Secret mission.

• Author: Lesser, Larry

Editor's Note: In a departure from our usual practice, the following story is wholly a work of fiction but based on a real Foreign Service situation known to the author. We include it not only because it is an interesting story but also one that illustrates well some of the competing pressures inherent in the Foreign Service Life. --The Editor

In 1974 I was quietly working as a political officer at the U.S. embassy in Rabat. I had previously served in Jerusalem and Amman. I was fluent in the Arabic dialect spoken by the Palestinians. Over a several years period I had worked the Arab street in the region and got along well with Palestinian intellectual and political leaders. That wasn't exclusively because I'm such a swell guy; the Palestinians rightly attach great importance to having access to American diplomats. My political reporting in Jerusalem and Amman had gained me professional recognition and a couple of promotions; I had arrived securely in midcareer and was poised for bigger things. Rabat was a quieter place, and, after the intensity of my work at those other posts, it was a respite I had requested--primarily for family reasons.

My career accomplishments had come at some cost to the emotional wellbeing of my wife. Connie and I had met in grad school and thus--as I saw it--we had jointly chosen this Foreign Service career. But being a 'trailing spouse' wasn't working out so well for her. For one thing, by temperament she was less outgoing than I am. Maybe more important than that, she was not a native-born American; she was Scandinavian by birth and upbringing. (I prefer not being more specific about her country of birth.) She had chosen to go to grad school in America, where we fell in love and got married. More than she realized at the time, Connie had separated herself from her roots. And then on top of that a few years later she involuntarily became a quasi-official representative of her adopted country in foreign lands. It was a very tough adjustment for her. Unlike me, she did not learn Arabic. She experienced the Arab world as hostile and threatening--and of course at some level she was right. I thrived in that culture but most people wouldn't, and my wife didn't. You can't talk people out of feeling that way; Connie knew her own mind and had come to believe that living in the volatile Middle East as the wife of an American diplomat was going to drive her crazy. It was driving her crazy. She loved me and I loved her and she wanted me to be happy and fulfilled in my work, but there was a limit to what she could do to support me in my chosen career and she was pretty sure that she was just about at that limit.

And that's without even beginning to consider the situation for our sons Peter and Donny who were in the early grades at the Rabat American School. I thought they were doing fine, but it wouldn't be good for them if their mother suffered a nervous collapse--to say the least.

Rabat was a challenging environment but the embassy provided a great support system for families. Our government housing was comfortable--except when the city's water or electricity systems would break down. We were happy with the school. And the official American community was large and relatively self-sufficient. Connie was trying to make the best of things; she rarely reminded me that I had dragged her and the boys to yet another deeply foreign post because it would be good for my career, never mind how burdensome it was for my wife and kids. Generally we kept the subject out of family conversations. Everybody--including the boys--understood the situation and was determined to play his or her part--because they loved me and depended on me. My tour of duty would be just two years

One morning not long after arriving in Rabat I was called into the ambassador's office. Our ambassador was a distinguished career diplomat--an Arabist himself, fluent in the language after several tours in the Arab world. I would say that he and I were the two best Arabic speakers in the embassy. (Fluency in Arabic was a relatively rare commodity in the Foreign Service, especially considering the number of posts where Arabic was the primary national language. Becoming fluent in Arabic was an excellent strategy for career advancement but nevertheless very few officers acquired it. Admittedly it's a hard language that requires some aptitude and willingness to work hard at learning it, and on top of that I think many of my colleagues had a kind of cultural resistance to fitting in too well with the Arab world. Anyway, it was well known that I was a fluent Arabic speaker and that I had operated effectively developing contacts at my previous posts in the region.)

The ambassador told me that Secretary Kissinger wanted to send me on a sensitive and secret mission to talk to PLO leaders. The...