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Novel Suggestion: A Qualified Nominee for America’s Next Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy?

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Will persistence pay off or does hope just spring eternal?  The former would be nice.

On May 24, 2013, 51 former US Ambassadors and senior US government officials with extensive overseas and Washington experience in foreign affairs wrote to Secretary John Kerry (copying NSC Advisor Tom Donilon) urging the new Secretary to appoint a career foreign affairs professional as the next Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.  This position is being vacated by Tara Sonenshine, Hillary Clinton’s final political appointment to the office.  Sonenshine lasted less than a year. 

The letter signers are right. 

The position has been a revolving door since its creation in 1999 in the wake of the destruction of the US Information Agency which left a gaping hole in America’s ability to interact systematically and effectively with foreign publics abroad - a vacuum that the new soft power mandate for the State Department has miserably failed to fill.

As the letter points out, the position has been vacant more than 30% of the time since its inception according to the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. It was never occupied longer than the two years George W. Bush’s high profile and controversial appointee Karen Hughes held it soon after 9/11. 

None of its occupants have been career officers.  All but one was unfamiliar with the ways of the department or really knew how the US government conducts business abroad. In contrast, State's Under Secretary for Political Affairs has never been left without a director for more than 5% of the time and its occupants have been drawn from among the ranks of the highest career officers in the department.

State Department Cultural and Structural Impediments

What the signatories don’t point out, however, is that there are both structural and cultural reasons why the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs position has usually been filled with less than the best – and even these people haven’t stuck around long enough to make a difference if they could have. 

Namely, the position has little power – the Under Secretary has neither budgetary nor personnel control beyond a front office that has expanded exponentially since its inception and oversight of three functional bureaus (Education and Cultural Affairs, International Information Programs and Public Affairs) lodged under the Under Secretary.

Power in the State Department concentrates in the geographic and management bureaus:  these are the places where money is allocated and all important personnel decisions made.

The dichotomy

Yet public diplomacy’s rubber hits the road overseas –through public diplomacy professional staff working out of Embassies, Missions, Consulates, and Centers. The Under Secretary has no say over overseas public diplomacy appointments (except for certain specialists like reference specialists), staffing or even the qualifications or experience required for assignment as a public diplomacy officer abroad.

In reality, State has allowed public diplomacy to wither on the vine both as a career track and a skills set. No Condi – “we all don’t do public diplomacy now” – most State Department officers never did, never have and never should.  They provide other kinds of needed expertise.

The sad truth is that the State Department has never understood nor valued what public diplomacy can offer US foreign policy.

State’s culture is that of secrecy, stove-piped information and rigid hierarchy: traditional diplomacy occurs behind closed doors, with surreptitious handshakes, negotiated treaties, barrages of demarches to foreign ministries, and “no dis” cables.  Whereas, public diplomacy is about openness:  about sharing information with foreign publics. It is grounded in the view that transparency helps provide the foundation for mutual understanding between peoples of different cultures and upon which traditional diplomacy can more easily operate. 

The Asian Pivot and Obama’s Gum-Chewing Problem

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

The President, it seems, can’t walk and chew gum. The so-called Asian pivot is a case in point, but not the only one.

Is it really possible that a great power with the formal institutional resources available to the U.S. can’t keep an eye on the Middle East and China at the same time? Especially since the China issue massively involves the Navy and the Middle East far less so?

Or is this really just a presidential problem? Does Barack Obama lack the smarts to juggle a complex agenda or, to use the current jargon, to multitask? Or is he a colossally bad manager? Or lazy? Or more in love with the image than the obligations of being president?

Or, truly frightening to contemplate, is the obviously troubled U.S. system we used to admire rotten and corrupted to the point of irremediability?

