Diplomatic Sayings And Quotes

A diplomat who says “yes” means “maybe", a diplomat who says “maybe" means “no”, and a diplomat who says “no” is no diplomat.

How have you been?” my father asked. Say something diplomatic . . . something . . . “If you build a tower in Lawrenceville, I will smash it, set it on fire, and salt the ground it stood on.

If the truth doesn't save us, what does that say about us?

You had this young man with you for... what, six years?" Halt shrugged. "Near enough," he replied. "And did you ever understand a word he was saying?" "Not a lot of the time, no," Halt said. Crowley shook his head in wonder. "It's just as well he didn't go into the Diplomatic Service. We'd be at war with half a dozen countries by now if he was on the loose." Will drew a deep breath to begin talking. He noticed that both men took an involuntary half step backward and he decided he'd better try to keep it as simple as possible.

These, gentlemen, are my rules: if I don't succeed, I keep trying; if I do succeed, I keep quiet; and in any case I don't undermine anyone. I'm not an intriguer, and I'm proud of it. I wouldn't make a good diplomat. They also say, gentlemen, that the bird flies to the fowler. That's true, and I'm ready to agree: but who is the fowler here, and who is the bird? That's still a question, gentlemen!

I always say that it’s not really been a good day if you haven’t caused a major diplomatic incident by lunchtime,’ Otto said with a grin.

You can dance. You can make me laugh. You've got x-ray eyes. You know how to sing. You're a diplomat. You've got it all. Everybody loves you. You can charm the birds out of the sky, But I, I've got one thing. You always know just what to say And when to go, But I've got one thing. You can see in the dark, But I've got one thing: I loved you better. Last night I woke up, Saw this angel. He flew in my window. And he said, Girl, pretty proud of yourself, huh?" And I looked around and said, Who me?" And he said, "The higher you fly, the faster you fall." He said, "Send it up. Watch it rise. See it fall, Gravity's rainbow. Send it up. Watch it rise. See it fall, Gravity's Angel.

Pick a leader who will not only bail out banks and airlines, but also families from losing their homes -- or jobs due to their companies moving to other countries. Pick a leader who will fund schools, not limit spending on education and allow libraries to close. Pick a leader who chooses diplomacy over war. An honest broker in foreign relations. A leader with integrity, one who says what they mean, keeps their word and does not lie to their people. Pick a leader who is strong and confident, yet humble. Intelligent, but not sly. A leader who encourages diversity, not racism. One who understands the needs of the farmer, the teacher, the doctor, and the environmentalist -- not only the banker, the oil tycoon, the weapons developer, or the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyist.

For everyone who, having no artistic sense-that is to say, no submission to subjective reality-may have the knack of reasoning about art till doomsday, especially if he be, in addition, a diplomat or financier in contact with the 'realities' of the present day, is only too ready to believe literature is an intellectual game which is destined to gradually be abandoned as time goes on.

Author says her father was so diplomatic that when people came to him for solutions, people not only accepted them, but they believed they thought of them.

And a variety of more colorful names. Hypothetically.” The privateer cast him an assessing glance. “Just how did you know I wasn’t who I claimed to be, Mister Brekker?” Kaz shrugged. “You speak Kerch like a native—a rich native. You don’t talk like someone who came up with sailors and street thugs.” The privateer turned slightly, giving Kaz his full attention. His ease was gone, and now he looked like a man who might command armies. “Mister Brekker,” he said. “Kaz, if I may? I am in a vulnerable position. I am a king ruling a country with an empty treasury, facing enemies on all sides. There are also forces within my country that might seize any absence as an opportunity to make their own bid for power.” “So you’re saying you’d make an excellent hostage.” “I suspect that the ransom for me would be considerably less than the price Kuwei has on his head. Really, it’s a bit of a blow to my self-esteem.” “You don’t seem to be suffering,” said Kaz. “Sturmhond was a creation of my youth, and his reputation still serves me well. I cannot bid on Kuwei Yul-Bo as the king of Ravka. I hope your plan will play out the way you think it will. But if it doesn’t, the loss of such a prize would be seen as a humiliating blunder diplomatically and strategically. I enter that auction as Sturmhond or as no one at all. If that is a problem—” Kaz settled his hands on his cane. “As long as you don’t try to con me, you can enter as the Fairy Queen of Istamere.

A good zoo is a place of carefully worked-out coincidence: exactly where an animal says to us, "Stay out!"...we say to it, "Stay in!" with our barriers. Under such conditions of diplomatic peace, all animals are content and we can relax and have a look at each other.

But it is not, as we say when we are being diplomatic, a fruitful source of inquiry.

You want me to stay the heir while you two go off somewhere? And then I can step down, be de-princed, whatever?” “Exactly that,” says Cardan. “Like on a vacation?” Cardan snorts. “I don’t understand,” Oak says. “Where are you going?” “A diplomatic mission,” says Cardan, leaning back on the cushions. “After that last little rescue, Nicasia has demanded we honor our treaty, meet her suitors, and witness the contest for her hand and crown. And so Jude and I are headed to the Undersea, where we will go to a lot of parties and try very hard not to die.

The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings...Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe...no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of "clear and present danger," then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent...For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed.

You tell me that class distinctions are baubles used by monarchs, I defy you to show me a republic, ancient or modern, in which distinctions have not existed. You call these medals and ribbons baubles; well, it is with such baubles that men are led. I would not say this in public, but in a assembly of wise statesmen it should be said. I don't think that the French love liberty and equality: the French are not changed by ten years of revolution: they are what the Gauls were, fierce and fickle. They have one feeling: honour. We must nourish that feeling. The people clamour for distinction. See how the crowd is awed by the medals and orders worn by foreign diplomats. We must recreate these distinctions. There has been too much tearing down; we must rebuild. A government exists, yes and power, but the nation itself - what is it? Scattered grains of sand.

It’s been a while since I probed someone’s subconscious this deeply, and if you recall, the last time ended in less than ideal results.” – Quinn “That’s a diplomatic way to say the guy stroked out during the session.” - Tzader

When other countries run sustained trade deficits, they must finance these by selling off domestic assets or running into debt — debt which they actually are obliged to pay. It seems that only the Americans are so bold as to say “Screw the world. We’re going to do whatever we want.” Other countries simply cannot afford the chaos from which the U.S. economy is positioned to withstand as a result of the fact that foreign trade plays a smaller role in its economy than in those of nearly all other nations in today’s interdependent world. Using debtor leverage to set the terms on which it will refrain from causing monetary chaos, America has turned seeming financial weakness into strength. U.S. Government debt has reached so large a magnitude that any attempt to replace it will entail an interregnum of financial chaos and political instability. American diplomats have learned that they are well positioned to come out on top in such grab-bags.

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.

Playing pool with Korean officials one evening in the Koryo Hotel, which has become the nightspot for foreign businessmen and an increasing number of diplomats (to say nothing of the burgeoning number of spies and journalists traveling under second identities), I was handed that day's edition of the Pyongyang Times. At first glance it seemed too laughable for words: endless pictures of the 'Dear Leader'—Little Boy's exalted title—as he was garlanded by adoring schoolchildren and heroic tractor drivers. Yet even in these turgid pages there were nuggets: a telegram congratulating the winner of the Serbian elections; a candid reference to the 'hardship period' through which the country had been passing; an assurance that a certain nuclear power plant would be closed as part of a deal with Washington. Tiny cracks, to be sure. But a complete and rigid edifice cannot afford fissures, however small. There appear to be no hookers, as yet, in Pyongyang. Yet if casinos come, can working girls be far behind? One perhaps ought not to wish for hookers, but there are circumstances when corruption is the only hope.

George Lansbury, an aging Labour Party official, backed up the Conservative PM by telling the House, “I hear all this denunciation of Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini. I have met both of them, and can only say that they are very much like any other politician or diplomat one meets.

In the Oval Office, President Bush told Khalilzad, “Musharraf denies all of what you are saying.” “Didn’t they deny, Mr. President, for years that they had a nuclear program?” 8 Bush said he would call Musharraf and arrange for the ambassador to meet with him, to discuss the accusations directly. Khalilzad flew to Islamabad. Beforehand, he sent Musharraf a gift, a crate of Afghan pomegranates. When they sat down, Musharraf thanked him, but added that he hated pomegranates—too many seeds. They talked extensively about Musharraf’s usual complaints about the Afghan government—too many Panjshiris in key security positions, too many Indian spies under diplomatic cover in Kabul and elsewhere. Khalilzad proposed a joint intelligence investigation between the United States and Pakistan to document any covert Indian activity in Afghanistan. “There are no Taliban here,” Musharraf said blankly. 9

When a diplomat says ‘yes’ he means ‘maybe.’ When a diplomat says ‘maybe’ he means ‘no.’ But if a diplomat says ‘no’ he’s no diplomat.

A diplomat, according to Alex Dreier, is “anyone who thinks twice before saying nothing.

An ambassador is someone who thinks twice before he says nothing” - attributed to one of India's ambassadors in Argentina at the time.

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.

For, as the German diplomat and philosopher Max Scheler wrote, “He who has not, as it were, looked into the abyss of the absolute Nothing will completely overlook the eminently positive content of the realization that there is something rather than nothing.” Let us, then, dip briefly into that abyss, with full assurance that we will not come up empty-handed. For, as the old saying goes: Nothing seek, nothing find.

