The Many Faces of Public Service

Today’s Post has a story, replete with graphs that even Joel Best would like, about how U.S. ambassadorial appointments are used by grateful presidents to reward major donors. It turns out, according to Al Kamen, who writes “In the Loop,” that the grandees so honored have a marked preference for service in Western Europe and the Caribbean. Imagine that.

Luckily, that leaves a somewhat shorter queue for the less glamorous posts, of which there are many between, say, Sofia and Kabul, or Astana and Luanda. Kamen, citing data gathered by the American Foreign Service Association, the union that represents America’s professional diplomatic corps, estimates that a quarter to a third of U.S. ambassadorial posts are reserved for donors and cronies. Note Kamen’s reference to Larry Lawrence, a former U.S. ambassador to Switzerland (one of the most succulent of the plums). His is a most fascinating story, in which Arlington National Cemetery features prominently, if only momentarily.

Probably the most sensational case of a diplomatic career originating outside the “merit system”—at least as that would be defined by OPM, which is scrupulous about such things—is that of Pamela Churchill Harriman. If you’re like me, you’ll discover from her Wikipedia entry just how boring your life has been. You couldn’t make this stuff up.