Abroad for Her Country

Contents

Download PDF (92.0 KB)
 

Preface

Download PDF (139.3 KB)
pp. ix-xii

The following thoughts are said to have been drafted by Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw, Michigan, and first spoken by John Cardinal Dearden of Detroit, though they are often incorrectly attributed to Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero. These words have become...

Early Years, 1926– 44

Download PDF (145.9 KB)
pp. 3-17

Who would have thought that a young girl born in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, in the early part of the twentieth century, the tallest in her class and always in the back row so the other children could see the teacher, would become a United States ambassador and travel around the world? Never,in my wildest dreams while growing up did I have any such aspirations....

Trinidad, BWI, 1944–46 (Vice Consul)

Download PDF (178.0 KB)
pp. 18-43

As I prepared to take off for my first Foreign Service post, I was strangely reminded of the time my mother drove me off to first grade! Nearly two decades later, here she was driving me from our apartment in Miam iBeach over the Causeway on Biscayne Bay to the Miami International Air-port to put me on a plane for an overseas government job. Just as she...

Bogotá, Colombia, 1947–48 (Third Secretary—Economic)

Download PDF (216.6 KB)
pp. 44-70

I accepted a freebie military plane ride back from Trinidad to the United States aboard an Army hurricane reconnaissance plane. The flight would be mapping the winds from the extreme southeastern Caribbean up to the east coast of Florida, and it sounded like much more fun than returning by commercial airline. The Department of State granted my request...

Milan, Italy, 1949–51 (Vice Consul)

Download PDF (202.8 KB)
pp. 71-98

Having left Bogotá some months short of a full tour because of health problems, I returned to Washington for a full medical checkup, rest, and recuperation. It took less time than I’d feared, and before long I received My new posting was to Milan, Italy’s financial and commercial capital,which fit well with the training and professional experience I had gained...

Paris, France, 1953–56 (Deputy Commercial Attaché)

Download PDF (4.3 MB)
pp. 99-131

I was assigned to Paris in 1953, when the U.S. government still used ocean liners to transfer Foreign Service personnel to their posts. We were encouraged to take American flag carriers but could also use foreign registry ships. Thus, I gained a head start on my French experience with a fantastic ocean voyage on the Ile de France from New York to Le Havre, followed...

Santiago, Chile, 1957–59 (Second Secretary)

Download PDF (158.5 KB)
pp. 132-150

As is often the case in Foreign Service rotations, which take account of language and area experience, I was transferred from Europe back to Latin America—from Paris, France, to Santiago, Chile—just as I had been earlier from Bogotá, Colombia, to Milan, Italy. Given my Spanish language proficiency, I had no need for further training at the Foreign Service Institute...

Interim Assignments: GATT Tariff Negotiations, 1960–61; Senior Seminar, 1962–63; Diplomat in Residence in California, 1976– 77

Download PDF (181.8 KB)
pp. 151-171

Personnel assignments are never easy in the Foreign Service, either for the administrators making the decisions and issuing the orders or for the assigned officers, with their questions and doubts as to where and how they will be spending the next three to four years of their lives. The process does have some virtues: personnel panels making the...

Rome, Italy, 1963–66 (Second Secretary), 1969–72 (Commercial Counselor; Minister/Counselor for Economic Affairs)

Download PDF (205.9 KB)
pp. 172-200

Because I learned to speak Italian in Milan in the early 1950s, it seemed only logical for the Department of State to make the most of its investment in human resources and assign me back to the only fully Italian-speaking country in the world—Italy. Memories of my two tours in Rome...

Tegucigalpa, Honduras, 1966–69 (Deputy Chief of Mission; Chargé d’Affaires a.i.)

Download PDF (232.0 KB)
pp. 201-233

As my first assignment to Rome in the mid-1960s ended abruptly with the death of my mother, who had been my in-residence dependent for ten years, the Department of State was at its sympathetic best with my next assignment. I was transferred to a different continent, a different language,and a leadership responsibility that became a turning point in my career—...

Lusaka, Zambia, 1972–76 (U.S. Ambassador, Chief of Mission)

Download PDF (4.2 MB)
pp. 234-299

Late one afternoon, about an hour before closing, during my second posting to Rome, the phone on my desk rang. “Washington calling,” the embassy operator said. Then, “Is that you, Jean? This is Cleo Noel in Washington. How would you like to go to Zambia?”...

To State and the United Nations, 1977–80 (Father Ted, China, and Vienna)

Download PDF (174.7 KB)
pp. 300-318

Toward the end of my academic year at Oxy, I received a phone call from Ambassador Carol Laise, then director general of the Foreign Service. “How would you like to work with Father Theodore Hesburgh of the University of Notre Dame?” she inquired, adding, “The President [Jimmy Carter] has just appointed Hesburgh to head up the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Conference on Science and Technology for Development,...

Later Years, 1980– 2000

Download PDF (163.2 KB)
pp. 319-339

With the Vienna conference over, my three-year stint in multilateral diplomacy with the United Nations was completed. So I made an appointment with the director general of the Foreign Service, Ambassador Harry Barnes, to see what my next assignment might be. The morning I called at his office, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. Congress had voted to...

Epilogue

Download PDF (87.2 KB)
pp. 340-

Index

Download PDF (160.1 KB)
pp. 341-352