The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2015 47 People have often alleged that the inven- tion of the telegraph and other technological changes have detracted from the importance of this task—that they have reduced the diplomatist to a glorified messenger boy. This view could not, I think, be more mistaken. The sort of communication which the modern diplomatist is called upon to effect demands from him an independent contribution fully as responsible, and just as replete with possibili- ties for originality and creativity, as that of any other profession. Any of us who has had somuch as a single year in this work has learned, I am sure, the first great lesson it has to teach: and that is, that what is important in the relations between govern- ments is not just, or even predominantly, the “what” but rather the “how”—the approach, the posture, the manner, the style of action. The most brilliant undertaking can be turned into a failure if it is clumsily and tactlessly executed. There are, on the other hand, few blunders which cannot be survived, if not be redeemed, when matters are conducted with grace and with feeling. Of course, the Foreign Service officer is not alone responsible for the style of diplomacy. The basic responsibility lies with people above him! But the manner in which he handles his task is a very important component in the determination of his government’s style of action, as well as in the creation of the intellectual climate out of which this style is forged. The Foreign Service is in effect a co-partner with the senior political echelons of the government in the double task of studying and comprehending the nature of our world environment, and of communicating with other govern- ments concerning the requirements and the aspirations that flow from the life of our society. Scholarship and Diplomacy And this is, as I see it, outstandingly an intellectual task. It is just as much an intellectual task as teaching or scientific research or medicine. It will absorb all that anyone can give it in the way of reflectiveness. It yields to no other profession in the demands it places on the capacity for scientific analysis and creative thought. It is, in fact, a species of scholarship. Whenever I talk about this connection between scholarship and diplomacy, which for obvious reasons is close to my heart, I have to smile at myself for something that happened to me years ago. At a friend’s house, in a book about Confucius, I came on a passage which pleased me mightily. It was part of a dialogue On the occasion of George Kennan’s 100th birthday, the February 2004 FSJ devoted its focus to this “diplomat extraordinaire” and his work. This image was on the cover. BENFISHMAN