Insights on DOS / country team culture?

[Stan]

While I generally agree with Stan in his characterization of Charges d'Affaires, I have seen one who, in fact, assumed "command." that was Dave Passage in El Salvador between Tom Pickering and Ed Corr.

I'd also note that the "political" ambassadors come in many stripes - not all are businessmen. John Kennedy appointed Edwin Reischouer (sp?), the foremost US scholar of japan, as his ambassador to Japan to nearly universal praise. Kennedy also appointed John Kenneth Galbraith, the Harvard economist, as his ambassador to India where he did very well during the PRC invasion of India. Ronald Reagan appointed fellow actor ans Screen Actors Guild President, John Gavin, ambassador to Mexico to a chorus of "boos" from people who did not know that Gavin was a native Spanish speaker, a reserve Naval intel officer with an IMA assignment to USSOUTHCOM, and the private phone number of his friend Ronnie (something Galbraith had for Kennedy).

While the quality of FSO's as ambassadors tends to be both more even and generally high quality, there are some who are clearly better than others. As Stan says, it is a question of leadership and whether the ambassador exercises command or not and if he does, does it well. I have seen both.

Cheers

JohnT

Hey John,
I may have ever-so-slightly over exaggerated how inept a Charge could be
Concur, there have been several with leadership skills and to be fair, most end up manning the ship after the new administration dumps the Ambassador. Yet another issue regarding Country Teams.

Ken has a valid point: So long as the remainder of the Country Team is prepared to cover your back. In my days our Ambassador backed the DAO and snubbed the rest for not investigating their perceptions and findings. It wasn't long however (following the Ambassador's departure) before the Charge discounted our reporting based on his domestic's (cook's) "reports".

I don't think we have a cookbook for dealing with Country Teams. Old Eagle had four great tours and I had 12 Sierra Embassies and two OK Embassies (Estonia was not one of the OK tours BTW).