The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings...Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe...no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of "clear and present danger," then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent...For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed.

Do you think I could write an advice column?” Ash strove to find a diplomatic way to say No, definitely not. “Well, perhaps of the more bracing sort. Some people do like being flogged. Specialized interest, you know.

Saying what is truly on your mind, giving your honest opinion and answering questions truthfully is an overwhelmingly bad thing to do in a social setting. Being polite and diplomatic relies heavily on your skills to twist the truth so it doesn’t upset anyone.

You’re saying I am not a credible eyewitness,” Lowen repeated. “Because I was part of that diplomatic mission, Mr. Vinicius. In fact, not only was I there, I also conducted the autopsy that established that Liu Cong’s death was murder, and also helped identify how it was the murder was accomplished. When you say that the eyewitness reports are not credible, you’re talking about me, specifically and directly. If what you’re saying actually reflects the opinion of the Ministry of External Relations, then we have a problem. A very large problem.

The Brazilian diplomat Josué de Castro, in his book The Geopolitics of Hunger, was even bolder in his criticism of the neo-Malthusians, saying that ‘The road to survival, therefore, does not lie in the neo-Malthusian prescriptions to eliminate surplus people, nor in birth control, but in the effort to make everybody on the face of the earth productive.’ In

It’d be far better if you were intimidated by what lies ahead—humbled by its magnitude and determined to see it through regardless. Leave passion for the amateurs. Make it about what you feel you must do and say, not what you care about and wish to be. Remember Talleyrand’s epigram for diplomats, “Surtout, pas trop de zèle” (“Above all, not too much zeal”). Then you will do great things. Then you will stop being your old, good-intentioned, but ineffective self.

At Caltech, Millikan was upset with Einstein’s activism, and wrote him to say so. Einstein responded diplomatically. “It cannot be my affair,” he agreed, “to insist in a matter that concerns only the citizens of your country.” Millikan thought Einstein naïve in his politics, as did many people. To some extent he was, but it should be remembered that his qualms about the convictions of the Scottsboro Boys and Mooney proved justified, and his advocacy of racial and social justice turned out to be on the right side of history. Despite his association with the Zionist cause, Einstein’s sympathies extended to the Arabs who were being displaced by the influx of Jews into what would eventually be Israel. His message was a prophetic one. “Should we be unable to find a way to honest cooperation and honest pacts with the Arabs,” he wrote Weizmann in 1929, “then we have learned absolutely nothing during our 2,000 years of suffering.

Being diplomatic, I’d say Kipps was a slightly built young man in his early twenties, with close-cut reddish hair and a narrow, freckled face. Being undiplomatic (but more precise), I’d say he’s a pint-sized, pug-nosed, carrot-topped inadequate with a chip the size of Big Ben on his weedy shoulder. A sneer on legs. A malevolent buffoon. He’s too old to be any good with ghosts, but that doesn’t stop him wearing the blingiest rapier you’ll ever see, weighed down to the pommel with cheap paste jewels.

If an evangelical alliance were also a diplomatic alliance, there is a chance of a new Europe, with new rules. But for now we are still playing by the old ones: setting France against Emperor, one great power against the other, seeing our safety only in their disputes, trembling whenever they come into amity; sneakily trying to disrupt their treaties and stir up mistrust, and bending our efforts to provoke, belie and betray. It is not work for a great nation. Barnes says, ‘It is up to you, my lord, to show the king how things could be different, and better.

How many times have we heard an African official or a “black authority” saying, “We blacks, we are cursed, it is as if we were destined to remain inferior, retarded, to remain Negroes! Yes, we are cursed, we will never develop as the Asians or the whites do, we are not capable, mentally or intellectually, we are condemned to remain Negroes forever, always behind the others, cursed”! I have heard similar words coming from the mouth of ministers, ambassadors, African diplomats, some expressing themselves in front of their young children, who drank their words.

Oh, Daisy, it’s revolting, the way I want to fawn all over him. I’m afraid that I’m going to do something dreadfully silly today. Burst into song or something. For God’s sake, don’t let me.” “I won’t,” Daisy promised, smiling back at her. “Are you in love, then?” “That word is not to be mentioned,” Lillian said swiftly. “Even if I were— and I am not admitting anything— I would never be the first to say it. It’s a matter of pride. And there’s every chance that he won’t say it back, but just respond with a polite ‘thank you,’ in which case I would have to murder him. Or myself.” “I hope the earl is not equally as stubborn as you,” Daisy commented. “He isn’t,” Lillian assured her. “Although he thinks he is.” Some private memory caused her to chortle, clasping a hand to her forehead. “Oh, Daisy,” she said with devilish glee, “I’m going to be such an abominable countess.” “Let’s not put it that way,” Daisy said diplomatically. “Rather, we’ll say ‘unconventional countess.’ ” “I can be any kind of countess I want,” Lillian said, half in delight, half in wonder. “Westcliff said so. And what’s more… I actually think he means it.

Oh, but being American has less to do with one’s proficiency in English and more with the assumptions you hold dear and true—your inalienable rights, your pursuit of happiness. I, sad to say, don’t possess those assumptions. I cannot undertake the pursuit.” “Well, you understand us,” Bennie said. “So that makes you at least an honorary American.” “Why is it such an honor?” Wendy said peevishly. “Not everyone wants to be an American.” Although Bennie was annoyed, he laughed. Walter, ever the diplomat, said to Bennie, “Well, I’m flattered that you consider me to be one of your own.

The fears of militarization Holbrooke had expressed in his final, desperate memos, had come to pass on a scale he could have never anticipated. President Trump had concentrated ever more power in the Pentagon, granting it nearly unilateral authority in areas of policy once orchestrated across multiple agencies, including the State Department. In Iraq and Syria, the White House quietly delegated more decisions on troop deployments to the military. In Yemen and Somalia, field commanders were given authority to launch raids without White House approval. In Afghanistan, Trump granted the secretary of defense, General James Mattis, sweeping authority to set troop levels. In public statements, the White House downplayed the move, saying the Pentagon still had to adhere to the broad strokes of policies set by the White House. But in practice, the fate of thousands of troops in a diplomatic tinderbox of a conflict had, for the first time in recent history, been placed solely in military hands. Diplomats were no longer losing the argument on Afghanistan: they weren’t in it. In early 2018, the military began publicly rolling out a new surge: in the following months, up to a thousand new troops would join the fourteen thousand already in place. Back home, the White House itself was crowded with military voices. A few months into the Trump administration, at least ten of twenty-five senior leadership positions on the president’s National Security Council were held by current or retired military officials. As the churn of firings and hirings continued, that number grew to include the White House chief of staff, a position given to former general John Kelly. At the same time, the White House ended the practice of “detailing” State Department officers to the National Security Council. There would now be fewer diplomatic voices in the policy process, by design.

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.

Can I have your pineapple upside-down cake recipe?” “Sure, darling. It’s just yellow box cake with Del Monte pineapple and brown sugar and a maraschino cherry on top. Just make sure you get the rings and not the chunks.” This cake sounds horrible. I try to nod in a diplomatic way, but Stormy is onto me. Crossly she says, “Do you think I had time to sit around baking cakes from scratch like some boring old housewife?” “You could never be boring,” I say on cue, because it’s true and because I know it’s what she wants to hear. “You could do with a little less baking and a little more living life.” She’s being prickly, and she’s never prickly with me. “Youth is truly wasted on the young.

Prince Arctic?” A silvery white dragon poked her head around the door, tapping three times lightly on the ice wall. Arctic couldn’t remember her name, which was the kind of faux pas his mother was always yelling at him about. He was a prince; it was his duty to have all the noble dragons memorized along with their ranks so he could treat them according to exactly where they fit in the hierarchy. It was stupid and frustrating and if his mother yelled at him about it one more time, he would seriously enchant something to freeze her mouth shut forever. Oooo. What a beautiful image. Queen Diamond with a chain of silver circles wound around her snout and frozen to her scales. He closed his eyes and imagined the blissful quiet. The dragon at his door shifted slightly, her claws making little scraping sounds to remind him she was there. What was she waiting for? Permission to give him a message? Or was she waiting for him to say her name — and if he didn’t, would she go scurrying back to the queen to report that he had failed again? Perhaps he should enchant a talisman to whisper in his ear whenever he needed to know something. Another tempting idea, but strictly against the rules of IceWing animus magic. Animus dragons are so rare; appreciate your gift and respect the limits the tribe has set. Never use your power frivolously. Never use it for yourself. This power is extremely dangerous. The tribe’s rules are there to protect you. Only the IceWings have figured out how to use animus magic safely. Save it all for your gifting ceremony. Use it only once in your life, to create a glorious gift to benefit the whole tribe, and then never again; that is the only way to be safe. Arctic shifted his shoulders, feeling stuck inside his scales. Rules, rules, and more rules: that was the IceWing way of life. Every direction he turned, every thought he had, was restricted by rules and limits and judgmental faces, particularly his mother’s. The rules about animus magic were just one more way to keep him trapped under her claws. “What is it?” he barked at the strange dragon. Annoyed face, try that. As if he were very busy and she’d interrupted him and that was why he was skipping the usual politic rituals. He was very busy, actually. The gifting ceremony was only three weeks away. It was bad enough that his mother had dragged him here, to their southernmost palace, near the ocean and the border with the Kingdom of Sand. She’d promised to leave him alone to work while she conducted whatever vital royal business required her presence. Everyone should know better than to disturb him right now. The messenger looked disappointed. Maybe he really was supposed to know who she was. “Your mother sent me to tell you that the NightWing delegation has arrived.” Aaarrrrgh. Not another boring diplomatic meeting.

