Diplomatic Friends Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Diplomatic Friends. Here they are! All 88 of them:

Halt," said the elegant diplomat, "when you asked me to marry you, did you think we could just sneak off to a glade in the woods with a few close friends and get it done?" Halt hesitated. "Well, no...of course not." As a matter of fact, that was exactly what he had thought. A simple ceremony, a few friends, some food and drink and then he and Pauline would be a couple. But he felt that it might not be wise to admit that right now.
John Flanagan (Erak's Ransom (Ranger's Apprentice, #7))
There are five unread messages on the screen, which is what happens when you’re the meat in a hot girl sandwich. Threesomes trump checking your phone. That’s a no-brainer. Logan: Hey, bro, Wellsy’s friend Allie is crashing at our place this weekend. Logan: Keep your dick in your pants. G and I aren’t in the mood to beat u senseless if u try something. Wellsy might be in the mood for violence, tho. So: dick = pants = don’t bother our guest. Hannah: Allie’s staying with u guys til Sunday. She’s in a vulnerable place right now. Don’t take advantage of her or else I’ll be unhappy. And u don’t want to make me unhappy, do u? I snicker. Hannah, diplomatic as always. I quickly scan the last two messages. Garrett: Allie’s gonna crash in my room. Garrett: Your dick can stay in your room. Jeez, what is everybody’s fascination with my dick?
Elle Kennedy (The Score (Off-Campus, #3))
Benjamin Franklin, tactless in his youth, became so diplomatic, so adroit at handling people, that he was made American Ambassador to France. The secret of his success? “I will speak ill of no man,” he said, “ … and speak all the good I know of everybody.
Dale Carnegie (How To Win Friends and Influence People)
My friend is not a diplomat. She is the failure of diplomacy. She is the breakdown of negotiations. There is no escalation of hostilities beyond her.
F.C. Yee (The Shadow of Kyoshi (The Kyoshi Novels, #2))
For the longest time I couldn't understand the meaning of the cliche "being compatible" - whether about a lover, colleague, team mate or friend. I now get it. There is so much more behind this superficial nauseatingly-pragmatic diplomatic phrase -- it goes deep down to the true essence of someone, how they see the world, how they see and position themselves, how prepared/capable they are to back you, whether they can understand who you are and if they are prepared to break walls for you. Anything else is details.
Iveta Cherneva
The smile is civilization’s finest adornment. It signifies the willpower and duty to fashion mankind’s coexistence as quietly and agreeably as possible so that it will always appear friendly. For it is all a matter of appearance. The smile is culture’s diploma: it is the diplomat’s badge.
Iwan Goll
Konn Torin bowed to her. Diplomatic respect, Cinder thought, remembering all the many glares she’d received from this man since she’d first seen him at the annual ball. But when he raised his head, he was smiling. In fact, he seemed downright friendly.
Marissa Meyer (Winter (The Lunar Chronicles, #4))
To prove to [her friend, Swedish diplomat Count] Gyllenborg that she was not superficial, Catherine composed an essay about herself, "so that he would see whether I knew myself or not." The next day, she wrote and handed to Gyllenborg an essay titled 'Portrait of a Fifteen-Year-Old Philosopher.' He was impressed and returned it with a dozen pages of comments, mostly favorable. "I read his remarks again and again, many times [Catherine later recalled in her memoirs]. I impressed them on my consciousness and resolved to follow his advice. In addition, there was something else surprising: one day, while conversing with me, he allowed the following sentence to slip out: 'What a pity that you will marry! I wanted to find out what he meant, but he would not tell me.
Robert K. Massie (Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman)
Any human relationship either grows or withers. There's no leveling off, except stagnation or the hardening of the will into concrete. For friends, lovers, married people, a next step must be there and must be taken.
William Kinsolving (The Diplomat's Daughter)
Once war was considered the business of soldiers, international relations the concern of diplomats. But now that war has become seemingly total and seemingly permanent, the free sport of kings has become the forced and internecine business of people, and diplomatic codes of honor between nations have collapsed. Peace in no longer serious; only war is serious. Every man and every nation is either friend or foe, and the idea of enmity becomes mechanical, massive, and without genuine passion. When virtually all negotiation aimed at peaceful agreement is likely to be seen as 'appeasement,' if not treason, the active role of the diplomat becomes meaningless; for diplomacy becomes merely a prelude to war an interlude between wars, and in such a context the diplomat is replaced by the warlord.
C. Wright Mills (The Power Elite)
Everyone who was ever a guest of Theodore Roosevelt was astonished at the range and diversity of his knowledge. Whether his visitor was a cowboy or a Rough Rider, a New York politician or a diplomat, Roosevelt knew what to say. And how was it done? The answer was simple. Whenever Roosevelt expected a visitor, he sat up late the night before, reading up on the subject in which he knew his guest was particularly interested.
Dale Carnegie (How to Win Friends and Influence People)
Services rendered to a country in a diplomatic line can be known only to a few – if they are important and they become conspicuous they rather excite envy than gratitude.
Lynne Withey (Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams)
Addy,” said Mrs. Kaur. “I’ll still have to log it, and account for it later.” “Blame me,” said Robin at once. One thick black eyebrow arched. Miss Morrissey leaned forward and smiled at her sister. “Would you say Sir Robert is a threatening figure?” “Er,” said Mrs. Kaur. It was the most diplomatic single syllable Robin had ever heard. “Are you afraid for your maidenly virtue?” “I’m married, Addy,” said Kitty Kaur dryly. “I have none.” She eyed Robin. “He does seem the kind of well-built, pugnacious fellow who would follow through on a threat of bodily harm.” “I beg your pardon,” Robin began to protest, and then the penny dropped. “Oh. Would it help if I raised my voice?” “Yes, that would do nicely. Sir Robert strong-armed my sister into bringing him here to seek my help, and threatened us with harm unless I abused my access to the lockroom in order to locate Mr. Courcey. Overcome by concern for his friend, of course, but still. Most brutish behavior.” “And we are but feeble women,” said Miss Morrissey. “Woe.” “Your sister is a magician,” Robin said, pointing out what seemed the largest hole in this story. “Woe,” said Mrs. Kaur firmly, and Robin recalled what Miss Morrissey had said about the assumptions made by men.
Freya Marske (A Marvellous Light (The Last Binding, #1))
Cutting class,” I muttered. “That idiot.” Ben did a double-take when he spotted me, then slowly shook his head. As I drew near, he whispered something under his breath. His moron buddies exploded in laughter. I’ll kill him. Then murder him afterward. “What the hell are you doing?” Not the most diplomatic of greetings, but my temper was long gone. “Is your first class Parking Lot Maintenance?” Ben waved a hand at me. “You see what I mean?” Wallet Chain chuckled as he toked a cigarette. “That’s not very nice, sweetheart.” “You’ll never land a man like that,” added Ski Cap. “This ain’t Beantown.” “Ben?” Seething. “May I speak to you privately?” Ben rolled his eyes. “Give me a sec, guys. I’ve been naughty.” I waited until the stoners were out of earshot. “Great crew you’ve assembled.” Dripping with sarcasm. “Leave them out of this,” Ben warned. “What, I can’t even have friends, now that I’ve been kicked from the Ivory Tower?” “Maybe go to class. You might find a better peer group in there.” Ben snorted. “I’m pretty sure you have class right now, too.” Touche.
Kathy Reichs (Exposure (Virals, #4))
A brilliant statistician who was friendly with the president, Kennedy informed the diplomat that Mary Todd Lincoln was holding a reception that afternoon; the two of them could go together, if the marquis would like.
Edward Achorn (Every Drop of Blood: The Momentous Second Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln)
At a lunchtime reception for the diplomatic corps in Washington, given the day before the inauguration of Barack Obama as president, I was approached by a good-looking man who extended his hand. 'We once met many years ago,' he said. 'And you knew and befriended my father.' My mind emptied, as so often happens on such occasions. I had to inform him that he had the advantage of me. 'My name is Hector Timerman. I am the ambassador of Argentina.' In my above album of things that seem to make life pointful and worthwhile, and that even occasionally suggest, in Dr. King’s phrase as often cited by President Obama, that there could be a long arc in the moral universe that slowly, eventually bends toward justice, this would constitute an exceptional entry. It was also something more than a nudge to my memory. There was a time when the name of Jacobo Timerman, the kidnapped and tortured editor of the newspaper La Opinion in Buenos Aires, was a talismanic one. The mere mention of it was enough to elicit moans of obscene pleasure from every fascist south of the Rio Grande: finally in Argentina there was a strict ‘New Order’ that would stamp hard upon the international Communist-Jewish collusion. A little later, the mention of Timerman’s case was enough to derail the nomination of Ronald Reagan’s first nominee as undersecretary for human rights; a man who didn’t seem to have grasped the point that neo-Nazism was a problem for American values. And Timerman’s memoir, Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number, was the book above all that clothed in living, hurting flesh the necessarily abstract idea of the desaparecido: the disappeared one or, to invest it with the more sinister and grisly past participle with which it came into the world, the one who has been ‘disappeared.’ In the nuances of that past participle, many, many people vanished into a void that is still unimaginable. It became one of the keywords, along with escuadrone de la muerte or ‘death squads,’ of another arc, this time of radical evil, that spanned a whole subcontinent. Do you know why General Jorge Rafael Videla of Argentina was eventually sentenced? Well, do you? Because he sold the children of the tortured rape victims who were held in his private prison. I could italicize every second word in that last sentence without making it any more heart-stopping. And this subhuman character was boasted of, as a personal friend and genial host, even after he had been removed from the office he had defiled, by none other than Henry Kissinger. So there was an almost hygienic effect in meeting, in a new Washington, as an envoy of an elected government, the son of the brave man who had both survived and exposed the Videla tyranny.
Christopher Hitchens (Hitch 22: A Memoir)
I've always been his favorite." "Is that so?" Lazily Shelby folded her arms behind her head. She could picture him as a boy,seeing beyond what other boys saw and storing it. "Why?" "If I weren't modest,I'd confess that I was always a well-mannered, even-tempered child who never gave my parents a moment's trouble." "Liar," she said easily. "How'd you get the broken nose?" The grin became rueful. "Rena punched me." "Your sister broke your nose?" Shelby burst out with delighted and unsympathetic laughter. "The blackjack dealer, right? Oh,I love it!" Alan caught Shelby's nose between two fingers and gave it a quick twist. "It was rather painful at the time." "I imagine." She kept right on laughing as he shifted to her side. "Did she make a habit of beating you up?" "She didn't beat me up," he corrected with some dignity. "She was trying to beat Caine up because he'd teased her about making calf's eyes at one of his friends." "Typical brotherly intimidation." "In any event," Alan put in mildly, "I went to drag her off him,she took another swing,missed him, and hit me. A full-power roundhouse,as I remember. That's when," he continued as Shelby gave another peal of laughter, "I decided against being a diplomat. It's always the neutral party that gets punched in the face." "I'm sure..." Shelby dropped her head on his shoulder. "I'm sure she was sorry." "Initially.But as I recall, after I'd stopped bleeding and threatening to kill both her and Caine, her reaction as a great deal like yours." "Insensitive." Shelby ran apologetic kisses over his face. "Poor baby. Tell you what, I'll do penance and see about fixing you breakfast.
Nora Roberts (The MacGregors: Alan & Grant (The MacGregors, #3-4))
truth provides the most diplomatic answer): “I don’t believe I’ve ever attended one since I was your age where I didn’t feel, beforehand, an oppressive dread at the isolation that can reign in a large enough group of even the most intimate friends, much less an admixture of intimates, acquaintances, and strangers. Still, so much of my social education has been effected in such gatherings, so many true friendships have had their beginnings in meetings much like yours and mine, that I feel these affairs must not only be endured, but negotiated with a certain energy, if not commitment.