No Lack of People

Look at it this way. There are thousands of thoughtful, well-informed people within the State Department, the National Security Council, the many-pronged intelligence apparatus and the Pentagon to gather information, assess its implications, draw up policy and/or action plans and send them up the hierarchy to be dealt with—collated, evaluated, weighed, tweaked, given relative priorities with appropriate resources—and, passing muster, implemented. Could we possibly be reduced to this: able to activate only one department of one branch of government at one time?

Seems to me that a well-managed country that pretends to super power status should be able to deal with the Middle East and with China simultaneously—and also, at the same time, with Latin America and Africa as well as all the global issues that affect the welfare of this and other countries.

If not, the Republicans are right. Thousands of people should be out of a job because they are redundant, which is a polite way of calling them useless.

A Definite Lack of Deft PD

Actually, the apparent inability to multi-task isn’t my only perplexity on the “pivot” front, and I’d like to exhaust those concerns before I return to the question of whether this government can simultaneously walk and check gum (and, one would hope, also be able to blow big beautiful bubbles—excluding the financial sort, of course).

As an old hand at public diplomacy, I deeply do not understand why the administration so blatantly announced that it was shifting its attention, i.e., executing a pivot, to the East, thus implying that the U.S. lacks the resources to handle a full plate of global issues. Maybe the U.S. isn’t equipped these days to wage a two-front war, but any world power worth the name must have the resources to carry out effective diplomacy on a global scale. Otherwise, it’s not a middling power, much less a super power.

There’s an Asterisk in that “Nascent Economic Recovery”

By John Charles Dyer, UK Correspondent 

18 May 2013.  The theme du jour seems to be “nascent economic recovery.”  That phrase popped up everywhere late April, accompanied by analyses of economic indicators allegedly supporting the theme.  15 May 2013 the Bank of England became the latest, projecting a “modest” but “sustained” recovery for the UK. 

It would be very welcome if true.  Everyone hopes for the best. No one hopes for the worst. No one enjoys debunking hope. No one wants to bring the economy down by "talking the economy down."  

Nor do we want to fool ourselves. 

Read the fine print  

Commentators seem to rely at least partially on a recent ONS estimate of GDP. ONS estimated the economy grew 0.3% in the First Quarter of 2013 over the previous Quarter and 0.4% over the same Quarter in 2012.  But there’s an asterisk for those estimates.  

“...  this estimate is [based on] around 44% of the total required [information] ... [ONS had] good information for the first two months ... [and an] estimate for the third month which takes account of early returns to the monthly business survey ... [ONS had] between 30-50% at this point ... [Therefore the] estimate .... [is] subject to revisions ... typically small (around 0.1 to 0.2 percentage points ... .”  

A lowering by 0.2 would change growth to 0.1% over last Quarter of 2012 and 0.2% over the prior year.  Nor is this asterisk the only caution.  The final estimate will be based on what actually happened during the quarter.  ONS has already published reports in May that cannot be fairly read to indicate growth. 

Fact check 

You can’t rely on headlines.

Take for example a 10 May release from the Office of National Statistics concerning first quarter 2013 construction.  According to the BBC the headline implication was, “Construction data suggests UK avoided a double-dip.”   Unless one read the ONS report itself one would not know ONS characterized the data as showing construction during the first quarter was at its lowest level since 1998.  

As it happened, the story did not receive a lot of coverage. Originally scheduled to come out Monday it came out instead on on “Take out the Trash” Friday.  

The same day provided another example. ONS released reports on the trade balance between the UK and the Europe and also the UK and non European countries. BBC dwelt on the increase in trade with non European countries.  As to trade with Europe, BBC characterized that as “flat,” again “suggesting” no double dip last year. 

This is what ONS actually reported about trade with Europe: 

“There is an increase of 31.8 per cent in the trade gap, the difference between UK imports from the EU and exports to the EU. This is the biggest increase in the trade gap in recent years. This difference is now £6.1 billion.”  

Then there was manufacturing and production. BBC described this as “industrial output beat forecasts.”  It did -- from February to March of this year -- but year-on-year -- according to ONS -- both figures were lower March 2013 than March 2012, which was lower than March 2011. As an ONS graph makes plain, while there were multiple ups and downs over the last 2 years, the slope of the curve has been down throughout. 