The great majority of those who, like Frankl, were liberated from Nazi concentration camps chose to leave for other countries rather than return to their former homes, where far too many neighbors had turned murderous. But Viktor Frankl chose to stay in his native Vienna after being freed and became head of neurology at a main hospital in Vienna. The Austrians he lived among often perplexed Frankl by saying they did not know a thing about the horrors of the camps he had barely survived. For Frankl, though, this alibi seemed flimsy. These people, he felt, had chosen not to know. Another survivor of the Nazis, the social psychologist Ervin Staub, was saved from a certain death by Raoul Wallenberg, the diplomat who made Swedish passports for thousands of desperate Hungarians, keeping them safe from the Nazis. Staub studied cruelty and hatred, and he found one of the roots of such evil to be the turning away, choosing not to see or know, of bystanders. That not-knowing was read by perpetrators as a tacit approval. But if instead witnesses spoke up in protest of evil, Staub saw, it made such acts more difficult for the evildoers. For Frankl, the “not-knowing” he encountered in postwar Vienna was regarding the Nazi death camps scattered throughout that short-lived empire, and the obliviousness of Viennese citizens to the fate of their own neighbors who were imprisoned and died in those camps. The underlying motive for not-knowing, he points out, is to escape any sense of responsibility or guilt for those crimes. People in general, he saw, had been encouraged by their authoritarian rulers not to know—a fact of life today as well. That same plea of innocence, I had no idea, has contemporary resonance in the emergence of an intergenerational tension. Young people around the world are angry at older generations for leaving as a legacy to them a ruined planet, one where the momentum of environmental destruction will go on for decades, if not centuries. This environmental not-knowing has gone on for centuries, since the Industrial Revolution. Since then we have seen the invention of countless manufacturing platforms and processes, most all of which came to be in an era when we had no idea of their ecological impacts. Advances in science and technology are making ecological impacts more transparent, and so creating options that address the climate crisis and, hopefully, will be pursued across the globe and over generations. Such disruptive, truly “green” alternatives are one way to lessen the bleakness of Earth 2.0—the planet in future decades—a compelling fact of life for today’s young. Were Frankl with us today (he died in 1997), he would no doubt be pleased that so many of today’s younger people are choosing to know and are finding purpose and meaning in surfacing environmental facts and acting on them.

When the moment of departure arrived, Catherine and Peter accompanied Johanna on the short first stage of her journey, from Tsarskoe Selo to nearby Krasnoe Selo. The next morning, Johanna left before dawn without saying goodbye; Catherine assumed that it was “not to make me any sadder.” Waking up and finding her mother’s room empty, she was distraught. Her mother had vanished—from Russia and from her life. Since Catherine’s birth, Johanna had always been present, to guide, prompt, correct, and scold. She might have failed as a diplomatic agent; she certainly had not become a brilliant figure on the European stage; but she had not been unsuccessful as a mother. Her daughter, born a minor German princess, was now an imperial grand duchess on a path to becoming an empress.

half-century before, at Stalin’s direct order, NKVD executioners slaughtered fifteen thousand Polish military officers and threw the bodies into rows of mass graves. The month-long operation in Kalinin, Katyn, and Starobelsk was part of Stalin’s attempt to begin the domination of Poland. The young officers had been among the best-educated men in Poland, and Stalin saw them as a potential danger, as enemies-in-advance. For decades after, Moscow put the blame for the killings on the Nazis, saying the Germans had carried out the massacres in 1941, not the NKVD in 1940. The Kremlin propaganda machine sustained the fiction in speeches, diplomatic negotiations, and textbooks, weaving it into the vast fabric of ideology and official history that sustained the regime and its empire.

What is the situation at Ramsay House?” Kev asked, half-dreading the answer. “There were a few moments of chaos this morning, when it was discovered that you were both gone.” A diplomatic pause. “Harrow’s been insisting that Win was taken against her will. At one point he threatened to go to the parish constable. Harrow says if you don’t return with Win by nightfall, he’ll take drastic action.” “What would that be?” Kev inquired darkly. “I don’t know. But you might give a thought to the rest of us having to stay at Ramsay House with him while you’re out here with his fiancée.” “She’s my fiancée now. And I’ll bring her back when I damn well please.” “Understood.” Cam’s lips twitched. “You intend to marry her soon, I hope?” “Not soon,” Kev said. “Immediately.” “Thank God. Even for the Hathaways, this is all a bit untoward.

REQUIREMENTS TO BE GREAT AT RUNNING HR What kind of person should you look for to comprehensively and continuously understand the quality of your management team? Here are some key requirements:   World-class process design skills Much like the head of quality assurance, the head of HR must be a masterful process designer. One key to accurately measuring critical management processes is excellent process design and control.   A true diplomat Nobody likes a tattletale and there is no way for an HR organization to be effective if the management team doesn’t implicitly trust it. Managers must believe that HR is there to help them improve rather than police them. Great HR leaders genuinely want to help the managers and couldn’t care less about getting credit for identifying problems. They will work directly with the managers to get quality up and only escalate to the CEO when necessary. If an HR leader hoards knowledge, makes power plays, or plays politics, he will be useless.   Industry knowledge Compensation, benefits, best recruiting practices, etc. are all fast-moving targets. The head of HR must be deeply networked in the industry and stay abreast of all the latest developments.   Intellectual heft to be the CEO’s trusted adviser None of the other skills matter if the CEO does not fully back the head of HR in holding the managers to a high quality standard. In order for this to happen, the CEO must trust the HR leader’s thinking and judgment.   Understanding things unspoken When management quality starts to break down in a company, nobody says anything about it, but super-perceptive people can tell that the company is slipping. You need one of those.

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.

Have a seat,” I say inside the Roosevelt Room. Ordinarily we’d do this in the Oval Office. But I’m not having this conversation in the Oval Office. He unbuttons his suit jacket and takes a seat. I sit at the head of the table. “Needless to say, Mr. President, we were elated with the results from yesterday. And we were grateful that we could be a small part of your success.” “Yes, Mr. Ambassador.” “Andrei, please.” Andrei Ivanenko looks like he could play someone’s grandfather in a cereal commercial—the crown of his head bald and spotted, wispy white hair along the sides, an overall frumpy appearance. The look works well for him. Because beneath that harmless-seeming exterior is a career spy, a product of Russia’s charm school and one of the elites in the former KGB, shipped off later in life to the diplomatic arena and sent here as ambassador to the United States.

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.

Sara and I are both leaving within the hour. In my carriage." "Together?" Lily looked startled, and then shook her head. "You can't. Don't you realize what people would say when they discovered that both of you were gone?" "Nothing they haven't said already." He slid a proprietary arm around Sara's shoulders. Lily drew her slight frame up as tall as possible, adopting the brisk tone of a chaperone defending her charge. "Where are you planning to go?" Derek smiled slowly. "None of your damn business, gypsy." Ignoring Lily's sputtering protests, he stared down at his fiancée and raised his brows mockingly. As she met his glinting green eyes, Sara realized he intended to take her to London and keep her with him for the night. Her nerves jangled with alarm. "I'm not certain it's advisable-" she began diplomatically, but he cut her off. "Go pack your things." Oh, the arrogance. But it was part of why she loved him, his single-minded determination to get what he wanted. Only blind, bullying stubbornness had enabled him to climb from the gutter. Now that the prospect of marrying her was within his reach, he planned to ensure it by well and truly compromising her. After tonight there would be no turning back. Sara stared at the broad expanse of his chest, conscious of the weight of his arm across her shoulders, the gentle stroke of his thumb and forefinger against her neck. Well... reprehensible as it was, she wanted the same thing. "Derek," Lily said in a steely voice, "I won't allow you to force this poor child into something she's not prepared for-" "She's not a child." His fingers tightened on the back of Sara's neck. "Tell her what you want, Sara." Helplessly Sara raised her head and looked at Lily, her face turning a deep shade of crimson. "I... I'm leaving with Mr. Craven." She didn't have to look at Derek to know that he was smiling in satisfaction.

