The Foreign Service Journal, April 2004

president refused to see him for a year. Many ambassadors would have muted their criticism in order to maintain acceptable relations with the host government (and to avoid the death threats that came afterward), but Zimmermann saw it otherwise and was vindicated by later events. In 1994 he resigned from the Foreign Service in protest over Wash- ington’s unwillingness to intervene forcefully in Bosnia, and then spent months in public advocacy of his view, which ultimately prevailed and helped save Bosnia from extinction. Finally, only a few weeks before his death, in accepting an award for his book on Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy, Zimmermann used what he knew was to be his last public appearance — in the Ben Franklin Room of the State Department — to voice his personal opposition to the invasion of Iraq. He was also sometimes startlingly frank in self-criticism. In his book on Yugoslavia, Origins of a Catastrophe , he blamed himself for not insisting on U.S. intervention at the very start of the troubles in Yugoslavia in late 1990, attributing the failure to his belief that the U.S. government could not handle another crisis at the very moment when it was preparing for war in Iraq. The Human Side of Things Compassion is not usually cited as a diplomatic virtue, but Zimmermann turned his to good diplomatic purpose. He and his wife Corinne (“Teeny”) were always alert to the human side of things. During the détente era in the 1970s he saw clearly that there was no path to a normalized relationship with the Soviet Union that did not recog- nize that the Soviets had to treat their people better and respect the rule of law. Later he saw the whole Helsinki process as a necessary prelude to mak- ing the Soviets see what they had to do in order to have the advantages of a more normal relationship with the Western world. In the Soviet Union the Zimmer- manns both took personal risks in sup- porting dissidents under the watchful eyes of the KGB. He won the Shar- ansky Award from the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews for his work in helping them emigrate despite enor- mous obstacles placed in their way by the authorities. He was instrumental in helping the talented dissident pian- ist Vladimir Feltsman obtain permis- sion to leave Russia. Zimmermann was particularly protective of the be- leaguered American press corps in Moscow, and helped many reporters out of scrapes with Soviet authorities. His Belgrade embassy was given an award for management in large part because of Zimmermann’s concern for the views and welfare of his subordi- nates. When Yugoslavia finally fell apart, the Zimmermanns arranged at their own expense to support the emi- gration to America of the entire staff of the ambassador’s household. In his retirement and until his death, Zimmermann passed on his knowledge and wisdom as the author of two award-winning books and as a gifted and caring professor of foreign affairs. Students, colleagues and friends all remember his humor, erudi- tion and insight. I hope that Warren Zimmer- mann’s life and career will be an inspiration to the coming generation of Americans who are considering service to their country by working in foreign affairs. Roscoe “Rocky” Suddarth is a retired Foreign Service officer, a former ambassador to Jordan and a personal friend of the Zimmermanns. Arthur Hartman, former assistant secretary for European affairs and ambassador to France and the Soviet Union, with whom Zimmermann worked on those assignments, also contributed to this appreciation. 64 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 A P P R E C I A T I O N