The Life Of A Diplomat

Ron and I finally went to see Argo. Two hours of great entertainment. I loved every minute of it. The movie started a conversation between the two of us that went late into the night, then continued early the next morning. Who chooses a career in diplomatic service? What is an ambassador and what do they do? Are ambassadors spies? Questions and more questions, so I thought I better do some research. An ambassador is the President's highest-ranking representative to a specific nation abroad. An effective ambassador has to be a strong leader, a good manager, a resilient negotiator and a respected representative of the the United States. A key role of an ambassador is to coordinate the activites not only of the Foreign Service Officers and staff, but also representatives of other U.S. agencies in the countries. Foreign Service Officers are professional, trained diplomats who represent the U.S.. They listen to and observe what is going on in the host country, analyze it, and report to the ambassador and Washington. The represent our country around the world and engage openly and transparently with representatives of foreign governments and civil society. Through this process, they collect information that shapes our policies and actions. This is what they've done for hundreds of years. Recently the U.S. has expanded the role of American diplomats in collecting intelligence overseas, ordering State Department personnel to gather the credit card and frequent-flier numbers, work schedules and other personal information of foreign dignitaries. According to an article in the New York Times by Mark Mazzetti, the U.S. regularly puts undercover intelligence officers in countries posing as diplomats, but a vast majority of diplomats are not spies. They do a lot of information gathering, profile building, and gathering of biographic and biogmetric on ranking diplomats in their host country. In other words, everyone seems to be watching everyone else. Certainly ambassadors and foreign service diplomats play a key role in many sensitive negotiations, but much of their time is spent learning the culture of the host country, entertaining dignitaries and developing friendly relations with the country to which they're assigned. I just wonder if this rescue could have been pulled off today, in this era of instant communication. I doubt it. How everyone kept this quiet at the time, and since it was declassified in 1997, is quite amazing. Even since its declassification, I had never heard of this mission. It never got any press until Argo was made. Now the world knows of the heroism of Tony Mendez and Ken Taylor, Canadian amabassador and his wife. They were selfless. Their mission was to save the six Americans despite the great risk to themselves. What I find most amazing is that all six Americans return to foreign service after this incident. Something in their makeup makes them seek adventure, at any price. I wish them all well.