Samuel R. Delany (Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand)
I'd like to take Gloria abroad," he complained, "except for this damn war—and next to that I'd sort of like to have a place in the country, somewhere near New York, of course, where I could write—or whatever I decide to do." Gloria laughed. "Isn't he cute?" she required of Maury. "'Whatever he decides to do!' But what am I going to do if he works? Maury, will you take me around if Anthony works?" "Anyway, I'm not going to work yet," said Anthony quickly. It was vaguely understood between them that on some misty day he would enter a sort of glorified diplomatic service and be envied by princes and prime ministers for his beautiful wife. "Well," said Gloria helplessly, "I'm sure I don't know. We talk and talk and never get anywhere, and we ask all our friends and they just answer the way we want 'em to. I wish somebody'd take care of us." "Why
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Beautiful and Damned)
one must know something of the truth in order to lie convincingly.” The president smiled. “Well, they’ve had enough time to play this game. I hope my belated reaction will not disappoint them.” “No, sir. Alex must have half expected you to kick him out the door.” “The thought’s occurred to me more than once. His diplomatic charm has always been lost on me. That’s the one thing about the Russians—they remind me so much of the mafia chieftains I used to prosecute. The same smattering of culture and good manners, and the same absence of morality.” The president shook his head. He was talking like a hawk again. “Stay close, Jeff. I have George Farmer coming in here in a few minutes, but I want you around when our friend comes back.” Pelt walked back to his office pondering the president’s remark. It was, he admitted to himself, crudely accurate. The most wounding insult to an educated Russian was to be
Tom Clancy (The Hunt for Red October (Jack Ryan #3; Jack Ryan Universe #4))
ALL ARE WELCOME. (NO FIGHTING.) That rule is simple on the surface, but not easy in the execution, because Maz Kanata's castle has been a meeting place since time immemorial-- a nexus point drawing together countless lines of allegiance and opposition, a place not only where friend and foe can meet, but where complex conflicts are worn down flat so that all may sit, have a drink and a meal, listen to a song, and broker whatever deals their hearts or politics require. That's why the flags outside her castle represent hundreds of cities and civilizations and guilds from before forever. The galaxy is not now, nor has it ever been, two polar forces battling for supremacy. It has been thousands of forces: a tug-of-war not with as ingle rope but a spider's web of influence, dominance, and desire. Clans and cults, tribes and families, governments and anti-governments. Queens, satraps, warlords! Diplomats, buccaneers, droids! Slicers, spicers, ramblers, and gamblers! To repeat: ALL ARE WELCOME. (NO FIGHTING.)
Chuck Wendig (Life Debt (Star Wars: Aftermath, #2))
Whose sleeve do I have to grip, to tell my story to? It used to be Bet. Now, sleeveless. And I am sure I gripped her sleeve many a time too many. In my own parlance, 'feasting' on her energy, and giving nothing back. Well, maybe. We had most excellent days. We were the king and queen of coffee in the morning, in the dark of winter, in the early morning sun of summer that came right in our windows, right in, to wake us. Ah, yes, small matters. Small matters, that we call sanity, or the cloth that makes sanity. Talking to her in those times made - no, God preserve me from sentimentality. Those days are over. Now we are two foreign countries and we simply have our embassies in the same house. Relations are friendly but strictly diplomatic. There is an underlying sense of rumour, of judgement, of memory, like two peoples that have once committed grave crimes against each other, but in another generation. We are a statelet of the Baltics. Except, blast her, she has never done anything to me. It is atrocity all one way.
Sebastian Barry (The Secret Scripture (McNulty Family))
Rolf Ekeus came round to my apartment one day and showed me the name of the Iraqi diplomat who had visited the little West African country of Niger: a statelet famous only for its production of yellowcake uranium. The name was Wissam Zahawi. He was the brother of my louche gay part-Kurdish friend, the by-now late Mazen. He was also, or had been at the time of his trip to Niger, Saddam Hussein's ambassador to the Vatican. I expressed incomprehension. What was an envoy to the Holy See doing in Niger? Obviously he was not taking a vacation. Rolf then explained two things to me. The first was that Wissam Zahawi had, when Rolf was at the United Nations, been one of Saddam Hussein's chief envoys for discussions on nuclear matters (this at a time when the Iraqis had functioning reactors). The second was that, during the period of sanctions that followed the Kuwait war, no Western European country had full diplomatic relations with Baghdad. TheVatican was the sole exception, so it was sent a very senior Iraqi envoy to act as a listening post. And this man, a specialist in nuclear matters, had made a discreet side trip to Niger. This was to suggest exactly what most right-thinking people were convinced was not the case: namely that British intelligence was on to something when it said that Saddam had not ceased seeking nuclear materials in Africa. I published a few columns on this, drawing at one point an angry email from Ambassador Zahawi that very satisfyingly blustered and bluffed on what he'd really been up to. I also received—this is what sometimes makes journalism worthwhile—a letter from a BBC correspondent named Gordon Correa who had been writing a book about A.Q. Khan. This was the Pakistani proprietor of the nuclear black market that had supplied fissile material to Libya, North Korea, very probably to Syria, and was open for business with any member of the 'rogue states' club. (Saddam's people, we already knew for sure, had been meeting North Korean missile salesmen in Damascus until just before the invasion, when Kim Jong Il's mercenary bargainers took fright and went home.) It turned out, said the highly interested Mr. Correa, that his man Khan had also been in Niger, and at about the same time that Zahawi had. The likelihood of the senior Iraqi diplomat in Europe and the senior Pakistani nuclear black-marketeer both choosing an off-season holiday in chic little uranium-rich Niger… well, you have to admit that it makes an affecting picture. But you must be ready to credit something as ridiculous as that if your touching belief is that Saddam Hussein was already 'contained,' and that Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair were acting on panic reports, fabricated in turn by self-interested provocateurs.
Christopher Hitchens (Hitch 22: A Memoir)
The Seven Rules Spreadsheet — Being polite and respectful is always a good idea — If you look or sound different you won’t fit in — Conversation doesn’t just exchange Facts – it conveys how you’re feeling — You learn by making mistakes — Not everyone who is nice to me is my friend — It is better to be too diplomatic than too honest — Rules change depending on the situation and the person you are speaking to And, Rule Eight: Use the Rules to help with difficulties, to make life easier, to understand what’s acceptable, to enhance your strengths, but after that . . . do things your way.
Frances Maynard (The Seven Imperfect Rules of Elvira Carr)
Louis XIV was a very proud and self-confident man. He had such and such mistresses, and such and such ministers, and he governed France badly. The heirs of Louis XIV were also weak men, and also governed France badly. They also had such and such favourites and such and such mistresses. Besides which, certain persons were at this time writing books. By the end of the eighteenth century there gathered in Paris two dozen or so persons who started saying that all men were free and equal. Because of this in the whole of France people began to slaughter and drown each other. These people killed the king and a good many others. At this time there was a man of genius in France – Napoleon. He conquered everyone everywhere, i.e. killed a great many people because he was a great genius; and, for some reason, he went off to kill Africans, and killed them so well, and was so clever and cunning, that, having arrived in France, he ordered everyone to obey him, which they did. Having made himself Emperor he again went to kill masses of people in Italy, Austria and Prussia. And there too he killed a great many. Now in Russia there was the Emperor Alexander, who decided to reestablish order in Europe, and therefore fought wars with Napoleon. But in the year ’07 he suddenly made friends with him, and in the year ’11 quarrelled with him again, and they both again began to kill a great many people. And Napoleon brought six hundred thousand men to Russia and conquered Moscow. But then he suddenly ran away from Moscow, and then the Emperor Alexander, aided by the advice of Stein and others, united Europe to raise an army against the disturber of her peace. All Napoleon’s allies suddenly became his enemies; and this army marched against Napoleon, who had gathered new forces. The allies conquered Napoleon, entered Paris, forced Napoleon to renounce the throne, and sent him to the island of Elba, without, however, depriving him of the title of Emperor, and showing him all respect, in spite of the fact that five years before, and a year after, everyone considered him a brigand and beyond the law. Thereupon Louis XVIII, who until then had been an object of mere ridicule to both Frenchmen and the allies, began to reign. As for Napoleon, after shedding tears before the Old Guard, he gave up his throne, and went into exile. Then astute statesmen and diplomats, in particular Talleyrand, who had managed to sit down before anyone else in the famous armchair1 and thereby to extend the frontiers of France, talked in Vienna, and by means of such talk made peoples happy or unhappy. Suddenly the diplomats and monarchs almost came to blows. They were almost ready to order their troops once again to kill each other; but at this moment Napoleon arrived in France with a battalion, and the French, who hated him, all immediately submitted to him. But this annoyed the allied monarchs very much and they again went to war with the French. And the genius Napoleon was defeated and taken to the island of St Helena, having suddenly been discovered to be an outlaw. Whereupon the exile, parted from his dear ones and his beloved France, died a slow death on a rock, and bequeathed his great deeds to posterity. As for Europe, a reaction occurred there, and all the princes began to treat their peoples badly once again.
Isaiah Berlin (Russian Thinkers)
When Camilla and her husband joined Prince Charles on a holiday in Turkey shortly before his polo accident, she didn’t complain just as she bore, through gritted teeth, Camilla’s regular invitations to Balmoral and Sandringham. When Charles flew to Italy last year on a sketching holiday, Diana’s friends noted that Camilla was staying at another villa a short drive away. On her return Mrs Parker-Bowles made it quite clear that any suggestion of impropriety was absurd. Her protestations of innocence brought a tight smile from the Princess. That changed to scarcely controlled anger during their summer holiday on board a Greek tycoon’s yacht. She quietly simmered as she heard her husband holding forth to dinner-party guests about the virtues of mistresses. Her mood was scarcely helped when, later that evening, she heard him chatting on the telephone to Camilla. They meet socially on occasion but, there is no love lost between these two women locked into an eternal triangle of rivalry. Diana calls her rival “the rotweiller” while Camilla refers to the Princess as that “ridiculous creature”. At social engagements they are at pains to avoid each other. Diana has developed a technique in public of locating Camilla as quickly as possible and then, depending on her mood, she watches Charles when he looks in her direction or simply evades her gaze. “It is a morbid game,” says a friend. Days before the Salisbury Cathedral spire appeal concert Diana knew that Camilla was going. She vented her frustration in conversations with friends so that on the day of the event the Princess was able to watch the eye contact between her husband and Camilla with quiet amusement. Last December all those years of pent-up emotion came flooding out at a memorial service for Leonora Knatchbull, the six-year-old daughter of Lord and Lady Romsey, who tragically died of cancer. As Diana left the service, held at St James’s Palace, she was photographed in tears. She was weeping in sorrow but also in anger. Diana was upset that Camilla Parker Bowles who had only known the Romseys for a short time was also present at such an intimate family service. It was a point she made vigorously to her husband as they travelled back to Kensington Palace in their chauffeur-driven limousine. When they arrived at Kensington Palace the Princess felt so distressed that she ignored the staff Christmas party, which was then in full swing, and went to her sitting-room to recover her composure. Diplomatically, Peter Westmacott, the Wales’s deputy private secretary, sent her avuncular detective Ken Wharfe to help calm her.
Andrew Morton (Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words)
But it isn't easy to find the right person. It would have to be someone good with kids and horses, and ho'd be able to pitch in with the administrating to some extent and wouldn't quibble about shoving manure.Plus I'd have to be able to depend on them, and get along with them. And they'd have to be diplomatic with parents, which is often the trickiest part." Travis picked up his soft drink again. "I might be able to point you in the right direction there." "Oh? Listen, Dad, I appreciate it, but you know, a friend of a friend or the son or daughter of an aquaintance. That kind of thing gets very sticky if it doesn't work out." "Actually, I was thinking of someone a little closer to home.Your mother." "Ma?" With a half laugh, Keeley sat again. "Ma doesn't want this headache, even if she had time for it." "Shows what you know." Smug now, he drank. "Just mention it to her, casually. I won't say a word about it.
