Category: Foreign Service Stories

By Charles S. Gordon During my early USAID assignments in Asia and Africa, I was frequently exposed to European diplomatic colleagues, who, it struck me, spent an unseemly amount of time thinking about, discussing, and planning for their future retirement. … Read more

Dr. McIntyre, retired from the Foreign Service after more than twenty-three years abroad, lives with his wife Jessie in Chapel Hill, NC. During the Second World War, he was awarded a Bronze Star for his service as an infantry battalion … Read more

By Francis Underhill “Indonesians live in ‘rubber time.’“ I first became aware that time has a cultural dimension when I was assigned to our consulate in the city of Medan on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, my first non-European post … Read more

At long last, American Diplomacy finds itself in the happy position of being able to announce the following 1972 DUBIOUS ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS for personnel of the American Embassy, Port-au-Prince, Haiti. as screened, judged, and selected by Jack L. Nixon This … Read more

by Shelley Mattox MARK TWAIN once complained that the “idiot Parisians” failed to understand their own language when he spoke to them in French. Everyone who has been abroad knows the challenge of coping with languages not his own, and … Read more

I was the only third secretary, the diplomatic equivalent of a second lieutenant, when I arrived at our embassy in Lisbon in January of 1948 on my first Foreign Service assignment. As part of my indoctrination, the ambassador decided that … Read more