Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
There is an interesting parallel between the 'Argo' story and '13 Hours' in that, around the world, we have 285 or so diplomatic outposts and the expectation that the local government will come to our aid if we ever come under attack on the sovereign property of the United States in an embassy.
I was 13 when my parents moved to Israel, and I was put in a Scottish mission school. Ninety-nine percent of the children were Israeli... Suddenly, I found myself speaking the wrong language, dressed in the wrong clothes, picked up by the wrong mode of transportation - an embassy car instead of a bus.
Almost the first thing Obama did in the White House was to return the bust of Winston Churchill to the British embassy. That suggests a major re-ordering of things. It'll be fascinating to see what happens from now on. It was a genuine break with the recent past - perhaps to re-connect with the past past.
Like many Americans, I am still haunted by images from the last days of the United States' withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975. Newscasts showed South Vietnamese desperately trying to scale the walls of our embassy in Saigon to board the last helicopter flights out of the country. The fear in their eyes was chilling.
David Bruce, I think, is one of the outstanding persons for whom I've ever worked. He had a sense of balance. He was interested in everything that went on in the Embassy. He delegated authority, but at the same time when you needed the Ambassador's help on anything, you could go to him, and he would immediately respond.
I was born in the city's general hospital on November 15, 1930, and we lived at 31 Amherst Avenue in the western suburbs. It was a magical place. There were receptions at the French Club, race meetings at the Shanghai Racecourse, and various patriotic gatherings at the British Embassy on the Bund, the city's glamorous waterfront area.
A decade ago, I lived in Saudi Arabia, in Riyadh, as the treasury attache to our embassy there, and I was, of course, on the ground in the Middle East whenever the Arab Spring started, and it's fast-forward a decade later, nine years later. It's hard to believe that I am still working on this issue. You know, here in the State Department.