Nora Roberts (Irish Rebel (Irish Hearts, #3))
REGULARLY ATTEND AN ANNUAL security conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The only thing unusual about the November 2016 meeting was that it occurred just after the U.S. presidential election, and most of the formal and informal conversations among the conferees were about what to expect from the President-elect, Donald Trump. The subject was causing consternation among the governments, military, and intelligentsia of the West, including ours. I spent most of my time in Halifax reassuring friends that the United States government consists of more than the White House. Congress and, I hoped, the people the new President would appoint to senior national security positions would provide continuity in U.S. foreign policy, compensate for the lack of experience in the Oval Office, and restrain the occupant from impulsively reacting to world events. Saturday evening, when the day’s presentations were finished, a retired British diplomat, who had served as the United Kingdom’s ambassador to Russia during
John McCain (The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations)
It is not a small thing I want...but it is very important to the Kurds, to all Kurds. Perhaps it would be too easy to ask you to simply be a partisan of the Kurds in the counsels of your country, but it is more than that. We ask you to explain our situation so that all people in your country may understand and appreciate our struggle. It is the Kurd who will decide the direction and activity of his own political future, but a great deal of our hope will depend upon the final attitude of friendship or enmity from the powerful Englis . Perhaps all over the world there are primitive peoples like the Kurd, seeking independence, political expression, and material progress. There are certain things that we can do for ourselves, but so much depends upon the large countries. Their governments shape the primitive states by rich and powerful influence. Much of the responsibility for our situation therefore depends upon the people of your own country. If they apathetic and ignorant of our Kurdish aspirations; If they make no attempt to influence the direction of their own government in dealing with our affairs; then all will depend on ourselves alone. That would mean reluctant but necessary and bloody and terrible struggle because I would warn your Ministers that we cannot give up until we have achieved national sovereignty and our equal right among all people. It is therefore a vital and great service that I ask you, dear Brother, because our immediate hope of urgent success will depend on the strength and deliberation of those who oppose our aims. If the Englis continue to turn all their influence and strength against us, and against the Azerbaijani, they will choke the first great breath of our free choice as men. It will never destroy us, but it will be a bitter, hateful, shameful thing, and the Englis will live for ever in our history as despicable wretches who break the spirit of all advancement. That is why we desperately need support among the people and the counsels of your country. So much may depend on it, and so many decisions at Sauj Bulaq will be clearer and simpler if we know that in your country there is an active partisan of the Kurd; a partisan who understands and appreciates the Kurdish struggle for political autonomy and material advancement: a friend and a true brother. Dare I ask more of thee, Englis ?
James Aldridge (The Diplomat)
Westerners, not just Lincoln Steffens. It took in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It even took in the Soviet Union’s own leaders, such as Nikita Khrushchev, who famously boasted in a speech to Western diplomats in 1956 that “we will bury you [the West].” As late as 1977, a leading academic textbook by an English economist argued that Soviet-style economies were superior to capitalist ones in terms of economic growth, providing full employment and price stability and even in producing people with altruistic motivation. Poor old Western capitalism did better only at providing political freedom. Indeed, the most widely used university textbook in economics, written by Nobel Prize–winner Paul Samuelson, repeatedly predicted the coming economic dominance of the Soviet Union. In the 1961 edition, Samuelson predicted that Soviet national income would overtake that of the United States possibly by 1984, but probably by 1997. In the 1980 edition there was little change in the analysis, though the two dates were delayed to 2002 and 2012. Though the policies of Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders could produce rapid economic growth, they could not do so in a sustained way. By the 1970s, economic growth had all but stopped. The most important lesson is that extractive institutions cannot generate sustained technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic incentives and resistance by the elites. In addition, once all the very inefficiently used resources had been reallocated to industry, there were few economic gains to be had by fiat. Then the Soviet system hit a roadblock, with lack of innovation and poor economic incentives preventing any further progress. The only area in which the Soviets did manage to sustain some innovation was through enormous efforts in military and aerospace technology. As a result they managed to put the first dog, Leika, and the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space. They also left the world the AK-47 as one of their legacies. Gosplan was the supposedly all-powerful planning agency in charge of the central planning of the Soviet economy. One of the benefits of the sequence of five-year plans written and administered by Gosplan was supposed to have been the long time horizon necessary for rational investment and innovation. In reality, what got implemented in Soviet industry had little to do with the five-year plans, which were frequently revised and rewritten or simply ignored. The development of industry took place on the basis of commands by Stalin and the Politburo, who changed their minds frequently and often completely revised their previous decisions. All plans were labeled “draft” or “preliminary.” Only one copy of a plan labeled “final”—that for light industry in 1939—has ever come to light. Stalin himself said in 1937 that “only bureaucrats can think that planning work ends with the creation of the plan. The creation of the plan is just the beginning. The real direction of the plan develops only after the putting together of the plan.” Stalin wanted to maximize his discretion to reward people or groups who were politically loyal, and punish those who were not. As for Gosplan, its main role was to provide Stalin with information so he could better monitor his friends and enemies. It actually tried to avoid making decisions. If you made a decision that turned
Daron Acemoğlu (Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty)
One of Castro’s first acts as Cuba’s Prime Minister was to go on a diplomatic tour that started on April 15, 1959. His first stop was the United States, where he met with Vice President Nixon, after having been snubbed by President Eisenhower, who thought it more important to go golfing than to encourage friendly relations with a neighboring country. It seemed that the U.S. Administration did not take the new Cuban Prime Minister seriously after he showed up dressed in revolutionary garb. Delegating his Vice President to meet the new Cuban leader was an obvious rebuff. However, what was worse was that an instant dislike developed between the two men, when Fidel Castro met Vice President Richard Milhous Nixon. This dislike was amplified when Nixon openly badgered Castro with anti-communistic rhetoric. Once again, Castro explained that he was not a Communist and that he was with the West in the Cold War. However, during this period following the McCarthy era, Nixon was not listening. During Castro’s tour to the United States, Canada and Latin America, everyone in Cuba listened intently to what he had to say. Fidel’s speeches, that were shown on Cuban television, were troubling to Raúl and he feared that his brother was deviating from Cuba’s path towards communism. Becoming concerned by Fidel’s candid remarks, Raúl conferred with his close friend “Che” Guevara, and finally called Fidel about how he was being perceived in Cuba. Following this conversation, Raúl flew to Texas where he met with his brother Fidel in Houston. Raúl informed him that the Cuban press saw his diplomacy as a concession to the United States. The two brothers argued openly at the airport and again later at the posh Houston Shamrock Hotel, where they stayed. With the pressure on Fidel to embrace Communism he reluctantly agreed…. In time he whole heartily accepted Communism as the philosophy for the Cuban Government.
Hank Bracker
When the time comes, & I hope it comes soon, to bury this era of moral rot & the defiling of our communal, social, & democratic norms, the perfect epitaph for the gravestone of this age of unreason should be Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley's already infamous quote: "I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing... as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.” Grassley's vision of America, quite frankly, is one I do not recognize. I thought the heart of this great nation was not limited to the ranks of the plutocrats who are whisked through life in chauffeured cars & private jets, whose often inherited riches are passed along to children, many of whom no sacrifice or service is asked. I do not begrudge wealth, but it must come with a humility that money never is completely free of luck. And more importantly, wealth can never be a measure of worth. I have seen the waitress working the overnight shift at a diner to give her children a better life, & yes maybe even take them to a movie once in awhile - and in her, I see America. I have seen the public school teachers spending extra time with students who need help & who get no extra pay for their efforts, & in them I see America. I have seen parents sitting around kitchen tables with stacks of pressing bills & wondering if they can afford a Christmas gift for their children, & in them I see America. I have seen the young diplomat in a distant foreign capital & the young soldier in a battlefield foxhole, & in them I see America. I have seen the brilliant graduates of the best law schools who forgo the riches of a corporate firm for the often thankless slog of a district attorney or public defender's office, & in them I see America. I have seen the librarian reshelving books, the firefighter, police officer, & paramedic in service in trying times, the social worker helping the elderly & infirm, the youth sports coaches, the PTA presidents, & in them I see America. I have seen the immigrants working a cash register at a gas station or trimming hedges in the frost of an early fall morning, or driving a cab through rush hour traffic to make better lives for their families, & in them I see America. I have seen the science students unlocking the mysteries of life late at night in university laboratories for little or no pay, & in them I see America. I have seen the families struggling with a cancer diagnosis, or dementia in a parent or spouse. Amid the struggles of mortality & dignity, in them I see America. These, & so many other Americans, have every bit as much claim to a government working for them as the lobbyists & moneyed classes. And yet, the power brokers in Washington today seem deaf to these voices. It is a national disgrace of historic proportions. And finally, what is so wrong about those who must worry about the cost of a drink with friends, or a date, or a little entertainment, to rephrase Senator Grassley's demeaning phrasings? Those who can't afford not to worry about food, shelter, healthcare, education for their children, & all the other costs of modern life, surely they too deserve to be able to spend some of their “darn pennies” on the simple joys of life. Never mind that almost every reputable economist has called this tax bill a sham of handouts for the rich at the expense of the vast majority of Americans & the future economic health of this nation. Never mind that it is filled with loopholes written by lobbyists. Never mind that the wealthiest already speak with the loudest voices in Washington, & always have. Grassley’s comments open a window to the soul of the current national Republican Party & it it is not pretty. This is not a view of America that I think President Ronald Reagan let alone President Dwight Eisenhower or Teddy Roosevelt would have recognized. This is unadulterated cynicism & a version of top-down class warfare run amok. ~Facebook 12/4/17
Dan Rather
If we do not stop these mar-makers not,...it will soon be too late. We are the only nation that can halt this crusade. It might be too late in America, but it isn't too late here. Without British support the whole scheme would collapse. For that reason the future of all nations depends upon the policy which is decided in this House. More than that, the final position of Britain in the world is being decided. If we support these anti-Communist crusades through the world as we have supported it in Greece, then our good name and existence will be threatened by the hatred of all free-thinking men. We cannot suppress all desire in Europe and Asia for social change by branding it communism from Russia and persecuting its supporters. Social change doesn't have to come from Russia, whatever the Foreign Office or the Americans say. It is a product of the miserable conditions under which the majority of the earth's population exist. There are fighters for social change in every land, here as well as anywhere.... We Socialists are among them. That is the reason for our predominance in the House to-day. The very men that we try to suppress in other countries are asking for far less liberty than we enjoy here, far less social change than we Socialists hope to initiate in Great Britain. Are we going to betray these men by labelling them Communists and crushing them wherever we find them until we have launched ourselves at Russia herself in a war that will wipe this island off the face of the earth? The American imperialists say that this is the American Century. ARe we to sacrifice ourselves for that great ideal, or are we to stand beside the people of Europe and Asia and other lands who seek independence, economic stability, self-determination, and the right to conduct their own affairs? Are we going to partake in an anti-Red campaign when we ourselves are Reds? ...... Some among us might think that there is political expediency in following this anti-Russian crusade without really getting enmeshed in it, creating a Third Force in Europe of their friends, a balancing force for power politics. In that you have the real policy of our Government to-day. But how can we avoid final involvement? Our American vanguard will stop at nothing. They hold their atom bomb aloft with nervous fingers. It has become their talisman and their faith. It is their new weapon of anti-Communism, a more efficient Belsen and Maidenek. Its first usage was morally anti-Russian. It was used to end Japan quickly so that Russia would play no part in the final settlement with that country. No doubt they would have used it on Russia already if they could be certain that Russian did not have an equal or better atomic weapon. That terrible uncertainty goads them into fiercer political and economic activity against the world's grim defenders of great liberties. In that you have the heart of this American imperial desperation. They cannot defeat the people of Europe and Asia with the atomic bomb alone. They cannot win unless we lend them our name and our support and our political cunning. To-day they have British support, in policy as well as in international councils where the decisions of peace and security are being made. With our support America is undermining every international conference with its anti-Russian politics.
