The Foreign Service Journal, December 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2015 43 don’t. Diplomacy, like any profession, requires certain skills and personalities. Andy Young’s record on civil rights and in politics is stellar, because they suited his abilities and personality. But he was a poor ambassador because he wasn’t content to subdue his personal beliefs and abide by the rules of the profession. In other words, a good man in the wrong trade. I think my point is that diplomacy is terrifically important and, by and large, is best not left to amateurs. I admire professionals in all trades, and diplomacy is no exception. CS: In “Primer,” you criticize Henry Kissinger’s shuttle diplo- macy and argue that our nation should rely on on-the-ground diplomats. Do you think there is a role for Kissinger-style diplo- macy? What should be the balance between special emissaries based in D.C. and the ambassador and his or her staff who are resident in the country? RCL: Generally speaking, I think diplomacy is best done by people on the scene who know the territory, know the personalities, establish personal relationships and have to live with the consequences. The same, incidentally, goes for journalists. Parachute journalism has its place, but you can’t beat a resident correspondent who can see a story developing and knows how it developed. That said, as far as parachute diplomacy [goes], this isn’t a hard and fast rule. There are occasions when a Washington big shot like Kissinger can be useful, if only because he has clout in the White House and the people on the scene know it. Secretary of State John Kerry probably was crucial to the Iran negotiations for this reason (and also because we have no formal embassy there, only a special interests section: this limits the scope and depth of our knowledge about the place). CS: When I first read “A Primer for Diplomats,” I was amazed at how little has changed since the 1970s in terms of how embassies and the Operations Center function. How did you learn so much about embassy operations? RCL: Journalists and diplomats cover the same beats, see each other all the time and talk shop. This was especially true in Moscow and Vienna, where we all covered the communist countries and needed to swap info just to keep up, and in Brussels, where journalists and diplomats spent many late nights waiting for European Economic Community (later European Union) ministers to emerge from their closed meetings to tell us what was going on. All this allowed for a lot of beer and a lot of chat—and I just listened. Continued on page 46 Primer For Diplomats B Y R . C . LONGWORTH I n this season of debate over Andrew Young and his diplomacy by insult, spare a thought for the practice and usefulness of cookie-pushing. (...) The point is not whether Young’s opinions are right or wrong; much of what the outspoken ambassador has said may have needed saying. The point is whether a man in Young’s position is the person to say them, and whether he has damaged himself and his nation by doing so. Much of the flap over Andrew Young comes from the general American confusion over what diplomacy is and what diplomats do. It is a confusion that clearly is shared by Young himself. The definition of diplomacy lends itself to epigrams: “the art of handling a porcupine without disturbing the quills,” “the fine art of diving into trouble without making a splash” or, according to Ambrose Bierce, “the patriotic art of lying abroad for one’s country.” More seriously, diplomacy is the way countries get along with each other and adjust their national rivalries without going to war. When diplomacy fails, it fails noisily. When it succeeds, it does so quietly and in private, and is likely to be ignored. A good diplomat tries to get the most for his country short of war—“to get other nations to do what you want them to do,” in the words of an American diplomat. To this man, “a Excerpted from the Chicago Tribune, July 10 1977 © Chicago Tribune . All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution or retransmission of this content without express written permission is prohibited.