Diplomatic reorientation

America’s other Army: Inside the Foreign Service

Seventh in a series

Thomas R. Pickering was a fresh college graduate in 1953 when he braved the notoriously lengthy entrance process at the State Department, prolonged even further by an ongoing investigation of suspected communists in the agency’s ranks.

Although he was offered a job earlier than he expected, Mr. Pickering by then had enrolled in the graduate program of Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Medford, Mass. He later left for Australia on a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Melbourne, which was followed by three years in the Navy.

So it was 1959 when the 28-year-old finally became a Foreign Service officer or, to use the better-known term, a diplomat.

His first job was in the State Department’s employment division, “answering letters of people who wanted to work for the department.” It was not the most prestigious foreign-policy position, but he was happy to have an income.

“I had one child and another one on the way, so I needed work,” he recalled recently. “I never thought that I had a particular flair for interpersonal relations.”

In January 2001, Mr. Pickering retired as undersecretary of state for political affairs, the third-ranking position at the State Department.

During his 42-year career, he won praise and high-profile posts under Republican as well as Democratic administrations, serving as the ambassador to Nigeria, El Salvador, Israel, Jordan, India, Russia and the United Nations.

The jobs carried the same title, he said, but every post was different and none was easy to prepare for.

“You have to acquire on the job almost everything you need to know,” Mr. Pickering said at the Arlington offices of the Boeing Co., where he is senior vice president for international relations.

“I was ambassador a number of times, and no two [posts] were the same. But I learned quickly the tricks and the ways to break into a new job.”

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