Ambassador Ortiz: Lessons from a Life of Service

16: Home at Last—But Not for Long

The State Department granted my request for an assignment to New Mexico for medical treatments. Soon after arriving, I took up my duties as an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico in the Political Science Department. My full title was Diplomat in Residence, which initially made me something of a campus oddity. In  the University had granted me an honorary doctorate, but I felt less than honored as I returned to the campus. I soon found out that carrying out my assignment at UNM would not be easy. Many faculty colleagues were products of the raging s. They tended to regard any U.S. government official as an agent for all that is “evil, brutal, corrupt, mendacious, stupid and dangerous,” as I reported to the State Department about my position at the University. Some university groups seemed to perceive me as an envoy from hell, especially those on the liberal left, who were firmly entrenched and highly vocal about their abhorrence of their own government’s policies, leadership, and actions. Unsurprisingly, they held views that were charitable to a notable degree when it came to the policies, leaders, and actions of the authoritarian, leftist governments that the U.S. government, in assuring common interests, sought to contain or oppose. To these more extreme elements, someone like me—a  16 Home at Last—But Not for Long high-level U.S. government official who undeniably had dealt with corrupt, right-wing dictators—was a clear and present danger. Seldom was I subjected to open hostility, but I frequently encountered sullenness and generally was excluded from campus events. There were exceptions, of course. The chair of the Political Science Department, Dr. Paul Hain, was always attentive and interested in my work. He set me up in a fine office, after the Latin American Studies department, my logical home, banished me to a remote cell. The evereffervescent Fred Harris—who knew enough about the American political system to make a run for the presidency, which he did—was unfailingly friendly and supportive. Gradually, most students and faculty came to accept me as a professor who was just different from the academic mainstream, and not necessarily evil, even if I remained a potential corruptor of young minds. My unique position as Diplomat in Residence came with some privileges. I could select my students, for example, and I could limit my class size to  students. I also chose to accept only juniors or seniors. This allowed me to put together good classes on American foreign policy and American diplomatic history. My schedule was not grueling. We lived in Santa Fe and I traveled to the University in Albuquerque only two days a week. I suspect that my less than overwhelming presence on campus was a comfort to those who perceived me as a menace to their hegemony. I gleaned much of value from the experience at UNM. I learned a lot about the younger generation of Americans—and not all of it was good. Most dramatically, I was shocked at evidence of the shortcomings of the American educational system. My students were among the cream of the crop, and, on the whole, they were intelligent. But many of them wrote poorly. They couldn’t spell. Their lack of English skills I found unsettling. I preferred essay questions in the tests I gave them, so I could see how well the students expressed themselves . Often their answers were nearly unintelligible. In order to grade fairly, I’d also include absolute, true-or-false or one-answer questions; their responses to these also often shocked me. In response to the test question, “In what city is the headquarters of the United Nations?”  HOME AT LAST—BUT NOT FOR LONG one of my best students answered, “In Cicili [sic].” Flabbergasted, I called the student in and asked what he meant by his answer. “Isn’t it in Sicily?” he replied. This from one of my best students! That marked a low point in my teaching experience. I devised a rather novel way of teaching, giving my students exercises to simulate real-world situations. I assigned each student to represent a particular pressure group—the agricultural lobby, the banking lobby, the Jewish lobby, the Greek lobby, and so on. I told them that their government most often responded to strong pressures from these special interests. Then I presented them with a situation...