The final example is employment. ONS released its report 15 May 2013. BBC focused on a 15,000 increase in the unemployment rate while noting a 43,000 decrease “in employment.”  In an online piece BBC noted these statistics aren’t consistent with a picture of a recovering economy. But even this piece did not note the very first thing ONS wrote  -- the rate of of working age adults actually in work fell. 

I call attention to this statistic regularly.  It's not the same as the number of unemployed. It's far more significant in that it puts employment in context. The population grows. The need for new jobs grows, a fact often glossed over in discussions of increases in the absolute number of people in work.  As documented previously, the rate of working age adults actually in work declined steadily during 2008-2013.

BBC also noted total pay rises were at lowest levels since 2009. But BBC did not mention regular pay rises were at the lowest level since comparable records began (2001).   

15 May 2013 BBC News at 1 led with the Bank of England forecast.  BBC News at 6 did mention regular pay rises declined, but folded that information into the tail end of its coverage of the Bank of England’s forecast without highlighting rises were at the lowest level since 2001. 

BBC's online piece did not offset the employment news with the Bank of England forecast. The piece painted a fairly bleak picture. But unless you went to the ONS site and looked up the actual ONS report, you would not know even from this piece how seriously ONS itself rated the employment developments it tracked.  

Don’t bet your children’s future on hopeful pronouncements 

The indicators raise serious red flags concerning both the final First Quarter GDP estimate and the Bank of England’s optimism. It’s understandable why one might prefer good news, why one might search for “green shoots” in all those brown stalks. But before you bet your children’s future on hopeful pronouncements, fact check the headlines for yourself. ONS publishes its own take on its own statistics, readily available on line. That take speaks volumes. 

 

Nawaz Wins: What’s Next in Pakistan?

 By Patricia Lee Sharpe

The count’s still contested here and there—and loudly, especially in Karachi, which is no surprise. But the outcome is clear: the Pakistan Muslim League (N) won enough seats in last week’s parliamentary election to form a government all by itself. No need for coalition building in Islamabad.

That’s good. One-party government makes it easier to get things done, especially when there’s a responsible opposition to temper ideological excesses. Such an opposition the out-going People’s Party, whose lackluster performance in power made electoral defeat inevitable, has pledged itself to be.  Even so, the PPP won slightly more seats in Parliament than the perky new kid on the block, the Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice Party) founded by ex-cricketeer Imran Khan, which had hoped to win a parliamentary majority.  The U.S. should be happy.  Khan has been very critical of Pakistan's relations with the U.S.

A Milestone

Before we start looking toward the future via a rather murky crystal ball, let’s pause to note an important milestone. For the first time in Pakistan’s history, the 2013 election will allow a civilian-led government to hand the baton to another civilian government. U. S. President Barack Obama has already congratulated PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif, and maybe this time—having been granted a third go as Pakistan’s Prime Minister—Nawaz will manage to complete a term in office. In 1999, Chief of Army Staff Pervez Musharraf, with whom Nawaz had just waged (and lost) a high-altitude, mid-winter, mini-war against India, staged a coup and sent him scampering into exile in Saudi Arabia.

A New Nawaz?

“I’ve mellowed.” So says Nawaz, but the world around him may have changed more than he has. To name just a few of the more dramatic events of the past decade or so: the Twin Towers catastrophe in New York; U.S. intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq; the rise of drone warfare; the elimination of Osama bin Ladin and Saddam Hussein; the Arab spring and its messy aftermath; the still raging civil war in Syria; the earth-shaking awakening of the Chinese dragon; the death of Kim Jung Il.There's more, but the point has been made.

A New Military?

Nawaz also faces a different Chief of Army Staff.

