The Foreign Service Journal, July/August 2018

20 JULY-AUGUST 2018 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL T he point is that it is essential for any negotiator before he can face the other parties abroad, to know exactly where he stands at home, where he will be backed up and how far, and how much discretion he is given. A lot of the difficulties that we encounter in the United States in international negotiations is that we tend to send our negotia- tors to the conference table with impossible instructions. …. You must be ready to discuss what the other fellow wants in most cases to talk about, even if you don’t propose to do anything about it. You should not, in most cases, fight your battle on the question of whether it gets on the agenda or not. …. We have a tendency in our government for each interest or agency to try to obtain its special objectives, each of which looks quite reasonable in itself. But when you add them all up, you sometimes get a package which is much more than our bargaining power can deliver. It is the job, first of the desk officer in the Department of State, and later, if necessary, of the ambassador in charge of the negotiation, to call a halt to this pro- cess and get us to focus on a reasonable number of priority objectives. —Ambassador Winthrop G. Brown worked on the negotiations for the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and was later head of the U.S. delegation at the Geneva talks that led to the revision of GATT. He also served as ambassador to Laos and Korea and as DCM In India. 50 Years Ago TheArt of Negotiation man of the people. She also helped Peace Corps Panama launch its Facebook and Instagram accounts, and provided regular media training to the PanamanianMinis- try of Security, which has helped advance U.S. security interests in the region. Mark Bosse , then assistant informa- tion officer in Baghdad, developed and delivered a seven-month series of train- ings for official spokespersons and more than 150 media professionals from 12 Iraqi ministries, leading to positive local, pan-Arab, and international coverage of U.S. military and humanitarian efforts. Thanks to Mark’s efforts, the highest- level voices of the Iraqi government touted the outstanding cooperation between our two governments. In South Korea, Shim Jai Ok , execu- and Thailand. PA Bangkok worked cooperatively with the Smithsonian Institution, National Archives, Library of Congress and Google to produce the event, which was covered by every national television station and viewed by millions of Thais. A related 30-second video on the exhibit was released on 109 major Cine- plex movie screens throughout Thailand. McThai—a local McDonald’s franchise— even featured the exhibit on its tray mats, cups and boxes. PDAA is a volunteer, nonprofit organization of current and former State Department, broadcast, academic and private-sector PD professionals. Its mis- sion is to foster understanding, recogni- tion of and support for public diplomacy through educational and social activities. For information about PDAA’s activi- ties and a complete list of award-winners since 1993, please visit https://pdaa. publicdiplomacy.org. Ambassador Tracker T he pace of nominations and confir- mations for ambassadors and senior State Department and USAID positions tive director of the Ful- bright program in Korea, persuaded both the South Korean and U.S. govern- ments to put up hundreds of thousands of dollars for a new fellowship designed for the 3,100 college-age defectors from North Korea. In 2018, the first five North Korean students will start their graduate school fellow- ships in the United States. Embassy Bangkok’s Public Affairs Section , led by Public Affairs Officer Melinda Masonis , was hailed for its “Great and Good Friends” exhibition, highlighting the positive relationship between the United States Continued from page 17 Award winners and their representatives at the May 6 PDAA award ceremony. Left to right: Bix Aliu (accepting on behalf of Mark Bosse); winner Adrienne Bory; Ambassador Cynthia Efird, president of PDAA; Lisa Heller (accepting for Embassy Bangkok); Tim Marshall (accepting for Shim Jai Ok); and Elizabeth Thornhill, PDAA Awards Committee chair.