The Foreign Service Journal, April 2018

88 APRIL 2018 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL grew up under the tutelage of wise, determined parents who fled the Old South for Massachu- setts during the Great Migration. She was fortunate to have sib- lings who were highly interested in the arts and who helped to awaken a cultural appreciation in the young Elam-Thomas that would serve as an excellent foundation for public diplomacy work. She was equally fortunate to partici- pate in the Experiment in International Living’s Student Exchange Program, which planted the seed for her inter- est in international affairs and foreign languages, beginning with French. She subsequently learned Greek at the age of 42 and Turkish at the age of 47. There is never a dull moment in Harriet Elam-Thomas’ career, nor in this sometimes humorous page-turner that brings to life her years as an exceptional public affairs officer. But wait! She began as a secretary at Embassy Paris, followed by time in the White House during the Nixon admin- istration. Perhaps her dedication to mentoring, her commitment to mak- ing the Foreign Service more diverse and her determination to excel were all galvanized by the poor reception she received on entering the Foreign Service as an officer, her degree in international relations from Simmons College not- withstanding. Determined to prove that excellence Communicating Through Differences Diversifying Diplomacy: My Journey from Roxbury to Dakar Harriet Lee Elam-Thomas, with Jim Robison, Potomac Books, 2017, $29.95/hardcover, $19.04/Kindle, 248 pages. Reviewed By Ruth A. Davis During his short but influential life civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously observed: “People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not commu- nicated with each other.” This is as true internationally as it is domestically. Harriet Elam-Thomas spent a bril- liant Foreign Service career successfully encouraging communications between the American public and our foreign inter- locutors to promote mutual understand- ing and support for U.S. foreign policy. She has now written a captivating, inspiring memoir that breathes life into the American dream and skillfully recounts her improbable rise through the diplomatic ranks. She used the arts as a diplomatic tool while proving the value of cultural competency and diver- sity in U.S. foreign policy. Diversifying Diplomacy: My Journey from Roxbury to Dakar brings American history alive through the eyes and expe- rience of one who progressed from “the little Elam girl from Roxbury” to Ambas- sador Extraordinary and Plenipoten- tiary. It is a wonderful treatise on how American values and traditions, warts and all, shaped her life and contempo- raneous U.S. foreign policy. Named after American abolitionist Harriet Tubman, “the little Elam girl” BOOKS knows no color or gen- der and that she was fully prepared to support the achievement of U.S. foreign policy goals, Elam-Thomas set out on an overseas odys- sey beginning as a junior officer in Senegal. She went on to Greece, Turkey, Cyprus and Belgium, before (with a new spouse, Wilfred Thomas) completing her career back in Senegal as U.S. ambassador. Between postings in Brussels and Dakar, she occupied the highest-ranking Foreign Service position in the United States Information Agency—that of Counselor. She had the complex task of overseeing the merger of USIA into the State Department. Her understanding of the value of public diplomacy and of the State Department’s bureaucracy was invaluable in successfully managing a difficult transition, whose merits are still being debated. This is not an ordinary memoir in that it focuses as much on the people who had an impact on her life as it does on Elam-Thomas herself. She paints a vivid picture of the influence that world figures like Nelson Mandela had on her decision-making, and the impor- tance in her career of Foreign Service greats such as O. Rudolph Aggrey and Monteagle Stearns, her ambassadors in Senegal and Greece respectively, as well as political appointees such as Alan Blinken, her ambassador in Brussels. Along the way she met many other interesting personalities, both Ameri- can and foreign, whose presence in her life helped make her story so compel- ling. Allan Goodman of the Institute of International Education typifies the former and Melina Mercouri, the Greek minister of culture, occupies a promi- nent place among the latter. There is never a dull moment in Harriet Elam-Thomas’ career, nor in this sometimes humorous page-turner that brings to life her years as an exceptional public affairs officer.