Many times during the lead up to last  Saturday’s polling, I thought that the level of election-related violence—car bombs set off; candidates, party officials and ordinary people murdered; a high-level kidnapping—must surely have reached coup level. The Army would step in, declaring with the usual paternalistic panache that poor old Pakistan still isn’t ready for democracy. It didn’t happen.

Perhaps the Pakistani military under General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, has also mellowed. At the very least, Kayani honored his pledge (or inclination) to keep the Army out of the electoral process, even if that meant the Pakistani Taliban’s selective violence might skew the results toward parties they gauged to be more sympathetic to the Islamist cause. Taliban targets tended to belong to the MQM, the PPP and the AWP, all openly secular in orientation.  An interesting note: the PML-N insists that it too was harrassed, as if Nawaz feels some need to show there's air and light between him and the Taliban.  Even more important: Taliban threats notwithstanding, people in most constituencies flocked to the polls to exercise their right to vote.

The Slapdash Cook Worries about Drought and Makes a Green Chili Cheese Omelet

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

The wildfire season is upon us. Until it rains, as we hope it will, soon, the following  activities are banned from all Santa Fe city recreational areas: romantic campfires, wood- or charcoal-based cookery, cigarette smoking, fast-and-fun spark-generating vehicles and sky-piercing fireworks. Similar prohibitions apply to County and State lands. Last year the fire threat was so ominous that hiking trails were totally closed for many long weeks.

Meanwhile, rivers are trickles, reservoirs are low, forests are tinder waiting for ignition and—horror of horrors!—the chili crop in Hatch is under threat. Water needed for pepper irrigation is being slurped up before it reaches the chili fields in southern New Mexico. The way things are going, meteorologists say, the harvest will be small and any little green pods that manage to get to market will be expensive.

A crisis in the making.

In Northern New Mexico we put green chilis in or on practically everything—and I’m not referring only to huevos rancheros, enchiladas, tamales, empanadas and the like. How about steak with a green chili and mushroom topping? Or baked potatoes crowned with green chilis? Or marinara laced with green chilis? Or green chilis tucked under the skin of a roasting chicken? As for desert, consider chipotlé strawberry gelato or red hot dark chocolate made by the Chocolate Cartel in Albuquerque. When people mention Christmas in Santa Fe, they’re not thinking about Santa Claus. They’re ordering a dish that features red and green chili.

A chili habit is expensive to maintain, especially since a year’s supply has to be bought in a single swoop. Growers, having charred their chilis in wire cages rotated over beds of charcoal, stuff the limp hot pods into pint-sized baggies that have been been selling for five bucks a pop. Let’s do the math. I may live alone, but I still need twelve of fifteen bags to see me over the winter and through to the next harvest. That’s some sixty to seventy-five dollars per annum. Now multiply that sum by three or four to satisfy a whole family’s taste for tingle. Ouch!

Tingle varies, of course.  There’s mild for wimps, medium for those who can stand a little excitement and hot for people who like to play with fire.  A good trick is to mix a baggie of fire with a bag of medium.  Otherwise the heat in the dish you’re preparing may be so strong you can’t taste anything else.

Chilis bought, you take the bags home and freeze them, and here’s what you do when you hanker for some green chili. You thaw the chilis, peel off their cellophane-like skins, remove their heads and seeds, then chop, chop, chop. That’s it. Use the chopped chilis à la paragraph four above. Or any other way that comes to mind. If you have any freshly chopped chilis left over or want to ready several bags at once, do this: pretend you’re making drop cookies, but don’t put the cookie tray in the oven. Place it in the freezer. When the dollops are frozen, collect them into freezer bags and store them until you need them. Thawed eight or more months later, the chili will be just fine. But who can wait that long?

Meanwhile, you’ll need two dollops of chilis (about two tablespoons) for the two-egg omelet we’re about to make. In an hour or less they’ll thaw and be ready to use.