Looking at a situation like the Israel-Palestine conflict, Americans are likely to react with puzzlement when they see ever more violent and provocative acts that target innocent civilians. We are tempted to ask: do the terrorists not realize that they will enrage the Israelis, and drive them to new acts of repression? The answer of course is that they know this very well, and this is exactly what they want. From our normal point of view, this seems incomprehensible. If we are doing something wrong, we do not want to invite the police to come in and try and stop us, especially if repression will result in the deaths or imprisonment of many of our followers. In a terrorist war, however, repression is often valuable because it escalates the growing war, and forces people to choose between the government and the terrorists. The terror/repression cycle makes it virtually impossible for anyone to remain a moderate. By increasing polarization within a society, terrorism makes the continuation of the existing order impossible. Once again, let us take the suicide bombing example. After each new incident, Israeli authorities tightened restrictions on Palestinian communities, arrested new suspects, and undertook retaliatory strikes. As the crisis escalated, they occupied or reoccupied Palestinian cities, destroying Palestinian infrastructure. The result, naturally, was massive Palestinian hostility and anger, which made further attacks more likely in the future. The violence made it more difficult for moderate leaders on both sides to negotiate. In the long term, the continuing confrontation makes it more likely that ever more extreme leaders will be chosen on each side, pledged not to negotiate with the enemy. The process of polarization is all the more probably when terrorists deliberately choose targets that they know will cause outrage and revulsion, such as attacks on cherished national symbols, on civilians, and even children. We can also think of this in individual terms. Imagine an ordinary Palestinian Arab who has little interest in politics and who disapproves of terrorist violence. However, after a suicide bombing, he finds that he is subject to all kinds of official repression, as the police and army hold him for long periods at security checkpoints, search his home for weapons, and perhaps arrest or interrogate him as a possible suspect. That process has the effect of making him see himself in more nationalistic (or Islamic) terms, stirs his hostility to the Israeli regime, and gives him a new sympathy for the militant or terrorist cause. The Israeli response to terrorism is also valuable for the terrorists in global publicity terms, since the international media attack Israel for its repression of civilians. Hamas military commander Salah Sh’hadeh, quoted earlier, was killed in an Israeli raid on Gaza in 2002, an act which by any normal standards of warfare would represent a major Israeli victory. In this case though, the killing provoked ferocious criticism of Israel by the U.S. and western Europe, and made Israel’s diplomatic situation much more difficult. In short, a terrorist attack itself may or may not attract widespread publicity, but the official response to it very likely will. In saying this, I am not suggesting that governments should not respond to terrorism, or that retaliation is in any sense morally comparable to the original attacks. Many historical examples show that terrorism can be uprooted and defeated, and military action is often an essential part of the official response. But terrorism operates on a logic quite different from that of most conventional politics and law enforcement, and concepts like defeat and victory must be understood quite differently from in a regular war.

You cannot imagine, to give you another example, that you may have, one day, a prime minister (it would go against my modesty to breathe his name) who, one day, after announcing in Parliament, in a cool, impassive voice, that, as the result of a number of carefully thought out diplomatic manoeuvres he has refrained from discussing before (for he is not a man of many words), he has succeeded in annexing Britain as an ordinary colony of Hungary, and that he is taking this opportunity to apprise the House of the fact; - Well, as I say, after explaining this in a cool and impassive tone, ignoring the shouting, jubilant Members who want to carry him round on their shoulders, suddenly he takes up a fencing posture and, right there, on the premier's rostrum, employing a formidable, hitherto unknown jujitsu hold, floors the Australian world wrestling champion whom the British opposition treacherously hid under the rostrum in order to assassinate the greatest European.

Gregory is a good boy, though all the Latin he has learned, all the sonorous periods of the great authors, have rolled through his head and out again, like stones. Still, you think of Thomas More’s boy: offspring of a scholar all Europe admired, and poor young John can barely stumble through his Pater Noster. Gregory is a fine archer, a fine horseman, a shining star in the tilt yard, and his manners cannot be faulted. He speaks reverently to his superiors, not scuffling his feet or standing on one leg, and he is mild and polite with those below him. He knows how to bow to foreign diplomats in the manner of their own countries, sits at table without fidgeting or feeding spaniels, can neatly carve and joint any fowl if requested to serve his elders. He doesn’t slouch around with his jacket off one shoulder, or look in windows to admire himself, or stare around in church, or interrupt old men, or finish their stories for them. If anyone sneezes, he says, ‘Christ help you!

Like Barry before him, Diop complained that Chinese projects were negotiated with a total lack of transparency. “If we are paying for big projects we want them to include real transfer of technology and of expertise, but the Chinese bring all their own workers, and the few Guineans are reduced to the role of task boys. In one case we had here, a Chinese company was hired to build a bridge and they did most of their work at night, and they wouldn’t let anyone onto their site. Between the groundbreaking and inauguration ceremonies, they give out no information at all, nothing.” Diop said that his group and others in the civil society coalition had repeatedly tried to speak with Chinese contractors and Chinese diplomats to impress upon them the need to reconsider their approach to things in Guinea, but had been either patronized or turned away. “You go to see them and they say go see your minister, or go see your president, he’s the one who approved these arrangements.” I heard very similar language from disgruntled civil society figures virtually everywhere I traveled.

Sometimes Frankl’s ideas are inspirational, as when he explains how dying patients and quadriplegics come to terms with their fate. Others are aspirational, as when he asserts that a person finds meaning by “striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.” He shows how existential frustration provoked and motivated an unhappy diplomat to seek a new, more satisfying career. Frankl also uses moral exhortation, however, to call attention to “the gap between what one is and what one should become” and the idea that “man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life.” He sees freedom and responsibility as two sides of the same coin. When he spoke to American audiences, Frankl was fond of saying, “I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.” To achieve personal meaning, he says, one must transcend subjective pleasures by doing something that “points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself … by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love.

They’re all okay, then?” I grin like an idiot. What is wrong with me? She rises from her chair, fluid and vaguely shimmering. Her grace is legendary. I’m agile and strong, but I’d rather move like sunbeams on water, like Selena. “In good health and arguing incessantly with Desma and Aetos. Those two are under the impression the Sintans abducted you.” She’s asking a question. I owe her an answer. “They did. Sort of.” Her sculpted lips purse. “Help me understand a ‘sort of’ abduction,” Selena says, pouring me a cup of water. Well, it sounds stupid when you say it like that. My throat is parched, so I drink before answering. “He’s Beta Sinta. He said he’d have you all arrested if I didn’t come.” “And you believed him?” It’s a loaded question coming from Selena. I nod. After nearly a month with him, I also know he would have done it because he felt he had to, not because he wanted to. “He needs a powerful Magoi to help him and his precious Alpha sister, Egeria.” Egeria is no Alpha. She sounds more like a buttercup. Beta Sinta on the other hand, he’s Alpha material. Fierce on the battlefield, bloody, focused, ruthless…fair? “Plus, he had a magic rope.” Selena laughs, and the sound is like wind chimes on a spring breeze. “You? Caught by a magic rope?” I flush. “Don’t remind me.” She clears her throat, taming more laughter, and asks, “Will you help him?” Selena may not know who I am, but I’m certain she knows what I am—the Kingmaker—even if we’ve never discussed it. “My abilities can be valuable in diplomatic situations,” I say carefully. “He came here to save you. He looked like he cared.” I shrug, glancing down. “I’m a weapon he doesn’t want to lose.” “I think there’s more.” My eyes snap back up. “Don’t infer something that isn’t there. We’re both monsters.” Her dark-blue gaze flicks over me, unnerving. “Monsters still mate.” I choke on my own spit and then cough. A faint smile curves her lips. “Why didn’t you just escape?” “The rope.” That stupid, infuriating enchanted rope that led me to make a binding vow to stay with Beta Sinta until his—or my, if it comes first—dying day. She looks incredulous. “You couldn’t find a way out?” “It was a bloody good rope!

God created people, alright? Even if you don’t believe in God, just assume that God created people. Alright. And then the people created a bunch of stuff. Mostly, the stuff was crap. And God was all like, “Wait, what are you doing with all that crap?” And the people immediately got all defensive, like “What? Nothing. It’s our stuff. Why do you care?” And God was trying to be diplomatic and pointed and said, “Alright, but where are you going with that thing? It doesn’t look safe.” And the people rolled their eyes and said, “We’re going out. Who are you, the cops?” And God was all, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, but are you really? That doesn’t look like such a good idea.” And the people were all, “Stop being so overprotective, we’re not children. You created us like fifteen minutes ago.” And God was all, “Fine. Fine. Alright. Alright.” And then the people took all their stuff, mostly crap into the world. And the world, a lot of bad stuff happened to it to be honest. And then God mumbled, “Told you.” But did the people then stop and say, “Oops. Our bad.” No. The people immediately turned to God and looked incredibly upset and cried, “Why didn’t you stop us? You could have stopped us. Now this is your fault!” Get it? Because that’s our nature, us humans.

TO ACHIEVE THE peace between Israel and Arab states we had overcome many obstacles, none more enduring than the obsessive belief in the centrality of the Palestinian issue and the need to achieve a Palestinian-Israeli peace before any other peace could be made. John Kerry, like so many others, had held that belief, and he expressed it in December 2016 during a conference in Washington attended by many of my political opponents, invited especially from Israel to hear it: There will be no separate peace between Israel and the Arab world. I want to make that very clear to all of you. I’ve heard several prominent politicians in Israel sometimes saying “Well, the Arab world is in a different place now, we just have to reach out to them and we can work some things with the Arab world and we’ll deal with the Palestinians.” No, no, no and no… There will be no advance and separate peace with the Arab world without the Palestinian process and Palestinian peace. Everyone needs to understand that. That is a hard reality. When Kerry finished delivering his remarks, he received thunderous applause. It was only by breaking out of this flawed way of thinking, however, that true progress was made. In its first seventy-two years, Israel made peace with two Arab countries, Egypt and Jordan. In the span of four months, Israel had made peace with four more. By building Israel’s power and challenging Iran, we had made Israel an attractive ally to our Arab neighbors. By bypassing the Palestinians, we could now achieve four diplomatic breakthroughs and sign four historic agreements. This was truly a New Middle East, one built on real strength and no false illusions.

