The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2006

lessly fascinating. China was extraordi- narily interesting at that time, and the debate about “who lost China?” was still fresh in my mind. There was also a cult of public service that motivated my generation. FSJ: Your first two overseas post- ings were in Taipei and Hong Kong. Did you originally plan to specialize in Chinese affairs? MIA: I did my graduate work in Chinese affairs and studied the lan- guage for three years at Stanford and Harvard. That was actually a mistake, by the way: I should have studied Chinese in Taiwan right away instead of stumbling along in the U.S. I was never a good language speaker and not much of a scholar. I also discovered I didn’t really enjoy trying to be a scholar. FSJ: Did you consciously move away from a China specialization after those first two tours? MIA: No. It just so happened that once I left Hong Kong in 1966, I never worked on China full-time again. I did, of course, later serve in East Asia and with CINCPAC, so China was certainly a part of my job. It wasn’t a conscious decision on my part. Foreign Service careers have a certain fortuitousness, and mine was no exception. I liked every job but one — serving as ambassador to the Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction Nego- tiations. The conventional arms nego- tiations had turned into a cynical exer- cise and the interest of both sides was just to perpetuate the [talks]. Unlike most FSOs, I was never a political or economic counselor or DCM. I never worked in a regional bureau in the department. I went pretty much from consul to ambas- sador without doing a mid-level over- seas job. So I had a rather bizarre career. For instance, [speaking of] fortu- itousness: When Larry Eagleburger, who was special assistant to Under Secretary [Nicholas] Katzenbach, went to New York in 1968 to work for Kissinger during the interregnum between the Johnson and Nixon administrations — a really awful time, by the way, in the department — I was then working for Arthur Hartmann. He persuaded Katzenbach to have me replace Eagleburger for a couple of months, and that totally changed my career. Under Secretary [Elliot] Richardson asked me to stay on in that position. In hiring me, he said, he had a simple incentive plan: “One mistake and you are out.” FSJ: What would you say have been your strengths as a diplomat? MIA: I don’t like to answer that sort of question, but I guess my short list would start with understanding— real- ly trying to understand the views and positions of others. A second would be candor — I’ve never been reluctant to tell my bosses what I think. Another would be an action focus, to always con- centrate on what do we do, not suck our thumbs. There is inevitably too much of that in the think-tank world. FSJ: On a related note, what qual- ities do you think are most important for a Secretary of State to have? MIA: Much depends on the times. Generally, they must have keen insights into how the world works — and not just in theory — and they must be good listeners. They should have a sense of the American national interest, and be able to communicate our positions articulately to foreign and domestic audiences. An ability to cut through BS is helpful. Finally, they must be able to make decisions, dominate the interagency process and work effectively with the president. Having a longer-term perspective is also helpful. FSJ: Which holder of that position in recent years would you say was most successful? MIA: I don’t think there’s any question that Henry Kissinger was pre-eminent in that job; he was a pow- erful policy-maker in a way that no one else in my lifetime has been. He remains a phenomenon at 80-plus. I’d also give high marks to George Shultz and James Baker, who was Secretary of State when I left the Foreign Service 15 years ago. I’m not really in as good a position to comment as well on the later ones, although I know and respect Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell. FSJ: What is your overall assess- ment of Condoleezza Rice’s first year in the position? 32 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 6 Amb. Abramowitz at a refugee camp for Cambodians on the Thai border in 1980.