The Foreign Service Journal, March 2013

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2013 15 In 1946, Mr. Kampelman became an aide to Hubert H. Humphrey, who was then mayor of Minneapolis. He came to Washington, D.C., in 1949 when the Democrat was elected to the Senate, and served as his legislative counsel until 1955, when he joined the law firm now known as Fried Frank. As head of the firm’s D.C. office, Mr. Kampelman rep- resented many high-profile companies and individuals, including Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. As Washington Post writer Matt Schudel notes in his Jan. 27 obituary, Mr. Kampelman enjoyed the trust of both Democrats and Republicans, and was considered an elder statesman of official Washington. Though he never sought political office himself, he advised many who did, on both sides of the aisle. In 1984, he was simultaneously a foreign policy adviser to Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale and a legal counsel to Edwin Meese II, who became President Ronald Reagan’s attorney gen- eral a year later. In a 1985 interview with the Wash- ington Post , Mr. Kampelman described his approach to diplomacy: “If you want to negotiate with the Soviets, you have to be prepared to stay one day longer than they,” he told the Post . “If you are impatient to end it, you’re at a disad- vantage.” Mr. Kampelman once calculated that he spent more than 400 hours of face-to-face meetings with Soviet negotiators, mostly over meals. In 1991, he held a meeting with diplomats and their families, interpreters and security staff members at the first McDonald’s restaurant to open in Moscow, and hired a Russian band to play American music for the occasion. “It was a great success,” Mr. Kampel- man wrote in the Chicago Journal of International Law in 2003. “Diplomacy is, after all, a human event involving human beings.” —Susan Brady Maitra, Senior Editor Some Unsolicited Advice for the Next Four Years President Barack Obama’s first term began amid widespread hope for com- prehensive solutions to global problems. Four years later, that sense of expecta- tion has largely dissipated, but experts from across the political and ideological spectrum have used the president’s inau- guration to take stock of his first term and issue recommendations on a plethora of foreign policy topics. While some scholars are urging Pres. Obama to tackle new challenges, more are calling on him to implement and advance the initiatives he began—or promised to begin—in his first term. A widespread belief that he will be more proactive and assertive in international relations, following in the path of other re-elected presidents, has fueled such calls. As David Ignatius, an associate editor and columnist at the Washington Post , commented in Dec. 6 remarks at the Wilson Center, “Second-term presidents don’t have to be as attentive to domestic O nce there was a young FSO who wanted to get ahead—rather badly. And he knew it’s the little things that count. Little things like, upon arrival at a cocktail party, going directly to the principal officer’s wife and saying, “Good evening, ma’am. I’m Harold Blank. May I get you another cocktail?” As he scurried away on his altruistic errand, he was gratified to hear her say to her husband, “How thoughtful Mr. Blank is. I wish some other people here were equally thoughtful; I’ve been standing here 10 minutes, waiting for a refill.” Or, even better: “Frank, I don’t know what you’re thinking of—keeping that nice Mr. Blank in the economic section.” By dint of the cocktail gimmick, and study of Dale Carnegie, Niccolo Machia- velli, Norman Vincent Peale, Krafft-Ebbing, Horatio Alger and Lord Chesterfield (as well as a bilingual rating by FSI on his studies in an exotic Oriental language), he was freed from routine consular work and posted to an embassy—in the Bal- kans and for political work. The very day of his arrival, he was bidden to the DCM’s reception for an itiner- ant band of USDA agronomists. No sooner was he there than he went straight up to the ambassador’s wife and said, “Good evening, ma’am. I am Harold Blank, political section. May I get you another cocktail?” Whereupon Madame L’Ambassadrice exclaimed, “My dear young man, are you mad—utterly mad? I never drink; I am strictly teetotal. I do hope you haven’t been overindulging!” As the young FSO groped his way through his vaporized career, he heard her say to her spouse, “What a revolting young man. You must put him in the admin- istrative section—it’s all that he deserves.” MORAL: Before you pull the trigger, be sure it’s surefire—not backfire. — “A Foreign Service Fable” by R.W.R.; FSJ , March 1963. 50 Years Ago