[T]hat afternoon, Sergei Lavrov called me for the second time during the crisis. [...] “We have three demands,” he said. “What are they?” I asked. “The first two are that the Georgians sign the no-use-of-force pledge and that their troops return to barracks,” he told me. “Done,” I answered. [...] But then Sergei said, “The other demand is just between us. Misha Saakashvili has to go.” I couldn’t believe my ears and I reacted out of instinct, not analysis. “Sergei, the secretary of state of the United States does not have a conversation with the Russian foreign minister about overthrowing a democratically elected president,” I said. “The third condition has just become public because I’m going to call everyone I can and tell them that Russia is demanding the overthrow of the Georgian president.” “I said it was between us,” he repeated. “No, it’s not between us. Everyone is going to know.” The conversation ended. I called Steve Hadley to tell him about the Russian demand. Then I called the British, the French, and several others. That afternoon the UN Security Council was meeting. I asked our representative to inform the Council as well. Lavrov was furious, saying that he’d never had a colleague divulge the contents of a diplomatic conversation. I felt I had no choice. If the Georgians wanted to punish Saakashvili for the war, they would have a chance to do it through their own constitutional processes. But the Russians had no right to insist on his removal. The whole thing had an air of the Soviet period, when Moscow had controlled the fate of leaders throughout Eastern Europe. I was certainly not going to be party to a return to those days [688].

Stefan wasn’t sure if it had been watching them and realizing how deep Adrian and Madeleine’s attachment ran, or if it was the fact he was already half in love with Adrian, but he found himself talking before he could stop himself. “I know we’ve only known each other for a year or so, so it’s not really my place to offer my opinions, and I have no concept of what it’s like to be a Royal—the expectations, everything involved,” he started, and Adrian looked up at him. “But my parents were Diplomats, and I did learn a few things from them about how to get what you want.” “Yes?” Adrian asked guardedly. “I’ve been to many courts, and seen many Lord’s daughters. None of them are like Madeleine. No, wait, I’m not insulting her,” he added quickly as Adrian opened his mouth to speak. “What I’m saying is, those girls are being groomed for the traditional roles your father intimated she was to take when she’s older. Now you find out what she really wants—at least at nine years old—to be a Healer and to marry who she wants to. She wants the independence she sees we have.” “Brion’s marriage was arranged when he was thirteen,” Adrian told him. “He seems happy enough, and so does Gwyne, for that matter, but she’d been preparing to be his wife since she was—since she was younger than Maddy.” “But the rest of you haven’t been,” Stefan pointed out, and Adrian nodded in agreement. “One of the basic ideas I grew up with was compromise, giving up just enough to make both sides happy. What if there was no compromise with your sister? If she became so unmarriageable, such an unlikely prospect as a complacent wife, that no one wanted to marry her?” he paused to let his words sink in.

When everyone is seated, Galen uses a pot holder to remove the lid from the huge speckled pan in the center of the table. And I almost upchuck. Fish. Crabs. And...is that squid hair? Before I can think of a polite version of the truth-I'd rather eat my own pinky finger than seafood-Galen plops the biggest piece of fish on my plate, then scoops a mixture of crabmeat and scallops on top of it. As the steam wafts its way to my nose, my chances of staying polite dwindle. The only think I can think of is to make it look like I'm hiccupping instead of gagging. What did I smell earlier that almost had me salivating? It couldn't have been this. I fork the fillet and twist, but it feels like twisting my own gut. Mush it, dice it, mix it all up. No matter what I do, how it looks, I can't bring it near my mouth. A promise is a promise, dream or no dream. Even if real fish didn't save me in Granny's pond, the fake ones my imagination conjured up sure comforted me until help arrived. And now I'm expected to eat their cousins? No can do. I set the fork down and sip some water. I sense Galen is watching. Out of my peripheral, I see the others shoveling the chum into their faces. But not Galen. He sits still, head tilted, waiting for me to take a bite first. Of all the times to be a gentleman! What happened to the guy who sprawled me over his lap like a three-year-old just a few minutes ago? Still, I can't do it. And they don't even have a dog for me to feed under the table, which used to be my go-to plan at Chloe's grandmother's house. One time Chloe even started a food fight to get me out of it. I glance around the table, but Rayna's the only person I'd aim this slop at. Plus, I'd risk getting the stuff on me, which is almost as bad as in me. Galen nudges me with his elbow. "Aren't you hungry? You're not feeling bad again, are you?" This gets the others' attention. The commotion of eating stops. Everyone stares. Rayna, irritated that her gluttony has been interrupted. Toraf smirking like I've done something funny. Galen's mom wearing the same concerned look he is. Can I lie? Should I lie? What if I'm invited over again, and they fix seafood because I lied about it just this once? Telling Galen my head hurts doesn't get me out of future seafood buffets. And telling him I'm not hungry would be pointless since my stomach keeps gurgling like an emptying drain. No, I can't lie. Not if I ever want to come back here. Which I do. I sigh and set the fork down. "I hate seafood," I tell him. Toraf's sudden cough startles me. The sound of him choking reminds me of a cat struggling with a hair ball. I train my eyes on Galen, who has stiffened to a near statue. Jeez, is this all his mom knows how to make? Or have I just shunned the Forza family's prize-winning recipe for grouper? "You...you mean you don't like this kind of fish, Emma?" Galen says diplomatically. I desperately want to nod, to say, "Yes, that's it, not this kind of fish"-but that doesn't get me out of eating the crabmeat-and-scallop mountain on my plate. I shake my head. "No. Not just this kind of fish. I hate it all. I can't eat any of it. Can hardly stand to smell it." Way to go for the jugular there, stupid! Couldn't I just say I don't care for it? Did I have to say I hate it? Hate even the smell of it? And why am I blushing? It's not a crime to gag on seafood. And for God's sakes, I won't eat anything that still has its eyeballs.

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.

I have been in many dugouts, Ludwig,” he goes on. “And we were all young men who sat there around one miserable slush lamp, waiting, while the barrage raged overhead like an earthquake. We were none of your inexperienced recruits, either; we knew well enough what we were waiting for and we knew what would come. —But there was more in those faces down in the gloom there than mere calm, more than good humour, more than just readiness to die. There was the will to another future in those hard, set faces; and it was there when they charged, and still there when they died. —We had less to say for ourselves year by year, we shed many things, but that one thing still remained. And now, Ludwig, where is it now? Can’t you see how it is perishing in all this pig’s wash of order, duty, women, routine, punctuality and the rest of it that here they call life? —No, Ludwig, we lived then! And you tell me a thousand times that you hate war, yet I still say, we lived then. We lived, because we were together, and because something burned in us that was more than this whole muck heap here!” He is breathing hard. “It must have been for something, Ludwig! When I first heard there was revolution, for one brief moment I thought: Now the time will be redeemed—now the flood will pour back, tearing down the old things, digging new banks for itself—and, by God, I would have been in it! But the flood broke up into a thousand runnels; the revolution became a mere scramble for jobs, for big jobs and little jobs. It has trickled away, it has been dammed up, it has been drained off into business, into family, and party. —But that will not do me. I’m going where comradeship is still to be found.” Ludwig stands up. His brow is flaming, his eyes blaze. He looks Rahe in the face. “And why is it, Georg? Why is it? Because we were duped, I tell you, duped as even yet we hardly realize; because we were misused, hideously misused. They told us it was for the Fatherland, and meant the schemes of annexation of a greedy industry. —They told us it was for Honour, and meant the quarrels and the will to power of a handful of ambitious diplomats and princes. —They told us it was for the Nation, and meant the need for activity on the part of out-of-work generals!” He takes Rahe by the shoulders and shakes him. “Can’t you see? They stuffed out the word Patriotism with all the twaddle of their fine phrases, with their desire for glory, their will to power, their false romanticism, their stupidity, their greed of business, and then paraded it before us as a shining ideal! And we thought they were sounding a bugle summoning us to a new, a more strenuous, a larger life. Can’t you see, man? But we were making war against ourselves without knowing it! Every shot that struck home, struck one of us! Can’t you see? Then listen and I will bawl it into your ears. The youth of the world rose up in every land, believing that it was fighting for freedom! And in every land they were duped and misused; in every land they have been shot down, they have exterminated each other! Don’t you see now? —There is only one fight, the fight against the lie, the half-truth, compromise, against the old order. But we let ourselves be taken in by their phrases; and instead of fighting against them, we fought for them. We thought it was for the Future. It was against the Future. Our future is dead; for the youth is dead that carried it. We are merely the survivors, the ruins. But the other is alive still—the fat, the full, the well content, that lives on, fatter and fuller, more contented than ever! And why? Because the dissatisfied, the eager, the storm troops have died for it. But think of it! A generation annihilated! A generation of hope, of faith, of will, strength, ability, so hypnotised that they have shot down one another, though over the whole world they all had the same purpose!” His

Over a three-month period in 1995, Holbrooke alternately cajoled and harangued the parties to the conflict. For one month, he all but imprisoned them at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio—a stage where he could precisely direct the diplomatic theater. At the negotiations’ opening dinner, he seated Miloševic´ under a B-2 bomber—literally in the shadow of Western might. At a low point in the negotiations, he announced that they were over, and had luggage placed outside the Americans’ doors. Miloševic´ saw the bags and asked Holbrooke to extend the talks. The showmanship worked—the parties, several of them mortal enemies, signed the Dayton Agreement. It was an imperfect document. It ceded almost half of Bosnia to Miloševic´ and the Serbian aggressors, essentially rewarding their atrocities. And some felt leaving Miloševicć in power made the agreement untenable. A few years later, he continued his aggressions in Kosovo and finally provoked NATO airstrikes and his removal from power, to face trial at The Hague. The night before the strikes, Miloševic´ had a final conversation with Holbrooke. “Don’t you have anything more to say to me?” he pleaded. To which Holbrooke replied: “Hasta la vista, baby.” (Being menaced by a tired Schwarzenegger catchphrase was not the greatest indignity Miloševic´ faced that week.) But the agreement succeeded in ending three and a half years of bloody war. In a sense, Holbrooke had been preparing for it since his days witnessing the Paris talks with the Vietnamese fall apart, and he worked hard to avoid repeating the same mistakes. Crucial to the success of the talks was his broad grant of power from Washington, free of micromanagement and insulated from domestic political whims. And with NATO strikes authorized, military force was at the ready to back up his diplomacy—not the other way around. Those were elements he would grasp at, and fail to put in place, in his next and final mission.

