANNING by experienced tax professional. Matters Associates PC, 3601 North Fairfax Dr. provide expertise in dealing with jurisdiction- Federal and all State returns. Year-round assis- Arlington, VA 22201. Tel: (703) 522-3828, al legal requirements, rent control, property tance. JANE A. BRUNO Tel: (561) 470-7631, Fax: (703) 522-5726. registration and lead paint requirements. We Fax: (561) 470-4790. E-mail: [email protected] closely screen all tenant applications and are on-line with Equifax Credit Information Services E-mail: [email protected] PLACE A CLASSIFIED AD: $1.25/word Web site: www.americantaxhelp.com which provides our firm with instantaneous (10-word min.) First 3 words bolded free, add’l hard-copy credit reports. You can rest assured VIRGINIA M. TEST, CPA: Tax service bold text $2/word, header, box, shading $10 while you are abroad that your property will be Specializing in Foreign Service/overseas con- ea. Deadline: 20th of month for pub. 5 wks. in the most capable hands. Please call John tractors. CONTACT INFO: (804) 695-2939, later. Ad Mgr: Tel: (202) 944-5507, Fax: (202) Gill Jr. at (202) 338-5000 or e-mail him at FAX: (804) 695-2958. E-mail: [email protected] 338-6820. E-mail: [email protected] [email protected] for more info or a brochure.
14 AFSA NEWS • JULY-AUGUST 2003 AFSACLASSIFIEDS
PROPERTY MANAGEMENT TEMPORARY HOUSING HEADED TO D.C.? Start planning now for house hunting in Northern Virginia. Let my 16- PRUDENTIAL CARRUTHERS REAL- WASHINGTON, D.C. or NFATC TOUR? plus years of experience providing FS person- TORS: Complete professional dedication to the EXECUTIVE HOUSING CONSULTANTS management of residential property in Northern nel with exclusive Buyer Representation work offers Metropolitan Washington, D.C.’s finest for you. My effective strategy for home buying Virginia. Our professionals will provide personal portfolio of short-term, fully-furnished and will make the transition easier for you and your attention to your home, careful tenant screen- equipped apartments, townhomes and single- ing, and video inspections of your property. We family residences in Maryland, D.C. and family! are equipped to handle all of your property Virginia. Contact MARILYN CANTRELL, Associate management needs. We work 7 days a week! In Virginia: “River Place’s Finest” is steps to Broker, ABR, CRS, GRI at McEnearney Over 22 years real estate experience and Rosslyn Metro and Georgetown, and 15 min- Associates, 1320 Old Chain Bridge Rd, McLean, Foreign Service overseas living experience. utes on Metro bus or State Department shuttle VA 22101. Tel: (703) 790-9090, ext. 246; Fax: JOANN PIEKNEY. Vienna: to NFATC. For more info, please call (301) 951- (703) 734-9460. Tel: (703) 938-0909, Fax: (703) 281-9782, 4111, or visit our Web site: E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] www.executivehousing.com www.marilyncantrell.com Arlington: Tel: (703) 522-5900, FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATES, INC. Fax: (703) 525-4173. FLORIDA E-mail: [email protected]. Stylishly and fully-furnished condominiums at River Place (Rosslyn, Virginia), Foggy Bottom LONGBOAT KEY, BRADENTON/ PEAKE MANAGEMENT: Looking for a & Dupont Circle (D.C.) All units are walking SARASOTA Area will exceed expectations. great property manager experienced with FS distance to the Metro or NFATC SHUTTLE. Don’t miss owning in Florida. Resales, new clients? Call me to set up an appointment, or Utilities, free basic cable, free local telephone homes, rental management and vacation to receive our free Landlord Manual. The man- service and Internet access included. Full ser- rentals. Dynamic growing company offering ual clearly explains the rental management vice gym, pool, entertainment center and personalized professional service. Contact: process no matter which company you jacuzzi (certain locations) Efficiencies, 1&2 Sharon E. Oper, Realtor (AFSA Member) Bedroom units available. Owned by retired choose. We’re professional, experienced and Wagner Realty. Tel: (941) 387-7199. Department of State Employee. Flexible with friendly. In business since 1982. Lindsey E-mail: [email protected] Peake: 6842 Elm St., McLean, VA 22101. all