The Foreign Service Journal, June 2004

S CHOOLS S UPPLEMENT you live here so we don’t have to do it here.” I completely concurred. And we have since struck up a pleasant friendship — locally. Life As a Fellini Film Each session started with a round of introductions in which all participants gave the rundown of passports, coun- tries and schools they had attended. The first session I attended was “Spooks, Spies and Necessary Lies: Growing Up in the CIA,” and I was fas- cinated to hear David Sanford’s story. He had spent his childhood growing up as a Foreign Service child. After col- lege he joined the Peace Corps. Then one day he went to his parents’ home and noticed a new plaque on the man- tel. The plaque commemorated a quarter-century with the CIA. It was his father’s! As David explained, it was as if his life had become a Fellini film. When he looked back on the last 25 years — his childhood — he could see all the events and coincidences that now sud- denly made sense. He told about the time that he was in Iran in the Peace Corps — where mail took six days by caravan from Tehran. He received a letter three days after his mother had written it. He now understood that his father had been in the area on a covert mission, and had “dropped off” the let- ter. He recalled that when he called his father at the “office” — he never got him, but his father would get the message and call back. And as a result of his international childhood, he was a liberal. He demonstrated against Vietnam — while his father was the section chief for Southeast Asia. After more frenetic greetings and business card exchanges in the hall- ways, I chose to attend “Between 70 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U N E 2 0 0 4 Continued from page 69 Continued on page 72 Tradition moves but very slowly.