James Aldridge (The Diplomat)
These Claudines, then…they want to know because they believe they already do know, the way one who loves fruit knows, when offered a mango from the moon, what to expect; and they expect the loyal tender teasing affection of the schoolgirl crush to continue: the close and confiding companionship, the pleasure of the undemanding caress, the cuddle which consummates only closeness; yet in addition they want motherly putting right, fatherly forgiveness and almost papal indulgence; they expect that the sights and sounds, the glorious affairs of the world which their husbands will now bring before them gleaming like bolts of silk, will belong to the same happy activities as catching toads, peeling back tree bark, or powdering the cheeks with dandelions and oranging the nose; that music will ravish the ear the way the trill of the blackbird does; that literature will hold the mind in sweet suspense the way fairy tales once did; that paintings will crowd the eye with the delights of a colorful garden, and the city streets will be filled with the same cool dew-moist country morning air they fed on as children. But they shall not receive what they expect; the tongue will be about other business; one will hear in masterpieces only pride and bitter contention; buildings will have grandeur but no flowerpots or chickens; and these Claudines will exchange the flushed cheek for the swollen vein, and instead of companionship, they will get sex and absurd games composed of pinch, leer, and giggle—that’s what will happen to “let’s pretend.” 'The great male will disappear into the jungle like the back of an elusive ape, and Claudine shall see little of his strength again, his intelligence or industry, his heroics on the Bourse like Horatio at the bridge (didn’t Colette see Henri de Jouvenel, editor and diplomat and duelist and hero of the war, away to work each day, and didn’t he often bring his mistress home with him, as Willy had when he was husband number one?); the great affairs of the world will turn into tawdry liaisons, important meetings into assignations, deals into vulgar dealings, and the en famille hero will be weary and whining and weak, reminding her of all those dumb boys she knew as a child, selfish, full of fat and vanity like patrons waiting to be served and humored, admired and not observed. 'Is the occasional orgasm sufficient compensation? Is it the prize of pure surrender, what’s gained from all that giving up? There’ll be silk stockings and velvet sofas maybe, the customary caviar, tasting at first of frog water but later of money and the secretions of sex, then divine champagne, the supreme soda, and rubber-tired rides through the Bois de Boulogne; perhaps there’ll be rich ugly friends, ritzy at homes, a few young men with whom one may flirt, a homosexual confidant with long fingers, soft skin, and a beautiful cravat, perfumes and powders of an unimaginable subtlety with which to dust and wet the body, many deep baths, bonbons filled with sweet liqueurs, a procession of mildly salacious and sentimental books by Paul de Kock and company—good heavens, what’s the problem?—new uses for the limbs, a tantalizing glimpse of the abyss, the latest sins, envy certainly, a little spite, jealousy like a vaginal itch, and perfect boredom. 'And the mirror, like justice, is your aid but never your friend.' -- From "Three Photos of Colette," The World Within the Word, reprinted from NYRB April 1977
William H. Gass (The World Within the Word)
Growth was so rapid that it took in generations of Westerners, not just Lincoln Steffens. It took in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It even took in the Soviet Union’s own leaders, such as Nikita Khrushchev, who famously boasted in a speech to Western diplomats in 1956 that “we will bury you [the West].” As late as 1977, a leading academic textbook by an English economist argued that Soviet-style economies were superior to capitalist ones in terms of economic growth, providing full employment and price stability and even in producing people with altruistic motivation. Poor old Western capitalism did better only at providing political freedom. Indeed, the most widely used university textbook in economics, written by Nobel Prize–winner Paul Samuelson, repeatedly predicted the coming economic dominance of the Soviet Union. In the 1961 edition, Samuelson predicted that Soviet national income would overtake that of the United States possibly by 1984, but probably by 1997. In the 1980 edition there was little change in the analysis, though the two dates were delayed to 2002 and 2012. Though the policies of Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders could produce rapid economic growth, they could not do so in a sustained way. By the 1970s, economic growth had all but stopped. The most important lesson is that extractive institutions cannot generate sustained technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic incentives and resistance by the elites. In addition, once all the very inefficiently used resources had been reallocated to industry, there were few economic gains to be had by fiat. Then the Soviet system hit a roadblock, with lack of innovation and poor economic incentives preventing any further progress. The only area in which the Soviets did manage to sustain some innovation was through enormous efforts in military and aerospace technology. As a result they managed to put the first dog, Leika, and the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space. They also left the world the AK-47 as one of their legacies. Gosplan was the supposedly all-powerful planning agency in charge of the central planning of the Soviet economy. One of the benefits of the sequence of five-year plans written and administered by Gosplan was supposed to have been the long time horizon necessary for rational investment and innovation. In reality, what got implemented in Soviet industry had little to do with the five-year plans, which were frequently revised and rewritten or simply ignored. The development of industry took place on the basis of commands by Stalin and the Politburo, who changed their minds frequently and often completely revised their previous decisions. All plans were labeled “draft” or “preliminary.” Only one copy of a plan labeled “final”—that for light industry in 1939—has ever come to light. Stalin himself said in 1937 that “only bureaucrats can think that planning work ends with the creation of the plan. The creation of the plan is just the beginning. The real direction of the plan develops only after the putting together of the plan.” Stalin wanted to maximize his discretion to reward people or groups who were politically loyal, and punish those who were not. As for Gosplan, its main role was to provide Stalin with information so he could better monitor his friends and enemies. It actually tried to avoid making decisions. If you made a decision that turned out badly, you might get shot. Better to avoid all responsibility. An example of what could happen
Daron Acemoğlu (Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty)
The strategic level is concerned with the use of military force to achieve national objectives. In the new American style of war, it has come to be interpreted as the highest political and diplomatic level at which decisions are made to collect and deploy military forces to a distant theater. The size of strategic land forces varies, depending on the nature of the topography and the seriousness of the enemy threat. In past limited wars, deployments involved relatively large armies consisting of multiple corps of 50,000 soldiers each. The numbers of soldiers deployed in more recent campaigns have been considerably smaller. The strategic challenge in the years ahead will center on "time versus risk"-that is, the decisions that must be made to balance the size of the strategic force to be projected versus the time necessary for the force to arrive ready to fight. The United States must be able to overcome the problems of distance and time without unnecessarily exposing early arriving forces to an enemy already in place within a theater of war. The operational level of warfare provides a connection between strategic deployments and the tactical engagements of small units. The "art" of maneuvering forces to achieve decisive results on the battlefield nest here. As with the deployments of strategic level forces, the basic elements of operational maneuver have shrunk as the conflict environment has changed since the end of the Second World War. During the Cold War, corps conducted operational maneuver. More recently, the task has devolved to brigades, usually self contained units of all arms capable of independent maneuver. An independent brigade consists of about 5,000 soldiers. At the operational level, ground forces will face the challenge of determining the proper balance between "firepower and maneuver" resources and technologies to ensure that the will of the enemy's army to resist can be collapsed quickly and decisively. Battles are fought at the tactical level. In the past, the tactical fight has been a face-to-face endeavor; small units of about company size, no more that several hundred soldiers, are locked in combat at close range. The tactical fight is where most casualties occur. The tactical challenge of the future will be to balance the anticipated "ends," or what the combat commander is expected to achieve on the battlefield, with the "means," measured in the lives of soldiers allocated to achieve those ends. Since ground forces suffer casualties disproportionately, ground commanders face the greatest challenge of balancing ends versus means. All three challenges must be addressed together if reform of the landpower services - the Army and the Marine Corps - is to be swift and lasting. The essential moderating influence on the process of change is balance. At the strategic level, the impulse to arrive quickly must be balanced with the need for forces massive and powerful enough to fight successfully on arrival. The impulse to build a firepower-dominant operational forces will be essential if the transitory advantage of fires is to be made permanent by the presence of ground forces in the enemy's midst. The impulse to culminate tactical battle by closing with and destroying the enemy must be balanced by the realization that fighting too close may play more to the advantage of enemy rather than friendly forces.
Robert H. Scales
I don't fancy bringing the Americans into this at all.... They are inclined to take things over these days, and I have an idea that the price for their co-operation might be a big slice of influence in that part of the world--at our expense of course. They are developing a large interest in the Middle East, and the danger of ignoring them is worse than that of co-operating with them. We are trying to hang on to what we've got down there, while the Yankees are coming in and taking everything they can put their hands on. We are the defensive and they are on the offensive. They have the dollars, unfortunately. All we have is our political experience and skill. Where we do have a good sound economic footing, such as in Iran, what do they do but come and try to interfere with that too? That is our wealth down there in Iran, but who is handling it? Millspaugh and all sorts of strange financial geniuses from Milwaukee. Other geniuses from Chicago are running the police and the gendarmerie and even the army now. You import a gangster specialist from Chicago to handle a miserable collection of peasants! Aren't the local brutes efficient enough? Now they are starting to run the hospitals and the street-cleaning departments, and even the palace. How can a good American stomach a king? Yet you observe our friends swallowing feudal courts and kings and then spitting up Democracy and the American way of life. I know that we are fairly hypocritical at times, but compared to the piousness of the Americans we are a nation of honest men. Unfortunately they are about to skin us too..., but I suppose it's either that or losing everything. At a pinch I would sooner kiss the dollar than embrace the fanatics who are trying to change everything all over the world.
James Aldridge (The Diplomat)
MacGregor shrugged. 'More than the population are opium addicts,' he said. 'Don't dismiss it like that,' she told him impatiently. 'I'm not dismissing it,' he said softly. 'I'm trying to show you what it really means.' 'But are they all like that?' 'Not that bad.' 'But why....' He lifted his hands. 'To forget the difficulty of keeping alive. To keep out the cold, to forget their hunger and their misery.' 'They ought to prevent it,' she said. 'Who ought to prevent it?' he asked slowly. 'I don't know. Who allows it? Who is responsible?' 'The gentlemen in Teheran to whom we give our unqualified support. Opium helps to keep the population too stupefied and too broken to do anything about their miserable conditions. We support men here, knowing that opium is part of their means of maintaining position and authority. If you really want to know who is responsible, I suppose we are. Some of our most influential friends in the Government are landlords of large opium growing areas.
James Aldridge (The Diplomat)
British policy to-day is as bad as America's despite our Socialist Government. I am a Socialist and a member of the Government party, but every day I ask myself how a Socialist can conduct the affairs of this Nation by co-operating in international policies with the desperate and grim Capitalist of America. It isn't by force, because we still have an alternative. It is apparently by choice, by our own fear of stepping up to our necks in Socialism. We prefer to be half-baked about it, to be respectable about it, to be careful instead of being daring. Our policy to-day is not to make Socialism work, but to make Capitalism work. For that we conduct our foreign affairs with the same intentions as our Tory opponents. Because of our own fear of Socialism, our policy has become theirs. Theirs is the common anti-Russian front of American and British capital struggling to survive in a world that is rejecting colonial domination and economic slavery. Yet we are not deep enough into it for our great friend opposite. Each step we take into this anti-Russian campaign he asks us to go one more, deeper and deeper, until we are finally committed to war. Our men of capital and imperialism ask us to follow the American crusade so that Britain can gather a few crumbs that we can get in Iran for instance. Ironically, we are expected at the same time to release our grip on the straggling Empire so that American capital can enter and take over.