per diems, even sliding allowances. WE Tel: (703) 448-0212. UNDERSTAND BECAUSE WE’VE BEEN FLORIDA THERE! (703) 470-4908. [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] BEAUTIFUL SOUTHWEST FLORIDA: PIED-A-TERRE PROPERTIES, LTD: TEMPORARY HOUSING SARASOTA – Sunshine, blue skies, excellent Select from our unique inventory of fully-fur- values in real estate. Call former FSO Tom nished & tastefully decorated apartments & RESIDENCES: SHORT & long-term. Farley, AFSA member, licensed real estate townhouses all located in D.C.’s best in-town Call Betsy at (202) 234-5789. broker. New homes and condos a speciality. neighborhoods: Dupont, Georgetown, Foggy E-mail: [email protected] Construction International Services, Inc. Bottom & The West End. Two-month mini- www.roommatespreferred.com Tel: (941) 926-8550, Fax: (941) 926-9546. mum. Mother-Daughter Owned & Operated. E-mail: [email protected] SHORT - TERM RENTALS Tel: (202) 338-3190. Fax: (202) 332-1406. NO STATE INCOME TAX enhances gra- CORPORATE APARTMENT SPECIAL- www.piedaterredc.com cious living in Sarasota, the cultural capital of ISTS: Abundant experience working with FURNISHED LUXURY APARTMENTS: Florida’s Gulf Coast. Contact former FSO Paul Foreign Service professionals and the locations Short/long-term. Best locations: Dupont Circle, Byrnes, Coldwell Banker residential sales to best serve you: Foggy Bottom, Woodley Georgetown. Utilities included. All price specialist, through e-mail: Park, Cleveland Park, Chevy Chase, Rosslyn, ranges/sizes. Parking available. Tel: (202) 296- [email protected] or Toll-Free: Ballston, Pentagon City. Our office is a short 4989, E-mail: [email protected] (877) 924-9001. walk from NFATC. One-month minimum. All 1768-74 U. ST/ ADAMS MORGAN: MISSOURI LAKE OF THE OZARKS Over furnishings, housewares, utilities, telephone and Unique spacious 2-BR apts w/terrace. In newly 1,150 miles of Shoreline, Fast Boats, Great cable included. Tel: (703) 979-2830 or (800) renovated historic bldg. Individual HVAC units, Fishing, Water Sports, Excellent Restaurants, 14 914-2802; Fax: (703) 979-2813. controlled entry system, hdwd flrs, all new Golf Courses, Beautiful Parks, Waterfront Web site: www.corporateapartments.com appliances including W/D. Pkg. avail. Homes, Acreage, Condos, or build your own E-mail: [email protected] For appt. call: (917) 567-4811. dream home. Gerald R. Duvall (FSO Ret), TEMPORARY QUARTERS GEORGETOWN: 2-BEDROOM CONDO, Capitol Hill. 4, 6, Broker: duvallrealty.com. Tel: (573) 873-5296. Exquisite, fully-furnished accommodations at or 12-month leases available at per diem rates, A MAGICAL RETREAT, or year-round the East End of Georgetown. Short walk to July 2003-June 2004. Modern, spacious, residence, in the storybook town of Black World Bank and State Department. Lower bright, beautifully furnished 2-story condo in Mountain, N.C. This “jewel of the builder’s art” two levels of four-level home, private front and small residential building: parking, 2.5 bath- uses imaginative architecture brought to life rear entrances, eight-foot ceilings, three fire- rooms, den, deck, hardwood floors, fireplace, by master craftsmen. Situated in a wooded set- places, two large marble bathrooms, granite CAC, w/d, d/w. 3 blocks to Union Station ting, the 5,000 sq. ft. home contains 4 BR, 3.5 and stainless steel kitchen, washer and dryer, Metro. Contact: Jacob Moss: baths, and numerous high-quality amenities. fenced rear patio leading to alley. Street park- [email protected], Located just 20 minutes from the abundant cul- ing. Dishes, flatware, towels, linens and light or Leslee Behar, Tel: (202) 543-2272; tural, educational, and medical resources of maid service included. Pets case-by-case. [email protected] civic-minded Asheville. It is truly “a must-see” Rate commensurate with housing allowance. REAL ESTATE property. Asking: $490,000. Contact owner at: [email protected] or Tel: DC AND MD SUBURBS - homes for sale. For details: http://www.ncmountainhome.com (202) 625-6448. See photos and description Contact: Gay Fox, (USAID ret.) at Tel: at: www.1229-30thStreet.com Log on to homesdatabase.com/samsells to view homes. Tel: (301) 951-3354. (828) 669-8027.