The eggs I prefer are from the super duper local poultry farm called Pollo Real, which retails chicken products every Saturday morning at the Farmers’ Market. (Tuesdays, too, during mid-summer.) These eggs are so fresh it’s almost a crime to tart them up, but the better the eggs the better the omelet. For cheese, what you’ll need is aged cheddar or maybe gruyère. At any rate, grate some cheese with a flavor you like. You’ll need a couple of ounces or more, depending on the runniness of the omelet you’re aiming for.

As for the rest, here’s what also goes into my chili cheese omelet: a couple of tablespoons of chopped fresh tomato and a generous tablespoon of chopped onions. Vary and balance the amounts to please your own palate. That’s what slapdash cooking is all about. Being free. Having fun. Eating well.

When it comes to beating the eggs, I blend the whites and yellows, then add a tablespoon or so of water and beat a little more. I apply the thinnest possible film of butter to a non-stick pan, get the surface really hot, pour in the eggs, scatter chili, tomato and onions over one half of the egg rondel and sprinkle the cheese over the whole circle. What comes next is simple but important.  I cook my omelets warily on fairly low heat, to keep the eggs from burning while the veggies get semi-cooked and the cheese melts.

Shortly after the bottom surface of the omelet begins to show hints of golden browning, I fold the non-veg half over the half with veggies.  Sometimes I flip the resulting half moon, too, once or twice, depending on what’s happening inside. The goal is to congeal the egg as much as you like without scorching the outer surface of the omelet. If you use good eggs, by the way, it's not necessary to cook them to death. What’s more, a decent omelet isn’t leathery.

Finally, slide the omelet onto one plate—or cut it in half and serve two people who want to have room for toast and muffins, too. Some words of caution: if presentation is important to you, don’t try to make a four egg omelet this way. You’ll end up with curious free form offerings on the plates.

By rights this chili cheese omelet should be served with green chile sausage, also from organic venders at the Farmers’s Market. But bacon’s just as good, and that’s all I had on hand: local bacon, smoked just right. Better than filet mignon. For breakfast, anyway.

And while you’re enjoying your omelet, do please pray for rain.

Double Standards: Buddhists, Muslims and Murder

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Buddhist mobs have been killing Muslims in Myanmar. Where’s the outrage? Why aren’t all major Buddhist leaders, those supposed paragons of compassion, loudly, unequivocally, calling for a halt to it? Why aren’t Buddhist practitioners world wide wringing their hands with guilt? Buddhists are expected to hate the very idea of swatting a mere mosquito. Aren’t Muslims sentient beings?

Evidently, given what’s expected of all Muslims whenever a single Muslim commits an atrocity, there’s a double standard for mea culpas.

When Islamist terrorists go on a killing binge, the non-Muslim world immediately puts pressure on all Muslim intellectuals and the great mass of ordinary people as well. Again and again they must dissociate themselves explicitly and just as explicitly condemn actions with which they clearly have no personal connection. On the street and in the media innocent Muslims are routinely tarred with communal guilt. They’re racially profiled, and those with common names, the Muslim equivalent of John Smith, find themselves stuck forever on no fly lists. Although Christians, both clergy and their congregations, are not obliged to dissociate themselves from every mass murder by culturally Christian maniacs, Muslim silence is taken as proof of culpability. What’s more, the bloody passages in the Bible and the Koran get different readings, the former (take a look at Leviticus) being taken as embarrassing anachronisms, the latter as the present day intention of all Believers. To be a Muslim is to live under suspicion.

I was reminded of the peculiarities of this double standard problem as I encountered a fresh variant in American media reactions to reports of Muslims murdered just for being Muslims by members of the Buddhist majority in Myanmar. Buddhists there have raided several Muslim enclaves, torching houses, looting shops, killing people. It’s one of the less savory aspects of the relaxation of military rule in that country. These reports from Myanmar reminded me, in turn, of the continuing, largely ignored maltreatment of non-Buddhist Tamils by the chauvanistic Buddhist majority in Sri Lanka.