James Aldridge (The Diplomat)
All your decisions discount the Persians themselves, and that is the mistake of your ignorance and your plotting. To you the Persian is a stupid peasant who can't decide his own affairs; an uncultured wretch who will take all manner of deceit and oppression and diplomatic twisting. If you do see any signs, any glimmer of revolt, you blame the Russians and take it to the Security Council. But it isn't the Russians. It's the peasant himself who is revolting. If any of you understood Iran you would know that. Dirty and wretched they may be, opium-ridden and backward and dull, but they are really the people you should fear, not the Russians. It may take time and there may be set-backs, but sooner or later the Persians are going to throw us out and throw out all our corrupt and friendly governments. They don't need any complicated political excuse to revolt, however much you cry Communism. There isn't a simple man, woman or child in Iran who isn't landlord-ridden,m who isn't a slave by the way in which he works, who isn't preyed upon by corrupt officials, who isn't beaten and insulted and robbed by the police and the army. The peasants are impoverished by the tithes they must pay the Khans, and the mechanics are underpaid and underfed and overworked. There isn't an adult in Iran who isn't ridden with some chronic disease, there isn't a child who survives all the ravages of poverty and dirt and sickness. The whole government structure is rotten with bribery and extortion and petty cruelties, and there isn't a modicum of justice in the land. There are no real courts, no political rights, no representative government, no wage laws, no right to organize, no means of adjusting the bad conditions of life except by revolting as the Azerbaijanians and the Kurds are revolting. Thank heavens the Russians have given them a chance to revolt; and damn us for preventing it wherever we can. We will fail anyway, whatever the Security Council decides in New York. You can get the Russians out of Azerbaijan and you can give it back to your merchants and wazirs of Teheran, but after a little while it will all begin again because you cannot stop the Persian from deciding his own affairs. He is not ignorant and stupid to his political situation. He is not so wretched and afraid of revolt. He is not even uncultured: in the language he speaks and the use he makes of it there is more natural culture among the peasants of Iran than you can find among the world's diplomats a the Savoy Hotel. He is backward and poor and dirty, but that is largely due to the influence we have had on Iran for a hundred years or more. Now it is too late for us. These people have reached the breaking point and they don't care about the wise men of the House of Commons and the clever men of the Security Council. These people are desperate, and for our reckless methods of holding our power and our oil it ought to be a warning. It will all go. The oil, the power, and the last drop of influence. Rather than let us have any of it the Persian will wreck Abadan and the wells and every other sign of our presence and our strength there. They are beginning to hate us and that is beginning a battle which we can't stop, which you can't stop in the Security Council. Unless we are determined to kill every man in the country we will lose. We cannot help but lose.
James Aldridge (The Diplomat)
Whereas the disparity between Henry and me is permanent?” She tucked her chin, regarding him in bemusement. “I never meant to suggest any such thing.” Did Phillip feel inferior in some way to his elder brother? She could not credit it. He flicked a playful finger under her chin. “I should hope not. I always rather thought you preferred me to Henry.” Emma’s nerves crackled to life. She took a long breath and told herself to stop imagining references to that cursed letter. She swallowed and answered diplomatically, “You and I, being so close in age, naturally became friends. Henry and I did not.” He gave her a crooked grin and tweaked her chin once more. “That’s what I like to hear.
Julie Klassen (The Tutor's Daughter)
Imagine that Israel’s Labor Party invited President Obama to address its Parliament about why Israel should give negotiations on Iran more time, and it was all worked out with the U.S. ambassador in Tel Aviv behind the back of the Likud Party prime minister. A lot of Israelis would see it as an insult to their democratically elected leader. I’ve polled many of my non-Jewish friends, who follow world politics and are sympathetic to Israel, and they really don’t like this. It doesn’t only disrespect our president, it disrespects our system and certain diplomatic boundaries that every foreign leader should respect and usually has. 
Anonymous
Meanwhile, the peculiar life of Athanarel continued. We did not have a king, yet the government was somehow carried forward, and foreign diplomats attended the constant round of social events, and they all seemed content with things as they were. Not so the more serious of the courtiers, but as yet the questions everyone most wanted to ask--“When will we have a king? Why does he wait?”--were as yet discussed only in quiet corners of informal parties and never by those most closely concerned. The weather curtailed outside activities. For now the races and picnics were set aside for inside diversions: readings, music, dancing, parties, chocolate, and talk. I think four new dances were introduced during that time, but what I really enjoyed was the resumption of sword work. Parties to pursue the martial arts were organized, and fencing tourneys replaced racing for those who liked competition. I competed only for fun, and no one bet on me, not even Savona, because, despite my enthusiasm, I wasn’t very good. Neither was Bran, though he shared my enthusiasm. The others who favored the blade had been well-trained from childhood, and our lack showed. But this did not stop either of us from trying. One of the topics of conversation was my party, which was perhaps the more anticipated because people kept inside perforce had more time to spend on their costumes. My own involvement with the preparations had escalated accordingly, about which I’ll have something to say anon. From Flauvic, of course, nothing was seen, nor did he entertain--but after enough days had passed that I had quite given up on him, I received a witty note, gracefully written by his own hand, stating that he would attend my party. And so, on the surface, all was serene enough. Tamara remained cool but friendly, and Nee told me over chocolate one morning when Elenet was not there that Tamara never mentioned me but in praise. Trishe held her weekly breakfast parties in her rooms at Khialem House; Deric and Geral continued to flirt with me; Savona continued his extravagant compliments; I was often in company with Shevraeth now, and we both smiled and conversed, but always, it seemed, with other people.
Sherwood Smith (Court Duel (Crown & Court, #2))
Although she has a tendency to be overly impressed by those with academic qualifications, Diana admires people who perform rather than pontificate. Richard Branson, the head of Virgin airlines, Baron Jacob Rothschild, the millionaire banker who restored Spencer House, and her cousin Viscount David Linley who runs a successful furniture and catering business, are high on her list. “She likes the fact that David has been able to break out of the royal mould and do something positive,” says a friend. “She envies too his good fortune in being able to walk down a street without a detective.” For years her low intellectual self-esteem manifested itself in instinctive deference towards the judgments of her husband and senior courtiers. Now that she is clearer herself about her direction, she is prepared to argue about policy in a way that would have been unthinkable several years ago. The results are tangible. Foreign Office diplomats, notoriously hidebound in their perceptions, are beginning to realize her true worth. They were impressed by the way she handled her first solo visit to Pakistan and subsequently discussed trips to Egypt and Iran, the Islamic republic where the Union Jack was routinely burned until a few years ago. This is, as she would say, a “very grown-up” part of her royal life.
Andrew Morton (Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words)
Patrick Jephson As the first and only private secretary to Diana during her life, Patrick Jephson was one of the closest people to the Princess throughout her international charity and diplomatic career. He is also a notable broadcaster and journalist and has contributed to many major British newspapers, including the Times, the Observer, and the Daily Mail. His writing credits include Shadows of a Princess and Portraits of a Princess: Travels with Diana, and several of his books have been international bestsellers. As a nation, the British like to remember things, especially things that make them feel special. Trying to forget Diana is a tall order--and not just for those of us who knew her well. What happened to her during those sixteen years was drama on a Shakespearean scale--just think of love, betrayal, sacrifice, beauty, and death. The curtain may have come down on the tragedy ten years ago. But our farewell to Diana is not yet complete. It probably never will be. It’s a memory that is renewed each time we see a photograph of her sons. William in particular carries the blessing (or the burden) of Diana’s camera-friendly looks. Her DNA in our future heads of state is now an ineradicable biological fact. Time may fade that reality. But nobody can deny it.
Larry King (The People's Princess: Cherished Memories of Diana, Princess of Wales, From Those Who Knew Her Best)
You laughin’ at me, dwarf?” Mulch stopped laughing. “With you,” he corrected. “I’m laughing with you. That skull joke was pretty funny.” The goblin advanced, until his slimy nose was a centi-meter from Mulch’s own. “You pay-tron-izin’ me, dwarf?” Mulch swallowed, calculating. If he unhinged now, he could probably swallow the leader before the others reacted. Still, goblins were murder on the digestion. Very bony. The goblin conjured up a fireball around his fist. “I asked you a question, stumpy.” Mulch could feel every sweat gland on his body pop into instant overdrive. Dwarfs did not like fire. They didn’t even like thinking about flames. Unlike the rest of the fairy races, dwarfs had no desire to live aboveground. Too close to the sun. Ironic for someone in the Mud People Possession Liberation business. “N-no need for that,” he stammered. “I was just trying to be friendly.” “Friendly,” scoffed Wart-face. “Your kind don’t know the meanin’ of the word. Cowardly backstabbers, the lot of you.” Mulch nodded diplomatically. “We have been known to be a bit treacherous.
Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl (Artemis Fowl, #1))
Many of Philby’s colleagues in MI6 would cling to that presumption of innocence as an article of faith. To accept otherwise would be to admit that they had all been fooled; it would make the intelligence and diplomatic services look entirely idiotic.
Ben Macintyre (A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal)
A brilliant statistician who was friendly with the president, Kennedy informed the diplomat that Mary Todd Lincoln was holding a reception that afternoon; the two of them could go together, if the marquis would like. Though Chambrun fretted that he had not yet been formally presented to the president, Kennedy assured him there would be no breach of diplomatic protocol, since Lincoln, harried by duty, did not attend his wife’s levees.
Edward Achorn (Every Drop of Blood: The Momentous Second Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln)
Tact is good, but it’s not the answer to difficult conversations. Tact won’t make conversations with your father more intimate or take away your client’s anger over the increased bill. Nor is there a simple diplomatic way to fire your friend, to let your mother-in-law know that she drives you crazy, or to confront your colleagues’ hurtful prejudices.
Douglas Stone (Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most)
Mubarak had been a resolute ally, key to peace with Israel and to the 1991 Gulf War coalition (praised by George H. W. Bush as “my wise friend”), and then in the campaign against Al Qaeda. Barack Obama’s senior advisers—Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Vice President Joe Biden—urged caution in joining the rush to push Mubarak out. Gates was on the National Security Council in 1979 when, in his view, the United States had pulled the rug out from under the shah, with the expectation that a democratic revolution would follow. The result instead was the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini, U.S. diplomats held hostage for 444 days, and the implacably hostile Islamic Republic.
Daniel Yergin (The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations)
We are, by our human natures, foolish. We engage in all manner of nonsense and create all sorts of problems for ourselves—some of them quite serious. There may be times in our lives when we find our world crumbling around us and see that we are losing that which we value most. In these circumstances, when the voices of our forthright friends are urgent, it would be more prudent to consider their warnings than complain about the tone of their voices or assert that they are not diplomatic. Real friends serve us best when they call out dangers that we cannot perceive. Plainspoken friends, particularly those who may have experienced the things we now suffer, may see and understand more than we can see and understand ourselves. It would be wise to listen to their counsel, even—perhaps especially—when our first instinct is to insist that our circumstances are different, that they do not understand us, or that they have hurt our feelings. Forthright friends are rare. If you have such friends, listen humbly and keep them close: you have discovered treasure.
Jean-Michel Hansen
Uncomplicated Systems Of giftcity - A Background The sort of present you give can have an enduring impression on the receiver. Gift will make a person feel special so it is important that when selecting a gift, you must always keep the receiver in mind. Gift has the power to keep up it for a long time and to develop relationship that is powerful. Particularly in the corporate world, a a happy customer or a partner that is satisfied can have an enormous impact on the business. Thus, when picking corporate gift, one must be attentive and be diplomatic as well. Firms organises occasions and events to market their services and products. During such occasions, corporate gifts Singapore can play an enormous part in attracting more customers and keep up the old ones. Companies can emboss the presents reach to more individuals and they give away to further their advertisement with company emblems. Inexpensive gift item like pencils mugs bags etc are perfect for such giveaways they not only promote the company but also bring more customers company may also organize Corporate Gifting such as jewellery branded goods electronics and gadgets etc for significant occasions giveaways to high achievers for the company or business associates. Some of the things proposed by Giftcitysingapore are leather goods, branded wristwatches, kitchenwares, gadgets and electronic good etc are perfect for corporate gifts. Such expensive items can be given on particular company's occasion and occasions. Depending on the occasion and recipients corporate gifts can be chosen. One should also keep in your mind not to tarnish the company's persona with affordable presents for special occasions when choosing corporate gifts. Latest gadgets and electronic devices makes wonderful gifts for family members and friends, the exact same thought can be used on corporate gift ideas. Everyone will appreciate being gifted with the most recent gadget in the industry. Present city website has also implied that electronic devices and gadgets are perfect corporate gifts. Gadgets and electronic devices even have practical use consequently most firms regularly give away such expensive gifts to valued employees and clients.
giftcitysingapore
From where I stood it was a pose that collapsed many periods in her life into one: mother and lover, big sister, best friend, superstar and diplomat, billionaire and street kid, foolish girl and woman of substance.
