Ambassador Gringo

THE U.S. AND MEXICO: THE BEAR AND THE PORCUPINE

By Jeffrey Davidow

Markus Wiener Publications, $68.95 cloth / $24.95 paper, 290 pages

REVIEWED BY BART MCDOWELL

Shed a tear for our diplomat. He is the patriot we send into exile to listen, explain, dissemble, and sometimes lie for our country. He must never tell the whole truth … until he retires.

Career Foreign Service diplomat Jeffrey Davidow has — apparently — retired. His short, anecdotal, witty memoir of his four years as U.S. ambassador to Mexico tells more truth than any active diplomat could plausibly deny.

When other bumbling government offices of the U.S. bureaucracy make a mess of our foreign relations, it is the diplomat who must — says the author — “push the broom behind the other agencies’ elephant parade.”

Mr. Davidow began pushing the broom in Mexico at an especially awkward time. The Clinton administration had dawdled for a year without an ambassador to Mexico. The Mexican press — and some government leaders — considered this oversight a deliberate insult. And then there had been the affair of Operation Casablanca.

That was a sting operation arranged by U.S. officials to trap some Mexican bankers who were laundering money for the Colombian drug cartel. American undercover agents had worked on this project for three years — much of the time in Mexico — without telling Mexican authorities, because, in the words of then-Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, “They are all corrupt.” (Later, after he had returned to the private sector, Mr. Rubin arranged the purchase of one of the stung banks in Mexico.)

The Clinton administration proudly announced the results of Operation Casablanca — with the fanfare of Secretary Rubin and Attorney General Janet Reno jointly meeting the press. Eventually the arrests included 112 individuals, the seizure of $103 million, and two tons of cocaine.

And, yes, a harvest of ill will from Mexican officials who were caught completely by surprise. The fragile anti-narcotics cooperation between Mexico and the United States was nearly derailed.

The traditionally anti-U.S. journalists in Mexico greeted the new ambassador with glee. Editorial cartoonists found “the advent of a 6’6” overweight gringo ambassador as a gift equal to a lifetime supply of free crayons.”

But the new ambassador knew to “never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.” He met extensively with reporters and editors, though “the questions remained variations on the theme of ’How are you planning to violate our sovereignty today, Mr. Ambassador?’”

Mr. Davidow also had to referee the differences between the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the FBI — whose agents often refused to share information — and the CIA, which had refused to deal with either.

Then there was the matter of “certification.” Every year, until the law was revised, Congress required the U.S. president to certify each country’s cooperation with the anti-narcotic program of the United States — or lose American aid. “Decertification of Mexico would be useful for one group only — the drug traffickers.”

“Who certifies the United States?” asked Mexican newsmen.

“The most negative effect of the certification law was that for years it focused Mexican attention on an extraneous issue — the perceived American arrogance inherent in the process of judging others — and in doing so, provided a pretext for Mexico to ignore the reality of its drug scene. That reality was ugly. It remains ugly … There are honest policemen, judges, and prosecutors in Mexico. The problem is knowing who they are.”

Mr. Davidow’s tenure included the Mexican presidential campaign of the year 2000 and the most dramatic political change since the Mexican Revolution in the early 20th century. Throughout that year, as he reports, “I kept up a steady round of meetings with the three major candidates and all types of party theorists, activists, and hacks.

“I enjoy the company of politicians in campaign. Like dogs in heat, there is a simplicity and transparency to their objectives. Observing Mexican politicians is doubly fun because they truly enjoy backstabbing and gossiping, two of the world’s great spectator sports.”

Mr. Davidow’s own gossip is diverting. President Vicente Fox comes off as less than heroic. Madeleine Albright seems more prima donna than diplomat. (She preferred to avoid Air Force One, with its deference to President Clinton, and use other transportation.)

Miss Reno comes off much better. President George W. Bush “showed an extraordinary knowledge of the U.S.-Mexico relationship.” Sen. Jesse Helms was “material for editorial heartburn.”

Anti-American author Carlos Fuentes, “who has lived for years off the largesse of American universities and foundations … has more talent as a novelist than as a political analyst.” Mexico’s former Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda publicly quarreled with other members of the Fox cabinet and was not even on speaking terms with his own ambassador to the United Nations; thus the press referred to Mr. Fox’s “Montessori cabinet,” children with more self-expression than discipline.

A fact of diplomatic life is the political use of the past. “The most effective epithet that could be leveled at a Mexican politician has been to call him ’pro-American.’” The term is “similar to an American politician’s … fear of being labeled ’soft on communism.’”

No wonder that sometimes during lengthy meetings, when tempers wore thin, Mr. Davidow considered “dropping a pencil and spending the next few minutes under the table looking for it.” Some of the U.S. military and drug-fighters “have no rheostat — they are either on or off. A little more restraint and a little less zeal would make their efforts a lot more effective.”

But always the military men enjoy briefing each other — “death by PowerPoint.”

And, of course, there is always that doddering mischief-maker, Fidel Castro. He remains a holy relic for romantic revolutionaries, the virtuous David who has defied the Gringo Goliath.

Every Mexican politician must treat him with respect if not obedience. Every American diplomat must find a way to dance the “Caribbean three-step,” as the author calls it. Successive governments in Mexico have used “Mexico’s ties to Cuba to balance the country’s ever-strengthening relationship with the United States.”

Finally, there is the matter of immigration, legal and illegal. The census of 2000 revealed that the United States had the largest proportion of non-native-born residents in its history — over 11 percent of the U.S. population. Half the jobs created in the 1990s were filled by the newcomers.

The constitution of Mexico guarantees citizens the right to travel, and many regard a trip to the United States as their due. A counterfeit social security card can be bought for about $60, though the fee for a coyote — a smuggler of illegal immigrants — comes much higher. Sometimes the price is human life itself, as immigrants die of thirst in the desert.

One afternoon, Mr. Davidow flew in a Border Patrol helicopter from Laredo to San Antonio, Texas. His two pilots told of their efforts to save the lives of illegal immigrants before they died of the heat. “They talked of finding bodies and of their efforts to identify the dead. Many carried no papers or had their corpses stripped of all identification by the alien smugglers … a heavy price for our border policy …

“There is probably no issue … in which the attitudes of the two countries contrast more sharply. For Americans, immigration is a question of law … The average Mexican is as decent a person as the average American. But a long history of unresponsive or abusive government has inculcated … a cynicism about government and arbitrary rules.”

Throughout his book, Mr. Davidow shows an affection for Mexico and its hospitable, polite people. He notes that “only a few years after the conquest, Spaniards returning home added a new phrase to their country’s lexicon — ’as polite as a Mexican Indian.’”

He collects true tales of personalities, like the eccentric grandmother in Yucatan who saved the life of a baby alligator, and kept it as a pet until after it grew to be eight feet long. He even gives some tips for unofficial tourists — like a guidebook listing the addresses of artisans around the country.

For those who like Mexico, for those who would like to like Mexico, and for those who would like to understand a bit more about Mexico, this not-quite-diplomatic report is a good place to spend a few hours.

Bart McDowell, a former editor of National Geographic, has lived in Mexico and now spends each winter there.