Dimplomatic Circles

Robert G. Morris

WASHINGTON CALLING


Washington called the embassy at a quarter to six Colonia time and asked for Ambassador Gunderson himself. Fortunately he had returned at 5:30 from a South American lunch. When Toni, his secretary, told him the source of the call he instantly sobered. It was from the White House.

Toni listened on her extension and made shorthand notes. She sat in the outer office of the Honorable Hubert Gunderson, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary, personal representative of the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to the Republic of Colonia.

The ambassador's contribution to the call was limited to fragments. "Yes - Holy smoke, when? - When? - Oh, God, so soon? - Yes, I'm still on the line - yes, yes - of course - yessir..."

The Honorable Hubert was a big man in an expensive, rumpled gray suit. His large bald head glistened with sweat under the fluorescent lights in the ceiling of his office. He sat at his massive walnut desk in front of all his ceremonial flags and autographed pictures. He had been catching up with his Wall Street Journals and graphing components of the family fortune amassed through hard work, good grades, a football scholarship at the University of Oregon, and marriage to a timber heiress.

The Washington side of the conversation dominated Toni's notes. She barely sketched in the ambassador's disjointed remarks, and she left out his profanity entirely. Toni's own thoughts and observations had no effect on her transcription. Years ago she had discovered she could type a whole letter and not know what it was about when she finished.

When the call came Toni had been idly watching the dark clouds behind the palm trees on the grounds of the United States Embassy in Juan de Sols, Colonia's capital. Down one street she could see a sliver of the mighty River Uruguay, beyond the shuttered yellow buildings, moving like mercury below the dim sky. Toni was in her third year in Colonia, so she knew the signs and could feel the impending winter rains. One more embassy assignment and she would retire. She didn't look old enough. Even without the heavy eye shadow, glossy red lips, and black-dyed hair she would have looked younger than her sixty-one years. Maybe even younger than she did with the cosmetic help.

Gunderson's deputy, called Deputy Chief of Mission or DCM, had been confident of her reply when he suggested to Toni, "Let's you and I stay until seven on Fridays in case the ambassador needs any help with weekend planning."

"Of course." She understood perfectly that he meant they must stay to keep the ambassador out of trouble.

As deputy chief of mission Garfield Jameson felt obliged to hide his emotions behind a set face and a neat, full, short beard that was naturally redder than one might expect for a man his age. He was fifty-four, a year younger than the ambassador.

Garfield, a trained historian, had previously been a political officer. Now, as a manager, he believed he took as much interest in the business of the foreign service officers (FSOs) in the economic, consular, and administrative sections as in the political.

He had saved from great embarrassment a political-appointee ambassador in Chile, and he had hoped to be rewarded with an embassy of his own, perhaps Buenos Aires, or at least Asuncin or Montevideo. Instead, he was sent to Juan de Sols to oversee the transition from a retiring professional ambassador to a campaign contributor, the Honorable Hubert Gunderson.

Garfield's management philosophy was to do his best, after which he must never be disappointed when things turned out wrong, as they had in his last two posts; nor must he ever be surprised when they turned out right, the way they had when he was selected to go to the foreign service senior seminar, marked for promotion. Garfield knew everything about his current job except the one thing that Toni already sensed -- it was the highest post he would ever have.

In his office next to the ambassador's, Garfield had been reading the last two days' output of embassy telegrams Toni had saved for him. He made marginal notes with his distinctive green ink that said, "Good," "Late," "Not Bad," "Muy bueno," "Next time clear with political," or the dread, "See me."With Garfield was Henry Nielsen of the economic section, just back from his biennial home leave in the United States. As duty officer, he discreetly shared the ambassador watch. Toni recognized that ordinarily it was out of character for Henry to be discreet. He was shunned, particularly by the officers in the political section, but Toni liked him. Henry was lanky, loosely strung together, black-haired. He had looked wrinkled and soiled since shortly after dressing that morning.

"Before Ambassador Gunderson arrived in April, I thought our weekly meetings could not be worse, economically speaking," Henry told anyone who wanted to listen and some who didn't. "But they really did get worse when he moved them from Wednesday at 10:30 to Monday at nine."

Garfield had said privately to Henry at the time, "The ambassador told me when he arrived in April that in Portland he always started the week at his real estate agency with a staff meeting, and he wanted to do it that way here."