JULY-AUGUST 2003 • AFSA NEWS 15 AFSACLASSIFIEDS
DUPONT CIRCLE - HISTORIC GEM BUSINESS CARDS SHOPPING "THE WARDMAN" - CLOSE TO IT ALL! Sunny 1-BR in 1910 luxury building - archi- BUSINESS CARDS Printed to State NAVCO MALL tect Henry Wardman. 1916 17th St. - enjoy Department specifications and delivered in 5 Over 200 Shops and Stores! the ease and fun of living in-town! Wood-burn- working days. 500 cards for as little as $37.00! Save Time and Money ing fireplace; hdwd floors; W/D in unit, mod- Thank you for calling Herron Printing & Everything you’re looking for, from A to Z ern kitchen; dishwasher; CAC, great closets Graphics at (301) 990-3100; or e-mail: Sales and Bargains at Every Store! and storage; 1 blk to S1 bus to State; steps [email protected] Owned and operated by a 16-year-veteran to "Whole Foods," U-St. & Dupont metros; 2 MISCELLANEOUS of the military and the FS blks to Safeway, shops, restaurants, gyms; Shop: www.navcosa.com close to everything!! $1,550; 1-yr lease; avail. W.W. GENERAL CONSTRUCTION 110 - 220 VOLT STORE 6/15/03. Contact: Karyn Posner-Mullen: Serving VA, MD & DC MULTI-SYSTEM ELECTRONICS Tel: (571) 217-5173, [email protected]; Licensed and Bonded [email protected] Complete Home Remodeling & Repair PAL-SECAM-NTSC TVs, Total Renovations WASHINGTON STATE ISLANDS: VCRs, AUDIO, CAMCORDER, Kitchens, Bathrooms and Basements ADAPTOR, TRANSFORMERS, Spectacular views, wonderful community, cli- Ceramic Tile and Hardwood Floors mate, boating, hiking. Access Seattle & KITCHEN APPLIANCES Painting and Drywall EPORT WORLD ELECTRONICS Vancouver, B.C. Former FSO Jan Zehner, For more information visit our Web site Windermere Real Estate/ Orcas Island, 1719 Connecticut Ave. N.W. www.1stcarpenter.com Washington, D.C. 20009, near Dupont (800) 842-5770; www.orcas-island.com or e-mail us at: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] Circle Metro. Between R & S Streets. or call us at (301) 330-9806 Tel: (202) 232-2244, Fax: (202) 265-2435, Quality Work and Reasonable Prices BEAUTIFUL RETIREMENT PROPERTY (800) 513-3907. References upon Request in Parsons, Tennessee. E-mail: [email protected] URL:www.220AV.TV Visit: Jacksproperty.com. Or call Jack at PET TRANSPORTATION Tel: (731) 847-4146. Government & Diplomat discounts VACATION DOMESTIC / WORLDWIDE SHIPPING: Tel: (304) 274-6859, (888) 234-5028 HERITAGE SOUVENIRS RUMLEY HOUSE, BEAUFORT, N.C. www.actionpetexpress.com BEAUTIFUL UNIQUE SILVER plated Plaqued 1778 meticulously restored and art- E-mail: [email protected] brooches with a picture of historical places in fully furnished FSO-owned home. Half-block our Capital city. Miriam Randall, Spanish 1 from the waterfront; 1 /2 blocks from shops and SHIPPING instructor realizes that after living and work- restaurants. Sleeps 7-9, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 PLANNING TO MOVE OVERSEAS? ing in Washington, D.C. for over 20 years that baths. Beaufort Realty: Tel: (800) 548-2961. Need a rate to ship your car, household goods, there are few quality souvenirs. Often, my stu- www.beaufortrlty.com/rentals/rental023.htm