Zadie Smith (Swing Time)
A Foreign Office diplomat in London wrote in the margins of a Tehran report: “I tend to the view that Musaddiq still enjoys some public support, more than some of our close friends would have us believe. . . . Coup d’état may well be the only answer.
Ervand Abrahamian (The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations)
Ambassadors to Lebanon are invariably career State Department employees, this a glaring exception to the custom wherein lead diplomatic posts are reserved as political appointments, presidents finding places for their deep-pocketed campaign donors, close friends, and Ivy League fraternity brothers. France, England, Sweden, and Brazil—these are the verdant gardens, the well-bought consular A-list. An ambassadorship to Lebanon, on the other hand, lies considerably further down the alphabet. With its magnetism for bombings, kidnappings, and religious-inspired mayhem, Beirut postings are invariably filled—on a strictly volunteer basis—by brave and long-tenured employees from Foggy Bottom.
Ward Larsen (Assassin's Silence (David Slaton, #3))
to found a fraternal society of their own. Humbler than its illustrious Vienna equivalent, their Filiki Etaireia (Friendly Society) would turn out to be the catalyst for Europe’s first successful national revolution, ultimately forcing kings and diplomats to change their entire approach to the management of the European peace.11
Mark Mazower (The Greek Revolution: 1821 and the Making of Modern Europe)
By exerting ourselves through unnecessary or irrelevant speech or action, we increase the risk of conflict by a million percent. By meeting or approaching when it is not necessary or relevant to do so, we increase the risk of increasing the risk by a million percent. Space cultivates longing, (so) may longing cultivate space. And thus cultivate warmth and peace, enforced by brief interactions [parting ways on positive notes]. Space can be expressed not only in the physical sense. There is a higher purpose.
Monaristw
By exerting ourselves through unnecessary or irrelevant speech or action, we increase the risk of conflict by a million percent. By meeting or approaching when it is not necessary or relevant to do so, we increase the risk of increasing the risk by a million percent. Space cultivates longing, (so) may longing cultivate space. And thus cultivate warmth and peace, enforced by brief interactions [parting ways on positive notes]. Space can be expressed not only in the physical sense.
Monaristw
They sat around the dining table looking innocuous as they awaited my chilled avocado soup. The mango-cilantro salsa made a colorful garnish. But when I brought it out to the table, Todd, the painter, said he was allergic to mangoes, and Carlos from Guadalajara hated cilantro. How could a Mexican hate cilantro, I thought as I spooned out the garnish from Carlos’s bowl. Margo, the macrobiotic, wouldn’t eat avocado since it wasn’t native to the Northeast, and Robert, the banker on the Pritikin diet, was banned from eating it because it was high in fat. Things got progressively worse. Niloufer, the daughter of a Turkish diplomat, took one look at my dolma and said, “That doesn’t look like the ones my grandmother made.” Reza, the Iranian consultant, announced that he wouldn’t eat Turkish food, since his ancestors were murdered by Turks. Todd, I discovered, was allergic not only to mangoes but also to cabbage. He was the only one in the group who touched my umeboshi-cranberry sauce, which the entire group pronounced inedible. Olivia, my fashionable Italian friend, stated that she “simply couldn’t” eat the pine nuts that I had liberally included in my dolma stuffing, and spent the entire meal scratching her plate to spot and discard the offenders. With each dish, I had to recite its ingredients in excruciating detail and answer questions—had I used stone-ground flour? Was the produce organic (it wasn’t)? —all of which determined who would deign to eat my delicacies.
Shoba Narayan (Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes)
And 2,200 years before Christ was born, King Akhtoi of Egypt gave his son some shrewd advice—advice that is sorely needed today. “Be diplomatic,” counseled the King. “It will help you gain your point.
Dale Carnegie (How To Win Friends and Influence People)
In 1965, the Cuban ambassador to the DPRK, a black man, was squiring his wife and some Cuban doctors around the city when locals surrounded their car, pounding it and shouting racial epithets.20 Police called to the scene had to beat the mob back with truncheons. “The level of training of the masses is extremely low,” a high-ranking official later told the shaken diplomat. “They cannot distinguish between friends and foes.”21 This was precisely the mindset that the regime sought to instil.
B.R. Myers (The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters)
the 1,000-year domination and occupation of Vietnam by China from 111 BCE to 938 CE and their brief cross-border war of 1979. However, as China’s military prowess grows, Vietnam will be less inclined to get drawn into a shooting match and will either cosy up even closer to the Americans for protection or quietly begin shifting diplomatically to become friends with Beijing.
Tim Marshall (Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics)
Let’s call that your third lesson. Everyone shows more of their internal thoughts on their face than they realize. As a diplomat, you don’t want to show that you think the person you are talking to is an arrogant ass, even when they are. And in regard to the other profession, it can save your life to be able to keep your real emotions hidden. “Right now, I can see your every expression flit across your face. Oh, you aren’t as bad as some—your friend Alina for instance—and not everyone would notice. However, you could get in a spot of trouble or cause an incident if you weren’t careful and completely in control of yourself. Best to avoid that.” Following
S.E. Weir (Diplomatic Recruit (The Empress' Spy, #1))
Feinstein has been a China-booster from the early 1990s, often backing pro-Beijing legislation in the Senate. Her husband has strong business links in China, which she denies have had any influence on her. In 1997 she compared the Tiananmen Square massacre to the shooting of four students at Ohio’s Kent State University in 1970, and called for a joint US–China commission on the two nations’ human rights records.35 Lowe left Feinstein’s office after the FBI warned her about him. China’s intelligence agencies also target Westerners not of Chinese heritage for information-gathering. In 2017 a long-serving State Department employee, Candace Claiborne, was indicted for accepting money and gifts from Chinese agents in exchange for diplomatic and economic information.36 She had been targeted by the MSS’s Shanghai State Security Bureau after she asked a Chinese friend to find a job in China for a family member. Claiborne maintained secret contact with MSS agents for five years, supplying them with information in return for help with her ‘financial woes’. She was sentenced to forty months in prison. In the early 1990s Britain’s MI5 wrote a protection manual for businesspeople visiting China; the advice remains relevant today: ‘Be especially alert for flattery and over-generous hospitality … [Westerners] are more likely to be the subject of long-term, low key cultivation, aimed at making “friends” … The aim of these tactics is to create a debt of obligation on the part of the target, who will eventually find it difficult to refuse inevitable requests for favours in return.
Clive Hamilton (Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World)
Vietnam is an irritation for China. For centuries the two have squabbled over territory, and unfortunately for both this is the one area to the south which has a border an army can get across without too much trouble – which partially explains the 1,000-year domination and occupation of Vietnam by China from 111 BCE to 938 CE and their brief cross-border war of 1979. However, as China’s military prowess grows, Vietnam will be less inclined to get drawn into a shooting match and will either cosy up even closer to the Americans for protection or quietly begin shifting diplomatically to become friends with Beijing. That both countries are nominally ideologically Communist has little to do with the state of their relationship: it is their shared geography that has dened relations. Viewed from Beijing, Vietnam is only a minor threat and a problem that can be managed
Tim Marshall (Prisoners of Geography)
were ostentatious about it, they were hated even more. It may have been stupid of them, and of course the wiser Jews, especially the older ones, were greatly upset, and remonstrated with the younger, because they foresaw the antagonism their behaviour would create. The Jews probably paid fair prices for what they bought - but that wasn’t the point. Except for my father and many of his generation, people hated the Jews. My father realised that the fault did not lie with the Jews but somehow much higher up. Of course, it would be wrong to give the impression that there were not many impoverished Jews in Budapest and other places who had got things just as wrong as everybody else. Compared with elsewhere, the elite branches of the Hungarian civil service - the Army, the diplomatic corps, and the financial administration - usually maintained the old traditions of integrity; and they suffered for that. The families of senior civil servants who tried to stick to the ethics of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy often met disaster - unless they had land with which to support their convictions - and the attitudes of such parents were often resented by the young who found the maintenance of uncomfortable principles objectionable while their friends’ families were obviously making compromises. Real corruption was found less in the central government than at county level. This was something entirely new. When my father protested about the irregularities that were permitted - the keeping of two sets of books, the acceptance of bribes, the payments in cash, the extra jobs taken on which left less time for official work to be done - the reply was: ‘Your Excellency, will you feed my children?’ There was communal hatred, which was new. There was social resentment, which was new. There was bribery and corruption: that was new. It was the same in Austria and Poland. If you get the same fever, you get the same symptoms.
Adam Fergusson (When Money dies)
Duveen instantly wrote his ten-thousand-pound purchase off as a total loss, but the pictures he acquired from the diplomat’s friends returned him a profit many times as large as his investment.
S.N. Behrman (Duveen: The story of the most spectacular art dealer of all time)
My life in Cambridge was transformed—or rather, I was transformed into someone who believed she belonged in Cambridge. The shame I’d long felt about my family leaked out of me almost overnight. For the first time in my life I talked openly about where I’d come from. I admitted to my friends that I’d never been to school. I described Buck’s Peak, with its many junkyards, barns, corrals. I even told them about the root cellar full of supplies in the wheat field, and the gasoline buried near the old barn. I told them I’d been poor, I told them I’d been ignorant, and in telling them this I felt not the slightest prick of shame. Only then did I understand where the shame had come from: it wasn’t that I hadn’t studied in a marble conservatory, or that my father wasn’t a diplomat. It wasn’t that Dad was half out of his mind, or that Mother followed him. It had come from having a father who shoved me toward the chomping blades of the Shear, instead of pulling me away from them. It had come from those moments on the floor, from knowing that Mother was in the next room, closing her eyes and ears to me, and choosing, for that moment, not to be my mother at all.
Tara Westover (Educated)
Returning to New York City, Martí held a number of diplomatic positions for various Latin American countries and again wrote editorials for Spanish-language newspapers. Many considered Martí to be the greatest Latin American intellectual of the time. He published his newspaper Patria as the voice of Cuban Independence. While in the United States, he wrote several acclaimed volumes of poetry and along with other friends in exile, he spent time planning his return to Cuba. During the following year in 1892, he traveled throughout Central America, the Caribbean and the United States raising funds at various Cuban clubs. His first attempt to launch the revolution, with a few followers, was drastically underfunded and failed. However, the following year with more men and additional backing, he tried again. Although he admired and visited America in the interim, he feared that the United States would annex Cuba before his revolution could liberate the country from Spain. With small skirmishes, the Cuban War of Independence started on February 24, 1895. Marti’s plan for a second attempt at freeing Cuba included convincing Major General Máximo Gómez y Báez and Major General Antonio de la Caridad Maceo y Grajales, as well as several other revolutionary heroes of the Ten Years’ War, to join him. Together they launched a three-pronged invasion in April of 1895. With bands of exiles, they landed separately, using small boats. The main assault was on the south coast of Oriente Province, where their objective was to take and hold the higher ground. During this maneuver Martí was directed by the commanding officer General Máximo Gómez to remain with the rearguard, since he would be much more useful to the revolution alive than dead. However Martí, exercising his usual exuberance, took the lead and was instantly killed during one of the first skirmishes. Thus, he met his death on May 19, 1895, fighting regular Spanish troops at the Battle of Dos Ríos just north of Santiago de Cuba, at the relatively young age of 42.” José Martí remains revered as a hero by the people of Cuba regardless of politics!
