The Foreign Service Journal, December 2004

L E T T E R S 8 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 4 terrorists with false identities simply to walk across the border some- where between Brownsville, Texas and San Diego?) Meanwhile, we are attracting fewer and fewer of the world’s “best and brightest” and, as a result, have smaller built-in pro-U.S. constituencies abroad as the influ- ence of other global competitors grows. How unfortunate. Tibor Nagy Jr. FSO, retired Lubbock, Texas More Memories of Hume Hume Horan and I were best per- sonal and professional friends for 40 years. To the touching memorials in the September and October issues, I would like to add a vignette about Hume’s parrot, Polynesia, who in her own way reflected Hume’s unusual tal- ents. Poly, an African grey parrot, was the Horan family pet for 18 years, but Hume was Poly’s first love. She rode on his shoulder, cooed in his ear and constantly called his name. Like Hume, Poly was extraordinary. Poly was much more than a mimic: she sang several lines of “The Star Spangled Banner;” carried on long phone conversations; conversed in French as well as English; and made comments appropriate to events going on around her. Poly was well known to Foreign Service folks who served with Hume in Africa and the Middle East. Some years ago, when he could no longer care for her, Hume gave Poly to us. Like the Horan family, we enjoyed Poly’s cheerful presence for a number of years. Two months after Hume’s death of cancer, Poly, too, died of cancer. We picture her now perched on Hume’s shoulder in the Great Beyond. Robert P. Paganelli FSO, retired Fredonia, N.Y. Good MOH Coverage I received the October Journal today and, after seeing several letters reflecting on the MOH coverage in your June issue, I realized that I had neglected to commend you for unique and careful coverage of a very thorny issue. It’s nice to see the issue “out of the closet,” so to speak, although I see that one previous letter-writer felt it did not go far enough (that may be a fair observation, but I’m not in a position to comment). I also think it was very timely of you to get articles for the October issue on perceptions of the U.S. elec- tion from various non-American cor- respondents, none of whose views surprised me in the least (although one or two of my FS pals would prob- ably say the issue was slanted). There is no question that the FSJ has gradually — maybe not too grad- ually, thank God! —moved forward in recent years. Unfortunately, our retired colleagues who are non-AFSA members do not benefit from that progress, and many resist believing that AFSA membership would be worthwhile just to receive the Foreign Service Journal each month. But we’re working on it! Gil Sheinbaum FSO, retired Vienna, Va. Remembering Jack Sloan When Jacob (“Jack”) Sloan died on June 26, 2004, at the age of 86, a remarkable man left us to our potent memories of him. I met Jack for the first time in India in 1966. He was in the cultural affairs section in Embassy New Delhi (part of his distinguished 21-year career at the U.S. Information Agency), while I was information officer in our Madras consulate. His intelligence and wit shone through from our very first meeting, and my wife and I had the pleasure of Jack and Ann’s company many times abroad and at home in the last four decades. The “In Memory” notice of Jack’s passing correctly referred to him as an accomplished editor of international publications who also wrote several volumes of poetry and a book about the Holocaust. I read many of Jack’s works over the years, but one piece stands out most clearly as a testimony to the man, his ideals, his code of honor, his humanity. It was an article he wrote for Commentary magazine in 1994. In the opening paragraph, he declared, “I have recently gotten into the habit of saying Kaddish, the Jewish memor- ial prayer, for Gentiles. This may be unusual, but I need no rationale to justify extending a traditional Jewish family rite to non-Jews. The persons for whom I say Kaddish were all members of my extended family-in- laws, so-to-speak, on my wife’s side of whom I was fond.” Jack confesses, however, “Still, I am puzzled about this new-fangled practice of mine. For I still remem- ber all too vividly a time in my life when saying Kaddish was a daily tor- ment, a reminder of my hapless con- fusion and disorientation as an orphan boy in a world ruled by crabby old men passing their final gray years in ritual repetition of prayers they did not understand. And here am I now, myself an aged, too often angry man in a world with which I am not at ease, seizing every opportunity to recite the same Kaddish.” He asks, “Is it because I secretly agree with the Midrashist that ‘prayer is midway to atonement?’” In the four pages of the article, as much poetry as they are prose, Jacob Sloan takes the reader through the upbringing and adulthood which spawned his love-hate relationship with the Jewish prayer. “And now,” he writes, “I begin to wonder whether in looking for every opportunity to say