or other cargo going abroad? Contact dents commented that there are few quality SEFCO-Export Management Company for BEACHVIEW CONDO FLORIDA at souvenirs to exchange when they go over- rates and advice. Tel: (718) 268-6233, Marco Island, 2 hours from Miami, 2 bed- seas. Fax: (718) 268-0505. Contact Joseph T. Quinn. room/bath, walking distance to beach, swim- So I created unique jewelry and lithographs Visit our Web site at www.sefco-export.com ming pool, tennis, golf; low off-season rates; to preserve and celebrate our past by creat- E-mail: [email protected] contact FSO Robert Cunnane at: ing a heritage type of souvenirs that preserve manufacturing techniques used in the past. E-mail: [email protected] ACUPUNCTURE & FENG SHUI MORTGAGE Tel. and fax are: (703) 241-4069. Acupuncture for Body/Mind/ Spirit: E-mail: [email protected] BUYING OR REFINANCING A HOME? Feng Shui for harmony in your space. AMERICAN PRODUCTS OVERSEAS! Save money with some of the lowest rates Former FS spouse offers these services in ONE-STOP SHOPPING for all your house- in 40 years. Jeff Stoddard specializes in work- Bethesda, Md & Vienna, Va. Contact: Abhaya hold & personal needs. Personalized service ing with the Foreign Service community over- Schlesinger, M.Ac; L.Ac; Diplomate. for FS personnel by FS retiree. Must have seas and in the U.S. Call today and experi- Tel: (703) 242-9065. References upon request. ence the Power of Yes! ® Tel: (703) 299-8625, APO or FPO address. For FREE CATALOG: E-mail: [email protected] INDEPENDENT SCHOOL OPTIONS: E-mail: [email protected] Finding the best school placement for each BOOKS THE AAFSW NEEDS your donations for child in the Washington Metro area. BOOKFAIR- an October event for 43 years. Point Four: Memories of a Foreign www.independentschooloptions.org Artwork, books in good condition (No text Service Officer by James O. Bleidner. The Tel: (703) 671-8316. books, paperbacks), stamps and coins all book is dedicated to my colleagues in JOIN US FOR SUMMER FUN! Diplotots gratefully accepted. Handicrafts from posts USAID. Send check for $15 plus postage of Child Development Center offers an all-day are especially welcome as they sell fast. $3 to: James Bleidner, 708 Leah Jean Lane, Summer Camp for children ages 5-10, June IN THE WASHINGTON AREA: Pick-ups Winter Haven, FL 33884-3198. 23-Aug. 28, 2003. FS families returning to call: Virginia Jones at (202) 223-5796. IN THE OLD ASIA/ORIENT BOOKS BOUGHT Washington -- drop-ins are welcome. (Please DEPARTMENT: Donations drop-off at the Asian rare books. Fax: (212) 316-3408, call for availability). The fee is $372 per ses- BOOKROOM (located in B816) Mon-Fri,12 E-mail: [email protected] sion/$186 per week. Each two-week session noon to 2:00 PM or by appt. FROM OVER- DIPLOMATIC AFFAIRS: Robert G. offers different activities, and meals are SEAS: Donations may be pouched to: Morris’s third novel, now available from: included. German/Spanish language class- AAFSW BOOKROOM, B816 Main State www.thebookden.com es and gymnastics available too. (HST).
16 AFSA NEWS • JULY-AUGUST 2003