The Foreign Service Journal, April 2004

58 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 0 4 s we all know, the French are not shy about expressing their opinion on things. In the run-up to the war in Iraq, and during the combat phase of the operation, our embassy in Paris received hundreds of letters every week. Most were addressed simply to “The Ambassador” or “The U.S. Embassy.” Without a clear addressee, our mailroom screening staff had no choice but to separate these items and hold them for later disposition. With the heightened state of alert and the extra work brought by the conflict, no one showed much interest in each week’s flotsam and jetsam of angry letters and hastily scrawled postcards. After being screened, they piled up in a box in the mailroom. Eventually we received the order to shred them. Feeling a little uncomfortable with my mailroom employees throwing handfuls of embassy correspondence into a shredder, I took the box myself. I went through and destroyed hundreds of letters, anti-war petitions, school- children’s crayon drawings, and other items, some quite bizarre. While the bulk of these letters were simply rants and raves against the U.S., I uncovered a few real gems from people who felt a strong emotional connection with the United States because of World War II, or the Marshall Plan, or because of family ties. It put into per- spective the duration and depth of Franco-American rela- tions and made the news items about “freedom fries” seem that much more ridiculous. Then, as I was getting near the bottom of the box, one letter caught my eye. It was in English, neatly written and quite short. The French author was obviously quite distressed about the current state of relations between the U.S. and his country. At the bottom of the letter was a beautiful color drawing of a B-17 bomber from World War II and the caption “The Black Swan will fly forever in our memories.” Intrigued, I couldn’t bring myself to toss this particular letter into the shredder. I set it aside. For the rest of the day, as I worked, I kept glancing over at the letter on the corner of my desk. The questions in my head just wouldn’t go away. Who was this guy? What was his relation to this B-17? The return address, in French, said something about him being the official historian for the crash of the “Black Swan” in Brittany some 60 years ago, but what made him write this letter now? Since it appeared we had enough U.S. opponents in France, I couldn’t help but think that perhaps this gentleman, writing in support of our coun- try, might merit at least a form letter in response. Finally, I decided that someone higher up in the embassy should look at the letter. If someone else saw it, and then said shred it, at least I would feel better for having tried. So I put a note on the letter and dropped it in the DCM’s mailbox. To my surprise, I got a call back before the end of the day. The Office Management Specialist for the DCM said she had been very impressed by the heartfelt tone of T HE L AST F LIGHT OF THE B LACK S WAN T HE TALE OF A DOWNED FIGHTER PLANE BRINGS AN A MERICAN AND A F RENCHMAN TO A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THEIR COUNTRIES , PAST AND PRESENT . B Y D OUGLAS W. W ELLS A Douglas Wells entered the Foreign Service in January 2000 after six years with the Peace Corps and United Nations in Estonia. His first post was Hong Kong, where he finished a book about his Peace Corps experiences, In Search of the Elusive Peace Corps Moment (Xlibris Press, 2001). He is now the supervisor for mail and pouch oper- ations in the Information Programs Center at Embassy Paris.