Like A Rolling Stone" Once upon a time you dressed so fine You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you? People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall" You thought they were all kiddin' you You used to laugh about Everybody that was hangin' out Now you don't talk so loud Now you don't seem so proud About having to be scrounging for your next meal How does it feel? How does it feel To be without a home Like a complete unknown Like a rolling stone? You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely But you know you only used to get juiced in it And nobody's ever taught you how to live out on the street And now you're gonna have to get used to it You said you'd never compromise With the mystery tramp, but now you realize He's not selling any alibis As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes And say do you want to make a deal? How does it feel? How does it feel To be on your own With no direction home A complete unknown Like a rolling stone? You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns When they all did tricks for you You never understood that it ain't no good You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat Ain't it hard when you discover that He really wasn't where it's at After he took from you everything he could steal How does it feel? How does it feel To be on your own With no direction home Like a complete unknown Like a rolling stone? Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people They're all drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made Exchanging all precious gifts But you'd better take your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe You used to be so amused At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal How does it feel How does it feel To be on your own With no direction home Like a complete unknown Like a rolling stone? Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

The Honourable Lady confuses the American people with American policy.... It is the very generosity of the American people which makes it possible for their policy-makers to confuse the trick them into believing that American is the God-father of the world. That is nonsense, and the American people should know it. If they don't get to know it, then the continuation of their present policy will make them the most despised people on earth. I know the Americans are generous. I know American policy is 'generous'. But there you have two different things. What the policy-makers expect in return for their dollar bounty is political co-operation against Russia and any other nation they like to call Red! I would remind the Honourable Lady that it is their anti-Red benevolence that is universal. In China, American capital is still spending more to create the military dictatorship of Chiang Kai-Shek than it did to assist China against Japan. With so many other nations in Europe and Asia broken by the war, American assistance with money and machinery almost means life itself. For national existence however, American policy has a price. It offers unconditional money, machinery, and arms to any nation that will denounce Russian and Communism and pronounce American as the God of all free nations. Even in defeated Italy, Germany, and Japan, American policy supports any sect that is anti-Red and anti-Russian. There is no end to this white American morality, it has its wide wide arms across the globe, its long fingers in every nation, and its loud voice in every ear,... Why talk about Russia!... If we must talk here about interference by one nation in another's affairs, let us talk of this American interference in every nation's affairs. Is there a nation on the face of the earth to-day except Russian and her so-called satellites which can hold up its head and say it is independent of the American dollar? We are all on our knees, and we won't admit it. Our American masters do not need arms and occupation; capital is enough. Capital is enough to strangle the earth if only it has the support of its victims. We are asked to support it—to bring others to their knees: France, Jugo-slavia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, all of Eastern Europe, Greece, Turkey and Iran. The world over, we are asked to replace so-called Communism with the dollar. That dollar means governorship by those who will sell themselves and their nation for a smell of wealth and a grip of power. Such men are international. American has no monopoly on evil and stupid men. American simply has the wealth for bigger evil. The rest of us follow her according to our own evil and our own stupidity. British policy to-day is as bad as America's despite our Socialist Government.

Before the twentieth century, ideology - as opposed to religion - did not kill people by the millions and tens of millions. The stakes were not thought to be worth it. Such enthusiasm for mass murder awaited the combination of aristocratic militarism, really-existing socialism, and fascism. Thus it was only in the twentieth century that utopian aspirations about how the economy should be organized led nations and global movements to build dystopias to try to bring the utopian future closer. And then they turned around and justified the dystopia: compromises must be made, and this is as good as it is going to get. My view is that too much mental and historical energy has been spent parsing differences between movements that are justly classified as dystopian, and even totalitarian, in aspiration. Time spent on such a task is time wasted, given their commonalities - if not in formal doctrine, then at least in modes of operation. The guards of Auschwitz, Majdanek, Treblinka, Dachau, and the rest were very like the guards of the Gulag Archipelago. Rather, mental and historical energy should be focused on where these movements got their energy. Why was the world unable to offer people a society in which they could live good lives? Why was a total reconfiguration necessary? Karl Polanyi saw fascism and socialism as reactions against the market society's inability or unwillingness to satisfy people's Polanyian rights. It could not guarantee them a comfortable community in which to live because the use to which land was put had to pass a profitability test. It could not offer them an income commensurate with what they deserved because the wage paid to their occupation had to pass a profitability test. And it could not offer them stable employment because the financing to support whatever value chain they were embedded in also had to pass a profitability test. These failures all gave energy to the thought that there needed to be a fundamental reconfiguration of economy and society that would respect people's Polanyian rights. And the hope of millions was that fascism and really-existing socialism would do so. Instead, both turned out to erase, in brutal and absolute ways, people's rights, and people's lives, by the millions. So why were people so gullible? The German socialist Rosa Luxemburg in 1919 could see the path Lenin was embarked upon and called it 'a brutalization of public life: attempted assassinations, shooting of hostages, etc.' The German liberal Max Weber, writing in 1918, could also foresee what would become of Lenin's sociological experiment, saying it would end 'in a laboratory with heaps of human corpses.' Similarly, the British diplomat Eric Phipps wrote in 1935 that if Britain were to take Hitler's Mein Kampf seriously and literally, 'we should logically be bound to adopt the policy of a "preventive" war.' The dangers of a fascist turn were clear. The unlikelihood of success at even slouching toward a good society of those who took that turn ought to have been obvious. Utopian faith is a helluva drug.

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.

You are claiming that the Soviet authorities began and influenced the existence of the Democratic Party [in Iran]. That is the basis of all your statements. The simplest way to discredit your absurd claim si to tell you about Iran, of which you are apparently ignorant. The people of Iran are oppressed, poverty-stricken, and miserable with hunger and disease. Their death rate is among the highest in the world, and their infant mortality rate threatens Iran with complete extinction. They are ruled without choice by feudalistic landowners, ruthless Khans, and venal industrialists. The peasants are slaves and the workers are paid a few pennies for a twelve hour day--not enough to keep their families in food. I can quote you all the figures you like to support these statements, quote them if necessary from British sources. I can also quote you the figures of wealth which is taken out of Iran yearly by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, of which the British Governemtn is the largest shareholder. 200 million pounds sterling have been taken out of Iran by your Oil company: a hundred times the total amount of Iran's national income and ten thousand times the total national income of the working people of Iran. By such natural resources as oil, Iran is by nature one of the wealthiest countries on earth. That wealth goes to Britain, while Iran remains poverty-ridden and without economic stability at all. It has no wage policies, no real trade unions, few hospitals, no sanitation and drainage, no irrigation, no proper housing, and no adequate road system. Its people have no rights before the law; their franchise in non-existent, and their parliamentary rights are destroyed by the corrupt method of election and political choice. The Iranian people suffer the terrors of a police regime, and they are prey to the manipulations of the grain speculators and the money operators. The racial minorities suffer discrimination and intolerance, and religious minorities are persecuted for political ends. Banditry threatens the mountain districts, and British arms have been used to support one tribe against another. I could go on indefinitely, painting you a picture of misery and starvation and imprisonment and subjection which must shame any human being capable of hearing it. Yet you say that the existence of a Democratic Party in Iran has been created by the Soviet authorities. You underestimate the Iranian people, Lord Essex! The Democratic Party has arisen out of all this misery and subjection as a force against corruption and oppression. Until now the Iranian people have been unable to create a political party because the police system prevented by terror and assassination. Any attempt to organize the workers and peasants was quickly halted by the execution of party leaders and the vast imprisonment of its followers. The Iranian people, however, have a long record of struggle and persistence, and they do not have to be told by the Soviet Union where their interests lie. They are not stupid and they are not utterly destroyed. They still posses the will to organize a democratic body and follow it into paths of Government. The Soviet Union has simply made sure that the police assassins did not interfere.... To talk of our part in 'creating' the democratic movement is an insult to the people and a sign of ignorance. We do not underestimate the Iranian people, and as far as we are concerned the Democratic Party...belongs to the people. It is their creation and their right, and it cannot be broken by wild charges which accuse the Soviet Union of its birth. We did not create it, and we have not interfered in the affairs of Iran. On the contrary, it is the British Government which has interfered continuously and viciously in Iran's affairs.

