The Foreign Service Journal, November 2018

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2018 23 James B. Angell joined the Department of State in 1993 and was promoted into the Senior Foreign Service in 2011. He has been posted twice in Washington, D.C., most recently as the director of the Diplomatic Courier Service, and is currently director of the Frank- furt Regional Diplomatic Courier Division. Before joining the State Department, Mr. Angell was an archaeologist and interpretive ranger for the U.S. National Park Service. A veteran courier salutes the Diplomatic Courier Service’s first 100 years and a career that offers both satisfaction and the opportunity to serve. BY JAMES B . ANGE L L T his year marks the centennial of the U.S. Diplomatic Courier Service. Established in Paris at the end of World War I to ensure the inviolability of classified communication between U.S. diplo- matic missions across Europe, the Dip- lomatic Courier Service has grown from 15 military personnel in a single city to approximately 100 civilian profession- als serving in 11 divisions and hubs across the globe: Frankfurt, Dakar, Abidjan, Pretoria, Nairobi, Manama, Bangkok, Seoul, São Paulo, Miami and Washington, D.C. These dynamic individuals are entrusted with the secure delivery of classified material to more than 270 U.S. missions worldwide. Yet even as the Diplomatic Courier Service approaches a full century of dramatic history, and is at work all around the world, the vast majority of State Department personnel (let alone the American people) do not know it exists. The Silver Greyhounds Major Amos J. Peaslee (who later served as U.S. ambassador to Australia) conceived the idea of a trans-Atlantic courier service during World War I to improve delivery of mail and official messages to American troops fighting in France. General John J. Pershing signed off on the initiative in March 1918, and a group of seven Army officers led by Peaslee quickly cut delivery times between Washington and Paris from five weeks to less than two. The improvement was so dramatic that after the armistice, the American Commission to Negotiate Peace asked Peaslee to report to Paris and set up a courier service to help U.S. diplo- matic missions across Europe support Herbert Hoover’s Ameri- can Relief Administration. The first diplomatic couriers, informally known as the “Silver Greyhounds” (named after King Charles II’s messengers), set up shop at 4 Place de la Concorde on Dec. 2, 1918. Their motto, “None Swifter Than These,” was taken from Herodotus’ descrip- tion of the Persian couriers of 440 B.C. and remains the Diplo- matic Courier Service’s motto today. Following World War II the Diplomatic Courier Service became part of the State Depart- ment’s Division of Communication (Information Management), and in 1985 it was folded into the Bureau of Diplomatic Security pursuant to recommendations the Inman Commission made to consolidate the department’s security efforts. Constant travel is inherently dangerous, and the six diplo- matic couriers who perished in the line of duty during the past century have all died in plane crashes: Seth J. Foti in 2000 in Bahrain; Joseph P. Capozzi in 1963 in Cameroon; Willard M. Fisher in 1953 in Tanzania; Richard T. Dunning in 1951 in Libe- ria; Homer C. White in 1945 on a flight that departed from Liberia and never reached its destination in Ghana; and James N. Wright in 1943 in Portugal. A Perilous Profession Others were more fortunate. For instance, Henry E. Coleman survived with his diplomatic pouch after a Ger- man U-boat torpedoed the British liner Western Prince on Dec. 14, 1940, in the mid-Atlantic. And on April 20, 1968, Thomas Taylor was one of only six survivors aboard a South African Air 707 that crashed in mountainous ter- rain outside Windhoek, Namibia. Miraculously, his diplomatic pouch remained intact after the crash. More recently, on May 25, 2008, Andy Perez was on a Kalitta Air plane that crashed at the end of a runway on takeoff from Brussels with 4,000 kilograms of regional classified material bound for Manama on board. He assisted the crew and secured his classified pouches until cleared reinforcements arrived from Embassy Brussels and Consulate General Frankfurt to set up a command post for the huge salvage operation. In recognition of his bravery and dedication to duty, Perez received the State Department’s Heroism Award. Despite its small size, the Diplomatic Courier Service has a global reach. Last year, it securely transported 103,167 pouches weighing 5,548,257 pounds, via 3,309 separate diplomatic cou-