Although there are many interesting aspects to the history of Islam in Myanmar, they aren’t the point here. The point is that Muslims are being slaughtered by Buddhists, yet Buddhism isn’t coming in for criticism. No one is asking this Venerable or that Venerable to grovel as imams must grovel to atone for the actions of every misguided, bomb-planting Muslim youth.

This chain of thought got underway a couple of weeks ago, when I received the latest issue of a twice-yearly Buddhist publication called (ever so appropriately, I once thought) “The Inquiring Mind.” The Burmese vein of Theravada Buddhism has been very influential in the spread of the Dharma in the U.S., and it occurred to me that I might find in “IM” some mention of the distressing events in Myanmar. I found nothing. The inquiring mind wasn’t inquiring.

I guess I’m not surprised. I can’t recall having read any significant “IM” commentary on the distinctly uncompassionate victimization of non-belligerent Hindu or Christian Tamils by Buddhists during the guerilla war in Sri Lanka. But “IM” isn’t the only example of non-feasance. I subscribe to another Buddhist publication, a glossy monthly aptly named “Tricycle.” Its latest issue also fails to mention the situation in Myanmar. And I can’t remember any “Tricycle” issues grappling in a serious way with the implications of the violence in Sri Lanka over the years. (I’m happy to be enlightened if I missed anything major.)

Meanwhile, mainstream American publications have also failed to demand an explanation of how adherents of a creed based on non-violent compassion for all sentient beings can behave so murderously. Buddhists pride themselves on their deep study of consciousness and the workings of the mind, and yet they seem to have little or no interest in plumbing, exposing and expiating this very obvious chasm between core beliefs and bloody actions.

Perhaps the most influential leaders of Theravada Buddhism, the branch of Dharma practiced in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, have decided not to wash dirty laundry in public. If so, even though Buddhists haven’t declared war on Westerners, which doesn’t mean that Western values aren’t regularly trashed, it’s time for the rest of us to insist that Buddhist leaders face the harsh music Muslim leaders have had to face. (The Dalai Lama wouldn’t be the most useful apologist here. He leads a sub-branch of another vein of Buddhism.) And how about some engagement from the many Buddhist lay people in America, especially those who teach and write about Dharma? Although the Vietnamese teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has called for a socially-engaged Buddhism, most American practitioners seem to prefer the navel-gazing variety. The beguiling injunction to practice loving-kindness degenerates, in all too many instances, into a mind-numbing mantra practice.

Particularly poignant in regard to the Muslim-bashing in Myanmar has been the restraint and remoteness of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s virtual saint, who is reputed to have meditated regularly while under house arrest. During those long years as a political prisoner she was globally admired as a martyr of conscience, and she received the Nobel Peace Prize for her non-violent resistance to military rule. Since she’s been free to speak out, however, she seems to have lost her tongue. She certainly hasn’t been campaigning very vigorously to protect the lives and human rights of Myanmar’s Muslims. The Lady is a politician, it seems, not a Buddhist saint. Why is the world giving her such an easy pass?

What do the 2 May local election results tell us?

By John Charles Dyer, UK Correspondent

3 May 2010. This week the UK demonstrated one old political maxim - all politics is local -- and one new one -- all spin is national.   

In yesterday's local elections Conservatives and Liberal Democrats suffered significant losses.

Now for the spin.

Conservatives, who lost most, “got the message.”  And the message? The Conservatives are right, of course. The electorate want what Conservatives are doing. The electorate are just “impatient” for it. Never mind the losses, the government just needs to do a better job messaging. Time to put UKIP under "scrutiny."    

Pundits had a field day. The only thing better than egg on a politician's face is a story of dramatic political change.  

Their "big story” was UKIP’s performance 

UKIP did well and better than predicted.  It certainly is a story that should be told. UKIP’s share averaged 25 percent, a substantial increase from last year's 7% in national polls or the 13% reported in the Sun poll this morning. 

More importantly, there are now four Stallions in the corral with the mares. 

