THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2026 39 through explaining our people and values, securing supportive allies, promoting our prosperity, and ultimately ensuring American freedom. The following snapshots of Franklin’s diplomatic brilliance in Paris are paired with accounts drawn from ADST interviews showing modern diplomats keeping his legacy alive, as they have been doing for generations. Exuding Confidence As the famous representative of a relatively unknown country, Franklin became adept at bluffing his way past obstacles. No one wants to support a losing cause, so Franklin portrayed the colonies as invincible, even as the Continental Army was outgunned in every battle. He insisted that General Washington commanded 80,000 soldiers when the truth was closer to 14,000. When told in 1777 that British General William Howe has taken Philadelphia, Franklin replied, “You are mistaken. Philadelphia has taken Sir William Howe.” Franklin’s words proved prophetic: Cut off from supply lines, the British abandoned Philadelphia some nine months later. As U.S. deputy chief of mission in Fiji in 2000, Ronald McMullen was just as bold as Franklin. When armed gunmen took over parliament, holding lawmakers hostage in a botched coup attempt, “Embassy Suva went into crisis mode,” McMullen recalls. “[We] went to authorized departure because of the unrest and rising danger. A few days later, an American journalist walked into parliament to interview hostage takers and was promptly taken prisoner himself.” At the gates of parliament, McMullen managed to reach a senior insurgent on a cell phone and asked about the detained American. Here’s what happened next, in McMullen’s words: “‘That’s right,’ the rebel said. ‘We’ve got him here. He’s now our prisoner.’ Rather than representation of a monarch, Franklin’s diplomacy encompassed the full spectrum of our new nation’s interests. Benjamin Franklin, the first official U.S. envoy to a foreign government, is received at the Court of France in 1778, after signing treaties that established the two countries’ alliance during the Revolutionary War. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
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