Patriotic diplomats opposed Trump’s partisan plan
The conventional picture of what Washington is “really” like changes little from era to era, although the Trump gang has reinforced the negative cliche. Trump himself called the capital a “swamp,” presumably occupied by self-serving hacks, and has gone far to extend it.
Imagine, then, the shock of Trump and his minions to find that the conventional view by no means defines the ethic which animates the U.S. Foreign Service. That service supplies skilled envoys who represent the U.S. overseas. You don’t hear much about it. For while these professionals nominally represent the presidents who appoint them, no president since John F. Kennedy has cared enough about their views to consult them.
The two former ambassadors to Ukraine, Marie L. Yovanovitch and William Taylor were shoved aside by Rudolph Giuliani and his two henchmen because Yovanovitch stood in the way of a partisan errand. She has been a respected diplomat for 30 years. Trump excused her unceremonious dismissal by slandering her as “bad news”; and his congressional apologists have put it about that she was “insubordinate” — a flimsy libel that, if it has any substance, could have to do with her resistance to Trump’s exploitation of presidential powers to solicit dirt on his potential 2020 opponent. William Taylor, her successor, has served in both the military (as a West Pointer) and the diplomatic corps. He was there presumably because military experience is an advantage to a small ally beset and bullied by Trump’s buddy Putin.
Both Yanovitch and Taylor are testifying in hearings about Trump’s dispatch of Giuliani & Co. as errand boys seeking a tit-for-tat “investigation” of Joe Biden, in exchange for anti-tank weapons to resist Russian raids on Ukrainian territory.
I must confess to a bias, based on personal observation during 38 years in Washington journalism. Two highly-regarded Foreign Service officers happened to be long-standing friends. Roscoe S. Suddarth made a specialty of Middle East tours in every Arab country of importance and was, in his last posting, Ronald Reagan’s envoy to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan — long a critical mediating link between Israel and the Arab states.
Warren Zimmermann, Suddarth’s college classmate, a linguist fluent in every European tongue (including Russian and Serbo-Croat), capped a distinguished career as ambassador to Yugoslavia before it broke apart in civil war. It is of merely personal significance that he brought me to Belgrade to discuss American federalism in an effort — with Jim Baker as secretary of state — to persuade the Yugoslav factions to consider federalism and pluralism as alternatives to civil war. Unfortunately, the ancient division between Serbian and Croatian was too bitter for healing. My friend Zimmermann acted as a diplomatic pro in the ever-explosive Balkans, which as a Saki character says, “produce more history than they can consume locally.” Suddarth, for his part, knew all the Middle East secrets. But decades of close friendship produced absolutely no journalistic leaks for me. Professional discretion came first.
Personal recollections throw a revealing light on the emergence of two Foreign Service witnesses to Trump’s diplomatic mischief. I can guess how Suddarth and Zimmermann would have reacted to his disturbing exploitation of diplomacy for partisan advantage. Not politely, I am sure. As for their successors, it is doubtless painful to disregard their professional ethic. But both patriotism and national security transcend that obligation, and rightly so.