UKIP’s leader, Nigel Farage, claims a “C-change” in UK politics.  Many pundits agree. Others say it could be the start of something big. Maybe they'll prove right. But maybe it's overcompensation for not taking UKIP seriously enough in the past. 

I agree most with Channel 4’s Gary Gibbon. Gibbon said the one thing clear to him is there's increased potential for a hung Parliament.  

But there was another story

The progressive Labour and Green Parties also made gains. In fact, at 291, Labour picked up more than twice as many seats as UKIP.  Green also gained.  But the story commentators told was Labour disappointing expectations by some measure or another.  

BBC further turned speculation into news. BBC reported their projection of what the results would have been nationally if it had been a national election, which it wasn't, and if  UKIP's share remained constant, which is dubious, as if this projection was somehow news.  BBC ignored Chuka Umunna's point that most of yesterday’s races were in previously Conservative jurisdictions.  How does one turn a gain twice UKIPs in previously Conservative jurisdictions into a Labour disappointment? If UKIP’s victory was a potential C-change, it seems more than odd that results nearly twice as large only disappointed.  

Why is this important? 

This is important because politcos and the electorate now consider the election's political and policy implications.  

Commentators who only the day before failed to predict the outcome spent the entire day today telling the public what those implications are.  Some argued Parties will have to shift to the Right. Others argued that at the very least Parties will have to address UKIP’s focal issues differently.  Many questioned whether one could consider Labour a true contender to take power in 2015.  While Labour’s success rose throughout the day the story line remained essentially unchanged.   

Premature

It seems premature to me to come to such conclusions.  

Diplomacy Lesson from the Past - Kathryn Wasserman Davis

By Patricia H Kushlis

Kathryn Wasserman Davis died at 106 on April 23, 2013. No cause for her demise was reported although it was reported that she was a strong supporter of environmental causes.

Kathryn Davis came from a line of women’s rights activists and internationalists. Among her earliest memories were those of her suffragette mother demonstrating in downtown Philadelphia for the women’s right to vote. True, I read that in her Wikipedia biography but Mrs. Davis also told me the story herself and if my memory serves, she proudly showed me a black and white photo of her mother’s political activism in action.

Had Mrs. Davis been of my generation, I have to wonder if she would have retained her Republican identification: her viewpoint and that of today’s Republican Party seem so antithetical.

Swiss interlude

From 1969-1975 Katheryn Davis’ husband Shelby Cullom Davis was US Ambassador to Switzerland, a country where the couple had first met as university students. He made his fortune in the financial insurance business on Wall Street turning a considerable sum of money from his wife’s family into considerably more. Presumably he bought the Ambassadorship through donations to the Nixon for President Campaign. That’s how those positions happen. The Davis’s knew the right people and well, money would have likely quietly changed hands moving from their considerable assets to the campaign’s seemingly effortlessly.

I never had the impression, however, that Ambassador Davis was simply after the title or that he wanted to run things at Jubeläiumstrasse 93. More likely both he and his wife had a long standing love affair with the country, wanted access to the people who mattered and simply liked the upper class Swiss life style. He had a strong career deputy named Richard Vine who later returned as Ambassador. Davis left the running of the embassy to Vine as well as dealing with the Swiss on substantive issues (the main one being banking secrecy – my how things don’t change).

From one Canton to the next

So the Ambassador and Mrs. Davis traveled the country – from one canton to another – showing the stars and stripes as the Viet Nam War wound down and meeting and greeting local officials, members of the general citizenry as well as patting the heads of the farmers’ well kept cows.

When in Bern, the Davises were gracious and generous hosts and kind to Embassy staff.

I wonder had Mrs. Davis been born just two or three decades later whether she would have pursued her own career – either as a career diplomat (she had the background – including a stint at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and a PhD in international relations from the University of Geneva - and the intelligence to do so) or in the private sector - not just as helpmate to and source of investment capital for her husband. At least, she would have had the choice.