Diplomats fight their stuffed-white-shirt image

George Herbert Walker III, a Missouri businessman who headed a financial-services company for 14 years, wanted to serve his country overseas.

So in early 2002, he turned for advice to his first cousin, George H.W. Bush, the current president’s father.

“He thought it would be a good idea,” Mr. Walker recalled recently. “He didn’t want to tell his son what to do, but told me to write the president a letter. I didn’t name a country, but there are many countries we have a fragile relationship with.”

Today, Mr. Walker, who is in his early 70s, is the ambassador to Hungary — a NATO ally and supporter of Bush administration policies with several hundred troops in Iraq.

Like many political appointees, he was immediately struck upon taking up his posting in October with the stark contrast between modern diplomacy and the lingering image of the Foreign Service as a collection of stuffy white males in striped pants.

But it is not the image that disturbs American diplomats so much as the misperceptions that come with it.

“There is often a lack of public understanding of what we do and incredible willingness on the part of many people to believe some of the myths about the Foreign Service — that it’s a less-loyal organization than others — which I find astonishing,” said Evans Revere, a senior officer and director of the Japan desk at the State Department.

Foreign Service members say the fact that their work takes place abroad leaves them without a political constituency in Washington to defend their interests.

They have often heard the criticism that they get too close to their host countries and are out of touch with the interagency process in Washington.

In response, they cite the “challenges” of working with some policy-makers from other government agencies, as well as in Congress, whose members consider themselves foreign-policy experts on the basis of long-distance exchanges or brief visits to foreign countries.

Foreign Service professionals are also wary of “political” ambassadors with no experience in diplomacy, although they acknowledge that most of them have more clout and better access to the White House than many career ambassadors.

Mr. Walker certainly has the access, and those who know him say that he effectively represents the United States as a whole, not just the Bush administration.

“I told the people here that I knew they didn’t like political ambassadors, but I’ll work very hard to gain their trust and respect,” Mr. Walker said.

‘Wits and bare hands’

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