The Foreign Service Journal, April 2012

technological bellwether for future State Department forays into new re- porting forums such as Foreign Serv- ice blogs, public diplomacy outreach programs and effective social media strategies. As your article makes clear, IRM’s achievements are now paying real div- idends — not only by providing pro- tection for the digital infrastructure entrusted with storage and processing of our national security information, but by commanding the active interest and professional recognition of many of today’s leading corporations in the global IT sector. I am pleased to let you know that I was quick to point your article out to many of my former management and IRM colleagues. Some of them may not be active members of AFSA or regular readers of the Journal , but with my little nudge, I’m sure they will find good reason to read the January issue. I am also certain that when they do read it, they too will find themselves wearing a smile of present (or past) professional confidence. Thank you again and please keep up the out- standing reporting. Timothy C. Lawson Senior FSO, retired Prachuap Khirikhan, Thailand Back to the Future Two articles in the January issue — the Speaking Out column by George F. Jones, titled “The Next 50 Years,” and Margaret Sullivan’s article, “Re- membering Another Unforgettable Day” — brought back similarly indeli- ble memories for me. The first memory is from early March 1953. I was standing in a snow- packed park in Sioux City, Iowa, when someone said Josef Stalin had just died. Even at the tender age of 8, I knew big changes were probably coming. The second occurred just four months later, after our family had moved to Corpus Christi, Texas. The July 1953 announcement of the truce ending hostilities on the Korean Pen- insula was big news to me, because it meant we would no longer be buying 10-cent and 25-cent stamps to fill up our war bond booklets. Nearly six decades later, our troops are still there, but I long ago cashed in my war bonds! The third memory goes back to my junior year abroad as a student in Ger- many during the late spring of 1965. Following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in Vietnam, a fellow foreign student in my Munich dormitory blew up, rant- ing for almost half an hour about U.S. involvement there, which he com- pared with the 1953 CIA-backed coup in his country — Iran. What he said disturbed me so much that I wrote a long letter to President Lyndon Johnson (or my member of Congress at the time, John Young; I no longer recall which one) detailing those allegations. A month later I received a three- page letter from the State Department denying almost every allegation in my letter point by point. I shared it with everyone on my dorm floor, and they were all impressed. While the Iranian student (appro- priately) disbelieved the substance of the letter, he conceded that at least it was evident that we had democracy in America — which “we don’t in Iran.” Now, as I reflect on current condi- tions in Iran and U.S. relations with that country, I realize we are back to the future again. George Wilcox FSO, retired Tucson, Ariz. A P R I L 2 0 1 2 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 9 L E T T E R S