Whatever world would say; however, as a fact, Russia, in the leadership of Vladimir Putin has given a historical, lesson and the silent defeat to the United States of America in both ways, the diplomatic and war strategy. After, retreating from Afghanistan by the American made Taliban including Bin Laden. Since that and the Iraq war till present, USA has lost its incredibility in world eyes and failed to build peace, harmony, and equality within small and large states of the world. Now, Donald Trump, even though his political speeches meet hard critical responses, but it seems that he will restore, and achieve the American image of justice and peace for everyone. Otherwise, the failure is its destiny that, may collapse the unity within states of it, as in the Soviet Union.

Even at ten o’clock in the morning it was going to be full of members of the public. Rich, influential members of the public, many of them foreign, a lot of them with some level of diplomatic immunity. ‘What I’m saying here,’ Seawoll had said, ‘is try to limit the amount of damage you do to none fucking whatsoever.’ I don’t know where I got this reputation for property damage, I really don’t

It must be understood that while the majority of Zoon cannot lie they have great respect for any Zoon who can say that the world is other than it is, and the Liar holds a position of considerable eminence. He represents his tribe in all his dealings with the outside world, which the average Zoon long ago gave up trying to understand. Zoon tribes are very proud of their Liars. Other races get very annoyed about all this. They feel that the Zoon ought to have adopted more suitable titles, like “diplomat” or “public relations officer.” They feel they are poking fun at the whole thing.

Increasingly, it matters less what a prime minister or diplomat says is ‘our policy’ on an issue – it matters what the users of Google, Facebook or Twitter decide that it is. Set-piece

Kushner, now back from vacationing in Croatia, delivered the news at a Friday morning breakfast as diplomatically as he could. “We’ve really got a problem here, Paul,” Kushner told him. “You’re going to have to step down.” But Manafort objected. “Well, I don’t want to do that, because it’ll look like I’m guilty,” he said. Kushner pressed harder. “It would be helpful if you stepped down.” “Yes,” Manafort replied, “but I can’t do that.” At this, Kushner’s demeanor hardened and he glanced at his watch. “We’re putting out a press release at nine a.m. that says you’ve resigned,” he said. “That’s in thirty seconds.” Manafort’s ouster extinguished the last vestige of hope for

On Thursday, February 19, 2015, two months after the United States and Cuba announced a willingness to re-establish normal diplomacy, after over 5 decades of hostile relations, the United States House Minority leader and eight fellow Democratic Party lawmakers went to Havana to meet with the Cuban Vice President Miguel Díaz-Canel. On February 27th, Cuban Foreign Ministry Director for North America, Josefina Vidal, and her delegation met at the State Department in Washington, D.C. Although most Cubans and many Americans have a positive view towards improving diplomatic relations, there are conservative legislators in both the U.S. House and Senate that have not joined in the promotion and necessary détente and good will in easing the normalization of relations between the two countries. On May 29, 2015, by Executive Order, President Obama took a first step by removing Cuba from the list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism.” Since then President Trump has been determined to overturn most of what has been passed by the former administration. On June 16, 2017 President Trump moved to reverse many of President Obama’s policies towards Cuba. According to the CATO Institute the alleged justification for this reversal is that it will pressure the Cuban government to make concessions on human rights and political policies towards the Island Nation. Apparently Trump’s new restrictions will impose limits on travel and how U.S. Companies will be able to do business in Cuba. Although the final say regarding the normalization between the two countries is in the hands of politicians representing their various constituencies. The United States has long worked and traded with other Communist nations. Recently additional pressure has been applied by corporations that, quite frankly, are fed up with the slowness of the process. The idea that everything hinges on the fact Cuba is a Communist country, run by a dictatorship, does not take into account the plight of the individual Cuban citizens. The United States may wish for a different government; however it is up to Cuba to decide what form of government they will eventually have.

raised an eyebrow, glancing from one to the other. “Why did he not just say, ‘We hate the Nazis?’ I know it is not diplomatic, but—” Figlia shook his head at that one. “Is not Vatican policy — if you condemn Al-Qaeda, they could change the name. If one condemns ‘men of violence’ in Afghanistan, it is obvious, si?” Father

But ... there's military law, isn't there?" "Well, yes ... but when it's pissing with rain and when you're up to your tonk– your waist in dead horses and someone gives you an order, that ain't the time to look up the book of rules, miss. Anyway, of it's about when you're allowed to get shot, sir." "Oh, I'm sure there's more to it than that, sergeant." "Oh, prob'ly, sir," Colon conceded diplomatically. "I'm sure there's lots of stuff about not killing enemy soldiers who've surrendered, for instance." "Oh, yerss, there's that, captain. Doesn't say you can't duff 'em up a bit, of course. Give 'em a little something to remember you by." "Not torture?" said Angua. "Oh, no, miss. But ... " Memory Lane for Colon had turned into a bad road through a dark valley "... well, when your best mate's got an arrow in his eye an' there's blokes and horses screamin' all around you and you're scared shi– you're really scared, an' you come across one of the enemy ... well, for some reason or other you've got this kinda urge to give him a bit of a ... nudge, sort of thing. Just ... you know ... like, maybe in twenty years' time his leg'll twinge a bit on frosty days and he'll remember what he done, that's all.

How do you know... how do you know anything... US officials are making Maduro sounds like a corrupt, evil dictator... almost like a Stalin! Then the alternative voices (Thank God) are saying well they seem to like Maduro just fine over there... and since there must be nothing else to do in the world, US is just playing the old game of 'stop hitting yourself' let's do sanctions, and freeze your assets, and then... THEN LOOK MADURO'S STARVING HIS PEOPLE! Umm. Ya... no. I guess it really doesn't take a lotta brain to be a diplomat.

The deadline is tonight. What kind of a sadist sets a deadline on a Saturday evening? And they just sent the instructions yesterday. Friday!” She didn’t say the words but her facial expression clearly screamed, ‘Fuck capital.

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.

Is this about a woman?" Liam managed to keep his face straight. "A gentleman would never say." Lord Swansea chuckled. "Ah. Diplomatically stated. It is most definitely a women, then. Looking to set up your nursery, eh?

french diplomat traveled to America, and upon his return, wrote: 56 ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there; in her fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there; in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness, did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

A diplomat is a man who thinks twice before he says nothing.

Passion is form over function. Purpose is function, function, function. The critical work that you want to do will require your deliberation and consideration. Not passion. Not naïveté. It’d be far better if you were intimidated by what lies ahead—humbled by its magnitude and determined to see it through regardless. Leave passion for the amateurs. Make it about what you feel you must do and say, not what you care about and wish to be. Remember Talleyrand’s epigram for diplomats, “Surtout, pas trop de zèle” (“Above all, not too much zeal”). Then you will do great things. Then you will stop being your old, good-intentioned, but ineffective self.

President Theodore Roosevelt was a man of action, but he was also a good listener, and he appreciated that quality in other people. Once at a gala ball, he grew tired of meeting people who returned his remarks with stiff, mindless pleasantries. So he began to greet people with a smile, saying, “I murdered my grandmother this morning.” Most people, so nervous about meeting him, didn’t even hear what he said. But one diplomat did. Upon hearing the president’s remark, he leaned over and whispered to him, “I’m sure she had it coming to her!” The only way to find out what you’re missing is to start listening.

HOWARD W. KOCH: You’re not going to take Barbra Streisand out of a picture, so you spend most of your life being a diplomat. Or she calls you at night and you talk to her all night on the phone. She says, “Shouldn’t we do this? Don’t you like my hair this way?” And you keep cajoling and working, and you have seventy-five days of madness, and your wife says, “Listen, it’s either Barbra Streisand or me.

This glorious ‘liberty of the press’ was nothing but an old and yet eternally new diplomatic trick, making it possible to say all sorts of unpleasant things to foreign powers and yet disclaim responsibility.

If this describes you, there’s a good chance that like me you belong to the gloomy bunch psychologists label ‘insecure overachievers,’ which is a diplomatic way of saying that our accomplishments, impressive as they may sometimes be, are driven ultimately by feelings of inadequacy. For example, maybe you believe that you’ll have earned your right to exist only when you attain a certain level of social standing, or income, or academic qualifications. Or perhaps you’ve tethered your self-esteem to the most crazy-making standard of all, ‘realizing your potential’ – which means you’ll never get to rest, because how can you ever be sure there’s not a little more potential left to realize?

