By Patricia H. Kushlis
Henry Precht, A Diplomat’s Progress: Ten Tales of Diplomatic Adventure in and around the Middle East, Williams & Co: Savannah, Georgia 2005.
When I worked in the Cultural Section at the US Embassy in Moscow years ago, a colleague observed that life in that puzzle palace on Ulitsa Tschaikovskova and in the capital city of America’s then number one enemy was challenging, difficult but never boring. Henry Precht’s Ten Tales of Diplomatic Adventure in and around the Middle East suggest that his lengthy Foreign Service career brought him to a similar conclusion about his own diplomatic life.
Each tale stands alone. One - "Caviar and Kurds" - had been previously published in the Foreign Service Journal. Taken as a package, like the much earlier diplomatic adventure stories of British diplomat Lawrence Durrell, a second secretary and press attaché who wrote Stiff Upper Lip and Esprit de Corps at the end of World War II - books that initially attracted me to the diplomatic life – Precht spins his tales of diplomatic adventure, haps and mishaps with sardonic humor.
Intermingling of fact and fictionOf course, these stories are partially autobiographical – but not entirely. I have no reason, for instance, to believe that he went through two marriages and that he is no longer happily married to his first and thus far only spouse. Yet, he could not have written them without drawing heavily upon his own experiences – and perhaps those of his friends, colleagues, acquaintances and family. Otherwise, there could have been no credibility. And these tales are credible.
They are also well written and they remain pertinent for today. In fact, each chapter not only describes conditions in countries and regions of major importance to the US – places that have likely not changed all that much since Precht toured or worked in them - but they also include observations about the career Foreign Service that new entrants and wanna-be new entrants should internalize before signing on the dotted line and taking the loyalty oath.
Since the State Department is frantically recruiting new entrants– for the first time in years – and even attempting to entice those of us who left the service to return on short term contracts (in my view for mostly unattractive assignments in places I managed to avoid while I was on active duty) I would strongly advise any one contemplating an American diplomat’s life to read Precht’s book.
He’s a savvy Middle East hand who speaks both Arabic and Farsi, traveled extensively in the Middle East – as well as in Afghanistan before the Soviets invaded in 1979 - and had the dubious distinction of being Iran desk officer during the Embassy hostage crisis (after having served there in the 1970s) and worse, then blamed for the hostage taking by the late Senator Jesse Helms. Precht concluded his career as Deputy Chief of Mission in Cairo before moving on to a stint in academia and an eerie trip to Syria in which he escorted a group of American academics through Assad’s never-never land.
Each vignette is carefully chosen. They are arranged chronologically, and they are fun. Enjoy.