The Foreign Service Journal, September 2008

chill Moscow air. …” Later, when it was almost time to leave post, Amb. Kirk gave thanks to the assembled staff of the residence at 4 a.m., after a costume ball. In a sen- timental response, the pantry man said “never before had there been such happiness in Spaso House.” Ten years later Adm. Kirk, then 74, was called back from retirement for service in Taipei by President Ken- nedy, who said he needed “an older man with diplomatic experience and a military background … to face up to Chiang [Kai-shek].” Lydia Kirk found the assignment less welcome than earlier ones, but as always she rose buoyantly to new challenges, such as dealing with the redoubtable Mme. Chiang. Unfortunately, Adm. Kirk’s assignment was curtailed by illness, and he died in October 1963. Returning to New York as a widow, Lydia Kirk turned next to writing and produced three imaginative mystery novels before beginning her memoirs. After her death in 1984, the task of editing the incomplete manuscript fell to Roger Kirk, who used her let- ters, the recollections of his sisters and his own memories to cover several long periods that his mother had not written about. The result is a smooth and fasci- nating narrative, full of interesting insights from a woman who had a front-row seat in the theater of histo- ry. u R EVIEWED BY J ULIE G IANELLONI C ONNOR I took this book for review thinking it was the sort of biography I would really enjoy reading, and to which I could give a big thumbs-up. And I did enjoy it, as will those who love history, like to read about the Foreign Service in previous eras or enjoy learning about dynamic women. But reading these memoirs was not the unalloyed pleasure I had anticipated. Although the book illu- minates some ways in which the Foreign Service has improved, it also reveals some respects in which our institution is less than it used to be. This book is based on a draft mem- oir that Lydia Chapin Kirk began working on in the 1960s and on letters she sent from Moscow and Taipei. Those documents were all woven together by her son Roger Kirk, a for- mer ambassador to Somalia, Romania and the U.N. organizations in Vienna, who is the editor of this volume. Ambassador Kirk has also written a preface to the book, while Robert Orris Blake, a career FSO currently serving as ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, has contributed a very revealing and laudatory sketch of Lydia Kirk in a foreword. But it is still a very-first-person account that covers 86 years of Mrs. Kirk’s life. It is not uncommon nowadays to hear about U.S. military dynasties: generals who are sons of generals who were sons of generals. This book high- lights a similar tendency in diplomacy. Lydia Kirk’s father was posted with his family to the embassy in Paris as naval attaché. Her husband was ambas- sador to three countries, and her son also served as ambassador three times. But the book also underscores the fact that these diplomatic dynasties tended to be based on the East Coast, comprised of men from the right fam- ilies who went to the right boarding schools and the right universities. While I am more than happy that the Foreign Service is much more diverse nowadays, I have to admit to sighs of regret as I read this book. Lydia Kirk had the chance to live the “high life,” with servants, and summer vacations at exclusive beach resorts, and dinner parties with Very Very Important People, and luxurious ocean liner crossings. The book also makes clear what high value an accomplished wife rep- resented, both for a career military man and a diplomat. Kirk published four books, but not until her family was grown and her husband’s career a success. Her role in making the embassy in Moscow bearable — by organizing parties for the staff and going out to explore the city and serv- ing as hostess for official events — is quite clear. I found it interesting that, while Lydia Kirk was quite broadminded about foreign ways, the one group she ridicules is U.S. Southerners, whose accent and opinions she mimics in a very unflattering way. So who should read this book? I would recommend it for Foreign Service spouses, who can make their own judgments about whether they prefer the modern Foreign Service or would have liked Lydia Kirk’s lifestyle better. Those interested in England during World War II or in Russia just after the war would benefit from reading her first-hand accounts. Finally, to any Foreign Service par- ents who despair about how their chil- 82 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 8 B O O K S u I have to admit to sighs of regret as I read the book. Lydia Kirk had the chance to live the “high life.”