Notes from Italy: the oversized embassy.

• Author: Bullington, J.R.
• Position: Brief article

Writing for the California Literary Review, retired Foreign Service Officer Ambassador Peter Bridges discusses his tours of duty at the U.S. embassy in Rome as a mid-grade officer in the 1960s and as deputy chief of mission in the early 1980s, as well as the state of the embassy today. After a clear description of what an embassy is for and what its staff actually does, he points out two major current problems.

First, the embassy has grown too big, Bridges believes. Why, he asks, do we need "twice as many diplomats in Rome as the Russians - or five times as many as the British?" And do we really need 30 U.S. government agencies with offices in the Rome embassy?

Second, because of security concerns, the embassy has become an "almost impenetrable" fortress. He writes: "In the old days, politicians and members of Parliament would come by to see us. Today, if I were a respectable Italian, I would not think of...