Coda: Ten Questions for a Diplomat
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Kenneth Weisbrode
Abstract
Thomas Niles served as a United States foreign service officer from 1962 to 1998. His service included three terms as ambassador: to Canada, the European Community, and Greece. He reflects here on the continuities in the diplomatic profession, and, in particular, on embassies, during a period of notable historic change. While many of the protocols and responsibilities of embassies remained more or less the same as they had been for over a century, there were hints that those, too, were about to change in unforeseen ways, even calling into question the central role of embassies as representing and serving the nation-state, as the other articles in this issue discuss. Nevertheless, to this ambassador, at least, even dramatic changes in technology, politics, and culture rarely happen all at once; and the institutions and the people adapting to them may be more cautious or durable than they sometimes appear in retrospect.
© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Abstract
Thomas Niles served as a United States foreign service officer from 1962 to 1998. His service included three terms as ambassador: to Canada, the European Community, and Greece. He reflects here on the continuities in the diplomatic profession, and, in particular, on embassies, during a period of notable historic change. While many of the protocols and responsibilities of embassies remained more or less the same as they had been for over a century, there were hints that those, too, were about to change in unforeseen ways, even calling into question the central role of embassies as representing and serving the nation-state, as the other articles in this issue discuss. Nevertheless, to this ambassador, at least, even dramatic changes in technology, politics, and culture rarely happen all at once; and the institutions and the people adapting to them may be more cautious or durable than they sometimes appear in retrospect.
© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Introduction
- Violent Conflicts and Neutral Legations: A Case Study of the Spanish and Swiss Legations in Wartime Japan
- Global Trends in Local Contexts: The Finnish Embassy in Paris, 1956–1990
- Bevin’s Boys Abroad: British Labor Diplomacy in the Cold War Era
- Edges of Diplomacy: Literary Representations of the (Honorary) Consul and the Public-Private Divide in Diplomatic Studies
- Coda: Ten Questions for a Diplomat
- Book Reviews
- Van Vleck, Jenifer: Empire of the Air: Aviation and the American Ascendancy
- Copper John F.:China’s Foreign Aid and Investment Diplomacy
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Introduction
- Violent Conflicts and Neutral Legations: A Case Study of the Spanish and Swiss Legations in Wartime Japan
- Global Trends in Local Contexts: The Finnish Embassy in Paris, 1956–1990
- Bevin’s Boys Abroad: British Labor Diplomacy in the Cold War Era
- Edges of Diplomacy: Literary Representations of the (Honorary) Consul and the Public-Private Divide in Diplomatic Studies
- Coda: Ten Questions for a Diplomat
- Book Reviews
- Van Vleck, Jenifer: Empire of the Air: Aviation and the American Ascendancy
- Copper John F.:China’s Foreign Aid and Investment Diplomacy
