The Foreign Service Journal, September 2013

84 SEPTEMBER 2013 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL How About Paris? Lessons from a Diplomatic Life: Watching Flowers from Horseback Marshall Adair, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2013, $38, hardback, 235 pages. Reviewed by Shawn Dorman Marshall Adair’s book, Lessons from a Diplomatic Life: Watching Flowers from Horseback , is a delightful read. As he brings readers along on a journey from Paris to Lubumbashi and on to Asia (including several China assignments), his engaging personal story offers insights into history and diplomacy, as well as context for the events he describes and the flavor of the places in which he serves. This is an account of a Foreign Service life spent traveling the world, first as the child and grandchild of a diplomat and, later, as a diplomat himself. Adair joined the Foreign Service in 1972 and served for 35 years; he was also AFSA’s president from 1999 to 2001. (His father, Charles Wallace Adair Jr., was also an FSO for 35 years.) Part memoir and travelogue, part history lesson and insider’s take on diplo- macy and the Foreign Service career, Lessons from a Diplomatic Life covers a lot of ground. In his introduction, Adair references the Chinese expression “Ride-Horse- Watch-Flowers” that serves as the book’s subtitle and subtext. As he explains, the phrase means “to make a hasty judgment”—a warning against pass- ing too quickly or superficially through places, and not getting close enough to truly understand them. The best diplo- mats combine the advantages of horse- back—distance and perspective—with the more nuanced and deeper under- standing that comes from getting off the horse and staying a while. Adair begins his memoir by sharing a question his orientation training director posed to him: “How would you like to go to Paris?” Many might consider that a dream assignment, but the single, young, adventure-seeking Adair had been hoping to head out to the developing world rather than to a plum post where his father had served. But his initial disappointment with the prospect illustrates a fortunate truth about the eclectic mix of people who make up the Foreign Service: for every FSO dreaming of Paris, there is another ready to pack up and move to, say, Lubumbashi (where Adair went next). Okay, maybe it’s not a one-to-one ratio, but it basically works. Fromwhat actually turned out to be a wonderful posting in “the planet’s most beautiful city,” Adair was thrilled to move on to Zaire (now the Democratic Repub- lic of the Congo), where he served from 1974 to 1976. Faced with the grim reality of a society blessed with vast mineral resources, but mired in corruption under the notorious President Mobutu Sese Seko, and undergoing major social, eco- nomic and political upheaval, Adair did his best to understand local conditions and succeed in his job as an economic officer. One takeaway from his time in Zaire was that the ability to communicate with people in their own language is the key to getting below the surface in any coun- try. Most of the foreign diplomats there did not speak the indigenous languages or Kiswahili, and thus were not able to communicate in any significant way with about 80 percent of the population. Adair notes that communicating only with the country’s elite is insufficient—just one of many lessons he shares in the book. Much of Adair’s career was spent in Asia—Taipei (1980-1981), where he fell in love with the enchanting Chen Chunzhi, now his wife of more than 30 years; Hong Kong (1981-1984) and Beijing (1984- 1986). In Rangoon (1988-1990) he got to know Aung San Suu Kyi, who was put under house arrest shortly before the end of Adair’s tour even though her party, the National League for Democracy, won a majority in the 1990 parliamentary elec- tions. Next, he served in Chengdu (1990- 1992), which was still reeling from the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Adair uses his account of that assignment to introduce us to the complexities of Tibet. Detours out of Asia take Adair from Tuzla to Tampa, into another type of foreign culture: the U.S. military. In Tuzla (2002-2003), he served as a political adviser to the senior U.S. military com- mander leading the multinational NATO peacekeeping force in northeastern Bos- nia. In Tampa (2003-2006), Adair served as POLAD to the Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base. He uses those experiences to analyze cultural and operational differences between diplomats and soldiers. The former interact with and seek to understand each host country, looking for influences; the latter are more concerned with getting a particular job done. Lessons from a Diplomatic Life would be most instructive for anyone consider- ing a Foreign Service career, although one Marshall Adair’s memoir underscores the value of diplomacy, and the unique satisfaction that comes from Foreign Service life at its best. BOOKS