Overview

American diplomacy, since the beginning, when Benjamin Franklin was sent to Paris as the American Minister Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, has been a dangerous business. It has also, since the beginning, been little understood by most Americans. In this volume, in their own words, American diplomats describe the hazards of their profession. Edited by Ambassador (retired) Charles Ray, a 30-year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service, these stories show American diplomacy in a way not shown by popular media, or for that matter, many academic studies.

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9781505672725

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Charles Ray joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1982, after completing 20 years of service in the U.S. Army. As a Foreign Service Officer he served overseas in China, Thailand, Sierra Leone, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Zimbabwe, and in the U.S. in the State Department's Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs, as diplomat-in-residence at the University of Houston, and as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/Missing Personnel Affairs. His overseas tours were in consular affairs and management. He was the deputy chief of mission in Freetown, Sierra Leone during that country's civil war and transition to elected civilian government (1993-1996); the first U.S. consul general in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), Vietnam (1998-2001); ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia (2002-2005); and ambassador to Zimbabwe (2009-2012). He retired from the Foreign Service in 2012. A member of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), he was the first chair of AFSA's Committee on the Foreign Service Profession and Ethics, and he is a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy and the Association of Black American Ambassadors. He is currently engaged in writing, consulting and lecturing. In 2014 he conducted a workshop on professional writing for Rangel Scholars at Howard University in Washington, DC, and lectures occasionally at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute of Johns Hopkins University. He has written more than 40 books of fiction and nonfiction, including four books on leadership and management. A native of Texas, he currently resides in Montgomery County, Maryland, just outside Washington, DC.

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