Diplomats fight their stuffed-white-shirt image

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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.