Hank Bracker
What happened to you?” Monica accused over a tray of leafy greens. “What?” Joy said. “Nothing.” “Well, that nothing has you eating your salad with a spoon.” Embarrassed, Joy switched utensils, tucking her hair behind her ear and letting her fingers linger there. She grinned again. “I’m just thinking,” she said, poking the lettuce, “about stuff.” “Thinking stuff.” Monica nodded and chewed. “Sounds dangerous.” “Not yet,” Joy chirped. Monica slapped both hands on her tray, “Okay, that’s it— spill.” “What?” “What ‘what?’ Don’t give me ‘what’ and expect me not to ask ‘what?’” Monica pointed her fork at Joy’s nose. “You’ve been a total nut job ever since that night at the Carousel, and what with breaking windows and random notes and skipping off after school, you think I don’t know there’s a ‘what?’” Monica sounded angry, which was her protective-sisterhood thing. Joy tried not to laugh. “Is it drugs?” Monica hissed over her salad. “Because if it’s drugs, so help me, I will beat your sorry pale pink butt from here to next Thursday. I will call your dad, I will call the cops and I will even call Gordon and cancel our date!” “Whoa.” Joy waved a napkin in surrender. “It’s not drugs. No drugs. I swear. Remember? No Stupid,” Joy said, but had to add, “But there is a someone.” “A someone?” “A someone.” “A guy?” Joy rolled her eyes. “Yes, a guy. There’s a guy. I like guys.” Monica pursed her lips. “There’s a guy and you like guys and you met a guy, this Someone-A-Guy?” Joy prodded her lunch, picking at the crust of her sandwich. “There’s a guy and I don’t know what I think about him. I’m just…thinking about him. A lot.” “Mmm,” Monica said noncommittally. “So does this guy have a name?” Joy considered the question. “Yes.” “Yes?” Monica prompted with a wave of speared iceberg lettuce. “And?” “And there’s not much to talk about.” Joy shrugged and took a wide bite of sandwich, filling her mouth. She couldn’t decide whether Indelible was his first name or Ink, but neither sounded particularly normal. As opposed to Gordon Wiener-Schnitzel. Still, it was a subject best avoided. “Uh-huh.” Monica joined Joy in a long bout of chewing. They exchanged glances and evasions like fencing partners until Monica swallowed. “Okay,” she said. “So, this mysterious Someone-A-Guy that you can’t stop thinking about— would I, as your best friend, theoretically speaking, give him a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down?” Two thumbs down, definitely, for mysteryguywhostabbedmeintheeye. Joy swallowed. “He’s not your type,” she said diplomatically. “But he’s your type?” Monica said. “And, what is your type, exactly?” “He’s…” Joy stumbled, trying to find the words. “Exciting. Intellectual. A little sad, which can be sweet.” The flash in her eye inspired her. “He’s an artist.” “An artist?” Monica sneered around cukes. “Please do not tell me that you’re going to go all emo on me. That’s worse than drugs.
Dawn Metcalf (Indelible (The Twixt, #1))
All of us kids walked home for lunch, anxious to see our moms and grandmas. Lunch would be waiting and the television, which I so loved, was always set to “The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show.” When he signed off with “God bless your pea-picking hearts!” I was out the door and back to my friends for the walk back to school. A better place to raise a family could never have been found. The milkman delivered quite a few quart glass bottles with the cream for coffee floating on top. A Wonder Bread delivery man lived next door. He delivered only to stores, but would bring us cute miniature loaves of bread once in a while. The scissors and knife sharpener man made his rounds. Grandma loved to work with sharp scissors and admonished us, “Don’t ever cut paper with my shears, it dulls the blades.” I felt sorry for the poor Fuller Brush man since my Mom never would buy anything, but she’d take the free samples. Maybe he just liked talking to my Mom who loved to talk. My favorite was the Good Humor ice cream truck, of course.
Carol Ann P. Cote (Downstairs ~ Upstairs: The Seamstress, The Butler, The "Nomad Diplomats" and Me -- A Dual Memoir)
He paused for a moment. “Mi amor?” Our game.My lips twitched into a smile and I stayed silent. I set the condiment rack down on the kitchen table and closed the fridge door. “Amore mio?” he said in Italian. Still, I waited. I wanted one more. Maybe two. “Meine Geliebte?” German maybe? “Mon amour?” Ugh. That did it. The French always got me. Tyler had been a military brat. His parents were diplomats and had been stationed all over the world. He knew four languages by the time he was old enough to talk. Now he knew nine. He was an interpreter. He was also one of the most intelligent men I’d ever met. He specialized in simultaneous interpretation, a skill set all its own. He knew Arabic and Farsi too, which made him a particular asset in the Middle East. They’d lobbied hard to keep him in service. It said a lot about his feelings for me that he was willing to leave all that. I put my back to the fridge door and slid down to the floor, a grin on my face. “Yes?” “I know you’re nervous about me coming home. I can hear you cleaning.” He knew me too well.
Abby Jimenez (The Friend Zone (The Friend Zone, #1))
The man who rescued the crusade, Giannozzo Manetti, then fifty-nine years old, was the close friend and mentor of Vespasiano. For many years he had been at the heart of Florence’s humanist movement, one of the men who gathered in Vespasiano’s bookshop, “admirably disputing great things.” The son of one of Florence’s wealthiest merchants, he had studied alongside Tommaso Parentucelli, whose secretary he later became and for whom, when Tommaso became pope, he made translations from both Greek and Hebrew. He was a dedicated scholar, sleeping no more than five hours a night in order to devote more time to his studies. Like his friends Poggio and Leonardo Bruni, he was also a busy civic official, serving Florence numerous times as an ambassador to Venice, Genoa, Milan, Naples, and Rome. He took up the thankless post of governor of various Florentine dependencies such as Pistoia and Scarperia, where, as Vespasiano observed, he “found everything in great disorder and full of deadly feuds.”16 Manetti’s greatest claim to fame was his treatise On the Dignity and Excellence of Man, which he completed in 1452 and dedicated to King Alfonso of Naples. The tribute was a rare diplomatic misstep on Manetti’s part, because Alfonso was at war with Florence at the time, leading to mutterings in Florence of Manetti’s treason. Vespasiano prudently waited until 1455 and the Treaty of Lodi before producing a copy of the manuscript. As with the “Decades of the King,” the manuscript was elegantly and expertly produced, featuring the “new antique letters” and white vine-stem decorations in which Vespasiano had come to specialize. Giannozzo Manetti (1396–1459): scholar, businessman, diplomat, writer.
Ross King (The Bookseller of Florence: The Story of the Manuscripts That Illuminated the Renaissance)
An ambassador is an honest man who is sent to lie abroad for the good of his Country” [“Legatus est vir bonus peregre missus ad mentiendum Reipublicae causa”], 1600s H. Nicolson argues that “H. Wotton scribbled this remark as a joke in [friend's] album at Augsburg”.
Sir Henry Wotton
Charley is a born diplomat. He prefers negotiation to fighting, and properly so, since he is very bad at fighting. Only once in his ten years has he been in trouble—when he met a dog who refused to negotiate. Charley lost a piece of his right ear that time. But he is a good watch dog—has a roar like a lion, designed to conceal from night-wandering strangers the fact that he couldn’t bite his way out of a cornet de papier. He is a good friend and traveling companion, and would rather travel about than anything he can imagine. If he occurs at length in this account, it is because he contributed much to the trip. A dog, particularly an exotic like Charley, is a bond between strangers. Many conversations en route began with “What degree of a dog is that?
John Steinbeck (Travels with Charley: In Search of America)
The White Russian émigrés in the United States were motivated by both ideology and economics to serve as shock troops in the growing cold war conflict being managed by Prescott’s friends and associates. No one understood this better than Allen Dulles, the Wall Street lawyer, diplomat, and spymaster-in-ascension. Even in the period between the two world wars, Dulles was already molding Russian émigrés into intelligence operatives.
Russ Baker (Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put it in the White House & What Their Influence Means for America)
If there's something I want to do I have to do it," Song-uk says, then stops talking, obstinate. I suppose you can say something like that if you grow up hearing what a gifted child you are, study at the best undergraduate law department in the nation, tutor high school kids for fun to buy yourself the newest tablet notebook, and hang out with friends who want to become judges, prosecutors, diplomats, or politicians. I'm sure if you say something like this, everyone usually feels guilty and says they're sorry and lets you do whatever you want. I'm different. I know what kind of person you are. I think you expect me to be maternal with you, but that's not part of the deal. I'm a woman, not your mother.
Kim Young-ha (Your Republic Is Calling You)
The Phlegmatic-Sanguine Person (PHLEG-SAN) These people are mostly seen as introverts. They are most peaceful people who go forgo their rights in order to live peacefully with others. Their temperament combination makes them very ideal people to get along with. Strengths of the PHLEG-SAN person They are gentle people who are honored in any group they find themselves. They are also very thoughtful and diplomatic. They are dependable and will rarely let the secret confided to them by friends. They have self-control. They are rarely seen exchanging words with people. They prefer forfeiting their rights and living peacefully with people to demanding these, which may lead to married relations. They enjoy the quiet life. They are the types who tell jokes without laughing. while others are laughing, they remain quiet, as if the humor came from somewhere else. It seems all fields of work are open to them. For example, they are good accountants, registrars, ministers, mechanics, teachers, and counsellors. This group of people do not enjoy trading activities but can do them when motivated Weaknesses of the PHLEG-SAN person These types of people are almost similar to their counterpart- the SAN-PHLEG. They lack motivation. They need to be motivated else they will leave their responsibilities undone. They allow themselves to be instructed and directed by people around them. Thus here, they fall victim to the sin of negligence. They procrastinate and often come out late. As senior officers their trays are always full of pending letters. They build shells around themselves and avoid many people and activities that could be useful to them in future. They let golden opportunities to pass by peacefully. Unless they develop personal discipline, they may never develop their natural potential. They are fearful; they need little motivation to put them to action. They lead a too relaxed life; they can even fall asleep while waiting for friends at the reception. A person of this temperament can always move peacefully with the strong willed CHOL-MEL person.
Emmanuel Koranteng (TEMPERAMENTS: WHY PEOPLE BEHAVE THE WAY THEY DO)
2 Personal Year Number Relationships, Balance, Emotions Self-love and your relationship with yourself is your first priority this year as you work on building your confidence and healing whatever needs to be healed. This is a year to achieve mental and emotional balance by addressing any unresolved emotions or limiting beliefs that are preventing you from living a happy, harmonious life. This is also a year to create harmony in your life by balancing your intuition with logic, your home life with your career, giving with receiving, and others’ needs with your own. This is also a year where relationship issues that have been brewing with work colleagues, family, friends, or partners will come to the surface in order to be resolved. Therefore, it pays to be cooperative, tolerant, understanding, and diplomatic at all times. Because 2 represents partnership and meaningful connections with others, this is a wonderful year to solidify the relationships in your life. It’s also a very favorable year for singles to find love—bearing in mind that healthy relationships with others can only stem from a healthy relationship with oneself. This year can bring about exaggerated emotions and extrasensory experiences, so you may feel hypersensitive to criticism and overreact at times. Your intuition is heightened, so follow your inner guidance and you’ll automatically be led where you need to be. This is a time to create a harmonious environment, take up meditation, create or listen to beautiful music, enhance your psychic abilities, spend time in nature, and eat healthy food. This is a slow and steady year of adaptability that requires patience. When you let go and go with the flow, it can be a very rewarding time. Number 2 is governed by the moon, so work closely with the lunar cycles throughout the year to assist in manifesting your dreams. (See “Moon Cyles” in the “Manifestation with Numbers” section in Part III.)