In this instance, she’d not heard him count. He’d not hit a wall, unless the brick-headed stubbornness of Dmitri’s face counted. Thwack! “Yay.” Yes, that was her cheering for her Pookie aloud. Since it seemed he hadn’t heard, she said it louder, yodeled it as a matter of fact. “You get him, Pookie. Show him who’s the biggest, baddest pussy around.” Leo turned his head at that, narrowing his blue gaze on her. Totally annoyed. Totally adrenalized. Totally hot. “Vex!” How sexy her nickname sounded when he growled it. She could tell he totally dug the encouragement. She waggled her fingers at him and meant to say, “You’re welcome,” but instead shouted, “Behind you!” During that moment of inattention— which really Leo should have known better than to indulge in— Dmitri threw a mighty hook. Had she mentioned just how sigh-worthy big her Pookie was? The perfectly aimed blow hit Leo in the jaw, and the force snapped his head to the side. But it certainly didn’t fell him. Not even close. On the contrary, the punch brought the predator in him alive. As he rotated his jaw, Leo’s gaze flicked her way, his eyes lit with a wildness, his lip quirked, almost in amusement, and then he acted. His fist retaliated then his elbow, snapping Dmitri in the nose. Any other man, even shifter, might have quickly succumbed, but the Russian Siberian tiger was more than a match for the hybrid lion/ tiger. Put them in a ring and they’d have brought in a fortune. They certainly put on a good show. Blood trailed from Dmitri’s lip from where Leo’s fist struck him. However, that didn’t stop the Russian from giving as good as he got. Size-wise, Leo held a slight edge, but what Dmitri lacked in girth, he made up for in skill. Even if Meena wasn’t interested in marrying him, it didn’t mean she couldn’t admire the grace of Dmitri’s movement and his uncanny intuition when it came to dodging blows. Leo wasn’t too shabby either. While he’d obviously not grown up on the mean streets of Russia, he knew how to throw a punch, wrestle a man, and look totally hot in defense of his woman. Sigh. A man coming to her rescue. Just like one of those romance novels Teena likes to read. Luna sidled up alongside her. “What did you do this time?” Why did everyone assume it was her fault? “I didn’t do anything.” Luna snorted. “Sure you didn’t. And it also wasn’t you who put Kool-Aid in Arik’s mom’s shampoo bottle and turned her hair pink at the family picnic a few years ago.” “I thought the short spikes she sported after she got it shaved looked awesome.” “Never said the outcome wasn’t worth it. Just like I’m totally intrigued about what’s happening here. That is Leo laying a smackdown on that Russian diplomat, right? Since I highly doubt they’re sparring over who makes the better vodka or who deserved the gold medal in hockey at the last winter Olympics, then that leaves only one other possibility.” Luna fixed her with a gaze. “This is your fault.” Meena’s shoulders hunched. “Okay, so maybe I’m a teensy tiny bit responsible. Like maybe I made sure my ex-fiancé and current fiancé got to meet.” “Duh. I already knew about that part. What I’m talking about is, how the hell did you get Leo to lose his shit? I mean when he gets his serious on, you couldn’t melt an ice cube in his mouth. Leo never loses control because to lose control is to lose one’s way, or some such bullshit. He’s always spouting these funny little sayings in the hopes of curbing our wild tendencies.” Pookie had the cutest personality. “What can I say?” Meena shrugged. “I guess he got jealous. Totally normal, given we’re soul mates.

Belial presided over the assembly. He kept judiciously silent, as he listened to the debate. Zeus said, “He is coming with three of his weak and foolish disciples. It looks more like a diplomatic mission for cease fire than a declaration of war.” “Declaration of war?” replied Molech. “Easy for you to say, gallivanting around on your distant decadent homeland of Greece. Jesus has been exorcising demons and diseases throughout Judea and Galilee, He has compromised the Gates of Hades, and he has taken out the gods Dagon, Asherah, Ba’al, Lilith, Pan, and even Gaia! I alone am left of the gods of Canaan!” Resheph and Qeteb, the twin gods of pestilence and plague, protested. “You are not the only god left in the pantheon, Molech,” said Resheph. Qeteb added, “And Dagon was betrayed by Ba’al and Asherah long before Jesus arrived.

What the Iranians are looking for is a narrative of victory,” one American diplomat said last week, “a way to say the West backed down, and admitted Iran will be able to produce its own nuclear fuel one day, in unlimited quantity.” What Congress needs, the diplomat said, “is a narrative that Iran was forced to dismantle what it has.

A man may have the right to criticize the Government, but I'm hanged if he has a right to brazenly use his free speech to attack our way of life. More and more we see men in science and profession and academy abusing their privileges of expression by crying that their real liberties are threatened by patriotism. Is patriotism above these men? Do they have a right to express their views, to carry on their work, to be free men unless they are patriotic to our society? I say no sir! Loyalty is one of the prerogatives of freedom

I'd like you to see that we are interfering too drastically. WE can't just assume so completely that Azerbaijan is in the hands of dangerous men and vicious Bolsheviks. I suppose it's all in the way you see Iran. I'd like you to see that Iranians are just as serious about their politics as we are: perhaps more so. The Iranian is a vigorous individual with definite ideas about the right and wrong done to him. It's easy for these journalists to laugh at the idea of political spontaneity among the Iranians because they look on these people as dirty, stupid, childlike natives who stare open-mouthed while the wonders of the west are offered to them. …... They are not like that at all. They want proper government, the same as anybody else. They have certainly tried hard enough to get it, but they haven't had a chance. We have done a great deal to prevent them getting real government. It may shock you, but we have always wanted corrupt administrations. Since the Reuter concessions sixty years ago we have begaved like American gangsters using threats, money, and even war to extort privileges and concessions which amounted to owning the country. At one time we had complete control over the administration, over the entire wealth of the land, the banks, and the army. It's rather silly to say the Iranians are un-political when you realize how quickly we had to hand back those concessions. This country rose to a man against us. We gave in hastily, but we managed to cling desperately to our oil concessions. [MacGregor] I think you are worrying yourself unduly [Essex]. We can't be too bad an influence. We may not be reformers ourselves... but we do not fight people who are really trying to improve the country. You must admit that we did not resist the last Shah, and he certainly reformed the place as best as it could be reformed. [MacGregor] It has become a habit to pass all compliments to Reza Shah,...even though we dethroned him. All reforms and modernizations are supposed to be his idea. Yet he simply took over the power of a popular revolution which we resisted at the time. He took power as a despot and he was little better than his predecessors. These people are getting fed up with despots. They obviously want to achieve some kind of better government, particularly in Azerbaijan.… That revolt in Azerbaijan doesn't have to be a Russian idea. It is really the continuation of five or six revolutions, all of them trying to get rid of corrupt governments. This time they seen to be succeeding. Our idea is to stop it.... Every level of government in Iran is corrupt from top to bottom, including the court, the police, and the parliament. Government is organized corruption. The ministers prey on the population like buzzards; they arragne taxes, laws, finances, famines; everything to the purpose of making money. The last Shah might have wiped out some of it; but that meant he became the biggest grafter of them all. He controlled the little fellows, and took the best of everything for himself. By the end of his rule he owned about a fifth of this entire country. He is not the hero we think he is, and his police regime was as brutal as anything the Germans had. Though we co-operated with him, he was a little tougher than the others and he always held out for more. Once, he threatened to wipe out our oil concession but we brought him off. He could always be bought off, like all the other grafters.

Is there more to the Fatima secret not yet revealed? Well, before he later revealed the content of the 3rd Secret of Fatima in 2000, John Paul II spoke to a select group of German Catholics at Fulda during his 1980 visit to Germany. Here is an excerpt from his words: The Holy Father was asked, “What about the Third Secret of Fatima? Should it not have already been published by 1960?” Pope John Paul II replied: “Given the seriousness of the contents, my predecessors in the Petrine office diplomatically preferred to postpone publication so as not to encourage the world power of Communism to make certain moves. On the other hand, it should be sufficient for all Christians to know this: if there is a message in which it is written that the oceans will flood whole areas of the earth, and that from one moment to the next millions of people will perish, truly the publication of such a message is no longer something to be so much desired.” At this point the Pope grasped a Rosary and said: “Here is the remedy against this evil. Pray, pray, and ask for nothing more. Leave everything else to the Mother of God.” The Holy Father was then asked: “What is going to happen to the Church?” He answered: “We must prepare ourselves to suffer great trials before long, such as will demand of us a disposition to give up even life, and a total dedication to Christ and for Christ. With your and my prayer it is possible to mitigate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it, because only thus can the Church be effectively renewed. How many times has the renewal of the Church sprung from blood! This time, too, it will not be otherwise. We must be strong and prepared, and trust in Christ and His Mother, and be very, very assiduous in praying the Rosary.” In his book, The Last Secret of Fatima, Cardinal Bertone, (now former) Vatican Secretary of State, acknowledged that John Paul II did in fact say these words (p. 48). What clarity, for those who can see!

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.

On February 5, 1951, the State Department transmitted to all posts a “Comprehensive Statement of United States Policy” toward Saudi Arabia. This was a classified paper, not intended to be shared with the public or with the Saudis; it was to be used by American diplomats as guidance for local decisions and for their discussions with Saudi and other Arab leaders. It represented a definitive statement of American policy on, and aspirations for, the Kingdom and the House of Saud. Although it was written more than fifty years ago, in another geopolitical era, most of this paper articulates policies still in place today—a remarkable consistency in policy that has survived multiple wars and upheavals in the Middle East, to say nothing of multiple changes of administration in Washington.

Standing, she turned toward him, dropped into an exaggerated curtsy, and, smiling broadly, said, “Your Grace. I trust I pass inspection?” He chuckled at her use of the ducal address and offered her a hand to lift her from her position. Tilting his head, he answered in a voice rich with humor. “Far be it from me to answer that particular question. I wouldn’t dare risk removing that opinion from the purview of the duchess. You know that.” Lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, he continued, “Suffice to say, my lady, that I believe you are the most beautiful of my offspring.” Alex burst into laughter and leaned up to kiss her father’s cheek. “Well said…ever the diplomat. Although I rather think it shouldn’t be that difficult to be the most beautiful when compared to the hulking brutes you call sons.” “Not diplomacy at all, daughter. You look lovely. And, sadly, very grown up. When did you get so tall?” Alex was just a few inches from her father’s height, and she smiled at the question. “Strong Stafford blood, of course, Father. Are you certain we’re not descended from the Vikings?” “Looking at the four of you, one does wonder. But then there is I, the diminutive duke…pathetically small and not at all Norse.

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.