My British Exequatur, "By Her Majesty's Command" by Jonathan Rickert.

• Author: Rickert, Jonathan

American Diplomacy

November 1, 2021

www.americandiplomacy.org

Title: My British Exequatur, "By Her Majesty's Command" by Jonathan Rickert

Author: Jonathan Rickert

Text:

In order to join the U.S. foreign service, applicants pass through a gauntlet of written and oral assessments, physical examinations, and security clearance. Once those steps are successfully completed, the Secretary of State sends to the President for approval a list of those to be commissioned as diplomatic and consular officers. The commission is what makes one officially a Foreign Service officer. It's our only badge of membership, unaccompanied by the diplomatic uniform or other regalia used by some other countries to denote diplomatic status.

When I sailed into the port of Southampton in the United Kingdom on the S.S. United States on October 26, 1965, as a newly minted and very junior U.S. diplomatic and consular officer, I was armed with my diplomatic passport and commission, issued by President Johnson and signed by Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Those signatures, of course, were printed on the form, but my name, title, the date, etc. had been entered, elegantly in cursive, apparently by hand. The document, on velum-like paper adorned with an impression seal of the United States, looked to me more like a fancy university diploma than anything else. However, it meant that I was a "real" diplomat and authorized to take on the responsibilities required by my career.

To conduct consular duties, at least in those days in the United Kingdom, an additional document was required--an exequatur. An exequatur may be defined as "an official recognition by a government of a consul, agent, or other representative of a foreign state authorizing them to exercise the duties of office." (By way of contrast, no such authorization was issued by the Romanian government when I served as a consular officer in Bucharest in the early 1970s.)

Though my exequatur did not reach me until the end of the year, long after I began exercising the duties of my office, it was worth waiting for. It states in part that "Whereas Our Good Friend the President of the United States of America has by a Commission bearing date the Twenty--fifth day of October, 1965, appointed Mr. Jonathan B. Rickert to be Vice-Consul in London and We having approved of this appointment according to the Commission before mentioned, Our Will and Pleasure are, and We hereby require that you do receive, countenance, and as there...