Michelle Buchanan (The Numerology Guidebook: Uncover Your Destiny and the Blueprint of Your Life)
Russia’s embassy in Mexico City, was one of the most famous places in the history of espionage. For at least two decades, the embassy served as a haven for spies, with an estimated 150 of them working undercover as diplomats, journalists, clerks, chauffeurs and other positions at the height of the Cold War. Some of America’s most famous spies sold U.S. secrets there, including two men who had served time at Sheridan with Jim. Christopher Boyce, of Falcon and the Snowman fame, had passed messages to the KGB through the embassy, sending Andrew Daulton Lee, his boyhood best friend, as his courier. James Harper Jr. sold U.S. missile documents to Polish spies inside the embassy, and in other spots in Mexico, in the early 1980s.
Bryan Denson (The Spy's Son: The True Story of the Highest-Ranking CIA Officer Ever Convicted of Espionage and the Son He Trained to Spy for Russia)
Westerners, not just Lincoln Steffens. It took in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It even took in the Soviet Union’s own leaders, such as Nikita Khrushchev, who famously boasted in a speech to Western diplomats in 1956 that “we will bury you [the West].” As late as 1977, a leading academic textbook by an English economist argued that Soviet-style economies were superior to capitalist ones in terms of economic growth, providing full employment and price stability and even in producing people with altruistic motivation. Poor old Western capitalism did better only at providing political freedom. Indeed, the most widely used university textbook in economics, written by Nobel Prize–winner Paul Samuelson, repeatedly predicted the coming economic dominance of the Soviet Union. In the 1961 edition, Samuelson predicted that Soviet national income would overtake that of the United States possibly by 1984, but probably by 1997. In the 1980 edition there was little change in the analysis, though the two dates were delayed to 2002 and 2012. Though the policies of Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders could produce rapid economic growth, they could not do so in a sustained way. By the 1970s, economic growth had all but stopped. The most important lesson is that extractive institutions cannot generate sustained technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic incentives and resistance by the elites. In addition, once all the very inefficiently used resources had been reallocated to industry, there were few economic gains to be had by fiat. Then the Soviet system hit a roadblock, with lack of innovation and poor economic incentives preventing any further progress. The only area in which the Soviets did manage to sustain some innovation was through enormous efforts in military and aerospace technology. As a result they managed to put the first dog, Leika, and the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space. They also left the world the AK-47 as one of their legacies. Gosplan was the supposedly all-powerful planning agency in charge of the central planning of the Soviet economy. One of the benefits of the sequence of five-year plans written and administered by Gosplan was supposed to have been the long time horizon necessary for rational investment and innovation. In reality, what got implemented in Soviet industry had little to do with the five-year plans, which were frequently revised and rewritten or simply ignored. The development of industry took place on the basis of commands by Stalin and the Politburo, who changed their minds frequently and often completely revised their previous decisions. All plans were labeled “draft” or “preliminary.” Only one copy of a plan labeled “final”—that for light industry in 1939—has ever come to light. Stalin himself said in 1937 that “only bureaucrats can think that planning work ends with the creation of the plan. The creation of the plan is just the beginning. The real direction of the plan develops only after the putting together of the plan.” Stalin wanted to maximize his discretion to reward people or groups who were politically loyal, and punish those who were not. As for Gosplan, its main role was to provide Stalin with information so he could better monitor his friends and enemies. It actually tried to avoid making decisions. If you made a decision that turned out badly, you might get shot. Better to avoid all responsibility. An example of what could happen
Daron Acemoğlu (Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty)
During Castro’s tour to the United States, Canada and Latin America, everyone in Cuba listened intently to what he was saying. Fidel’s speeches, that were shown on Cuban television, were troubling to Raúl and he feared that his brother was deviating from Cuba’s path towards communism. Becoming concerned by Fidel’s candid remarks, Raúl conferred with his close friend “Che” Guevara, and finally called Fidel about how he was being perceived in Cuba. Following this conversation, Raúl flew to Texas where he met with his brother Fidel in Houston. Raúl informed him that the Cuban press saw his diplomacy as a concession to the United States. The two brothers argued openly at the airport and again later at the posh Houston Shamrock Hotel, where they stayed. During a heated discussion that was overheard by a number of other guests at the hotel, Fidel told Raúl that it was all a misunderstanding and that there wasn’t anything for him to worry about. He emphatically emphasized that Raúl’s and “Che’s” thoughts about him were unfounded and that he continued to agree with them on their basic political philosophy. Those who heard the intense argument on the 18th floor of the hotel said that although they could not make out exactly what was being said, it concerned itself with the direction the Castro brothers wanted to take Cuba. Apparently, their differences were resolved that night and Fidel, being the more charismatic of the two, continued his diplomatic tour. However, it was Raúl who kept Fidel’s feet to the fire and got things done.
Hank Bracker
In August 1947 on the cusp of Independence, my parents sat in the United Services Club in London with two friends, soldier comrades from the recent war. One of them – later to become a chief of the Indian army – raised his glass to the other – who became a general and diplomat in Pakistan. He said, “Let us drink to the aborted twins!” Attia records this with a sense of horror and disbelief.
Attia Hosain (Distant Traveller: New and Selected Fiction)
His career, though, was riddled with contradictions. Like many of his conservative colleagues, he had few reservations about implying that some fellow Americans, including perhaps the highest officials in the opposition party, were loyal to a hostile foreign power and willing to betray their fellow citizens. Yet by the end of his career, he became the man who opened the door to normalized relations with China (perhaps, thought some critics, he was the only politician in America who could do that without being attacked by Richard Nixon), and he was a pal of both the Soviet and Chinese Communist leadership. If he later surprised many long-standing critics with his trips to Moscow and Peking, he had shown his genuine diplomatic skills much earlier in the way he balanced the demands of the warring factions within his own party. He never asked to be well liked or popular; he asked only to be accepted. There were many Republicans who hated him, particularly in California. Earl Warren feuded with him for years. Even Bill Knowland, the state’s senior senator and an old-fashioned reactionary, despised him. At the 1952 convention, Knowland had remained loyal to Warren despite Nixon’s attempts to help Eisenhower in the California delegation. When Knowland was asked to give a nominating speech for Nixon, he was not pleased: “I have to nominate the dirty son of a bitch,” he told friends.
David Halberstam (The Fifties)
We’d heard of America from all of Padar’s friends from the American embassy. Many American diplomats and businessmen had visited our home on Shura Street. We thought of America as a paradise, a place with freedom and safety to be yourself. A model of what Afghanistan could have become if the democratic reforms had not been stopped by the Parcham.
Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller (The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan)
If there was any politician in America who reflected the Cold War and what it did to the country, it was Richard Nixon—the man and the era were made for each other. The anger and resentment that were a critical part of his temperament were not unlike the tensions running through the nation as its new anxieties grew. He himself seized on the anti-Communist issue earlier and more tenaciously than any other centrist politician in the country. In fact that was why he had been put on the ticket in the first place. His first congressional race in 1946, against a pleasant liberal incumbent named Jerry Voorhis, was marked by red-baiting so savage that it took Voorhis completely by surprise. Upon getting elected, Nixon wasted no time in asking for membership in the House Un-American Activities Committee. He was the committee member who first spotted the contradictions in Hiss’s seemingly impeccable case; in later years he was inclined to think of the case as one of his greatest victories, in which he had challenged and defeated a man who was not what he seemed, and represented the hated Eastern establishment. His career, though, was riddled with contradictions. Like many of his conservative colleagues, he had few reservations about implying that some fellow Americans, including perhaps the highest officials in the opposition party, were loyal to a hostile foreign power and willing to betray their fellow citizens. Yet by the end of his career, he became the man who opened the door to normalized relations with China (perhaps, thought some critics, he was the only politician in America who could do that without being attacked by Richard Nixon), and he was a pal of both the Soviet and Chinese Communist leadership. If he later surprised many long-standing critics with his trips to Moscow and Peking, he had shown his genuine diplomatic skills much earlier in the way he balanced the demands of the warring factions within his own party. He never asked to be well liked or popular; he asked only to be accepted. There were many Republicans who hated him, particularly in California. Earl Warren feuded with him for years. Even Bill Knowland, the state’s senior senator and an old-fashioned reactionary, despised him. At the 1952 convention, Knowland had remained loyal to Warren despite Nixon’s attempts to help Eisenhower in the California delegation. When Knowland was asked to give a nominating speech for Nixon, he was not pleased: “I have to nominate the dirty son of a bitch,” he told friends. Nixon bridged the gap because his politics were never about ideology: They were the politics of self. Never popular with either wing, he managed to negotiate a delicate position acceptable to both. He did not bring warmth or friendship to the task; when he made attempts at these, he was, more often than not, stilted and artificial. Instead, he offered a stark choice: If you don’t like me, find someone who is closer to your position and who is also likely to win. If he tilted to either side, it was because that side seemed a little stronger at the moment or seemed to present a more formidable candidate with whom he had to deal. A classic example of this came early in 1960, when he told Barry Goldwater, the conservative Republican leader, that he would advocate a right-to-work plank at the convention; a few weeks later in a secret meeting with Nelson Rockefeller, the liberal Republican leader—then a more formidable national figure than Goldwater—Nixon not only reversed himself but agreed to call for its repeal under the Taft-Hartley act. “The man,” Goldwater noted of Nixon in his personal journal at the time, “is a two-fisted four-square liar.
David Halberstam (The Fifties)
The Prince alighted from his gleaming silver-blue jet, his mind firmly on the task at hand: to persuade his close friend to go to war. Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington, was in Crawford, Texas, in August 2002 to visit the President of the United States, his close friend George W. Bush. At the President’s ranch the two men, comfortable in one another’s company, chatted for an hour. The President was in determined mood. Bandar’s exhortation that he should not back off, that he should complete what his father had failed to do, that he should destroy the regime of Saddam Hussein once and for all, gratified the President. Satisfied by their mutual reinforcement, the dapper enigmatic Prince and the cowboy President took lunch with their wives and seven of Bandar’s eight children. A few weeks later, President Bush met the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, at Camp David. The two leaders declared they had sufficient evidence that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction to justify their acting against Saddam, with or without the support of the United Nations. Prince Bandar’s role in Washington and London was unique: diplomat, peacemaker, bagman for covert CIA operations and arms dealer extraordinaire. He constructed a special relationship between Washington, Riyadh and London, and made himself very, very wealthy in the process. The £75m Airbus, painted in the colours of the Prince’s beloved Dallas Cowboys, was a gift from the British arms company BAE Systems. It was a token of gratitude for the Prince’s role, as son of the country’s Defence Minister, in the biggest arms deal the world has seen. The Al Yamamah – ‘the dove’ – deal signed between the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia in 1985 was worth over £40bn. It was also arguably the most corrupt transaction in trading history. Over £1bn was paid into accounts controlled by Bandar. The Airbus – maintained and operated by BAE at least until 2007 – was a little extra, presented to Bandar on his birthday in 1988. A significant portion of the more than £1bn was paid into personal and Saudi embassy accounts at the venerable Riggs Bank opposite the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC. The bank of choice for Presidents, ambassadors and embassies had close ties to the CIA, with several bank officers holding full agency security clearance. Jonathan Bush, uncle of the President, was a senior executive of the bank at the time. But Riggs and the White House were stunned by the revelation that from 1999 money had inadvertently flowed from the account of Prince Bandar’s wife to two of the fifteen Saudis among the 9/11 hijackers.
Andrew Feinstein (The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade)
One of the Singaporean doctors, a small woman in her fifties, protested vociferously when she saw the far left-hand positioning of Israel on the Evaluating scale. “I don’t see how Israel can be positioned as so direct! We have been with our Israeli friends here all week and they are good, kind people!” From her Singaporean perspective being good was correlated with being diplomatic and being very direct was correlated with not being kind. In response, one of the Israeli doctors declared, “I don’t see what that has to do with it. Honesty and directness are a great virtues. The position is correct, and I am very proud of it.” Israel is one of several cultures that value both high-context communication and direct negative feedback.
Erin Meyer (The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business)