The Foreign Service Journal, June 2012

J U N E 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 37 n September 1968 my employer, the Associated Press, transferred me from its New York City headquarters to the Washington, D.C., bureau to help out with coverage of Latin American issues. I was quickly issued a State Department building pass at the tender age of 27, making me one of the youngest passholders there. When I retired in 2007, almost 39 years later, I was one of the oldest. During my tenure, I visited 87 countries on trips with nine Secretaries of State and made 31 visits to Cuba, al- most all on reporting trips for AP. Unfortunately, I never got to travel with the most powerful Secretary of State in mod- ern times, Henry Kissinger. But I saw enough to recognize him as the meanest (to his staff, at least), smartest and fun- niest of them all. If one stays in the same place for almost 40 years, you al- most can’t help encountering vivid characters and witnessing remarkable developments, even in a setting as controlled as the State Department. In 1985, an angry teen entered the department with a concealed fold-up rifle, went to the sev- enth floor and killed his mother, a secretary who was sitting not far from the office of Secretary of State George P. Shultz. (As the child of an employee, he had automatic access to the building.) A few years before that, police had entered State’s second- floor press room to arrest a Middle Eastern journalist wanted on charges of embezzlement. Lars Nelson, a Reuters re- porter, witnessed the arrest from his cubicle just a few feet away and fired off a story that soon traveled around the world. The journalist was convicted and sentenced to a 13-year prison term. Other episodes were less dramatic but still raised eye- brows. Several weeks before President Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, a Republican transition team was visiting the State Department. Upset by communist gains in Central America, they zeroed in on President Jimmy Carter’s top aide for Latin America, WilliamBowdler, as a symbol of what they perceived to be a failed policy. The transition aides gave him 24 hours to pack up and leave. Friends said Bowdler, a three- time ambassador and 30-year Foreign Service veteran, was devastated by the experience. He deserved much better. Fortunately, most of the vignettes I’d like to share here are less grim! From Haig to Shultz Pres. Reagan picked General Alexander Haig as his first Secretary of State (1981-1982). Haig was known for his rhetorical flights, once referring to the Middle East as “the vortex of cruciality.” Asked if American military intervention in blood-drenched El Salvador was inevitable, Haig could have said “No.” Instead, he said, “It would serve no useful purpose to put fences around options that would preclude the formulation of new pathways.” In 1982, as Haig was flying to London near the end of a European tour, his spokesman, Dean Fisher, casually offered the press a delicious news nugget: Haig’s tailor, Peter Tarpey, was flying to London from Paris to measure the Secretary for F ROM R USK TO R ICE : 39 Y EARS C OVERING S TATE E VEN IN A SETTING AS CONTROLLED AS F OGGY B OTTOM , ONE MEETS VIVID CHARACTERS AND WITNESSES REMARKABLE DEVELOPMENTS . B Y G EORGE G EDDA George Gedda retired in 2007 after 39 years as an Associated Press State Department correspondent. A longtime contrib- utor to the Foreign Service Journal , he is the author of Cuba: The Audacious Revolution (CreateSpace, 2011). I