The American
primary connector at even the highest levels of government. The American system, by contrast, is powered by a flow of political appointees. Thousands of people, from the Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor through to the head of the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Director of the National Parks, serve at the President’s pleasure. Yet it is the role of Ambassador that uniquely attracts the epithet of ‘cronydom’ and the insistence that private citizens should not be diplomats. In the interests of disclosure, I have worked with a number of Ambassadors and their Deputy Chiefs of Mission, including two years in the London Embassy. More recently, I have had the honor to interview the Ambassadors (and their deputies) of the past twenty-five years for my own research.
A sense of mission
Six men have served in this post over the past quarter of a century, but few people know that two of them were Ambassadors prior to their posting in London, three worked on the White House staff and one was a career Foreign Service Officer. More surprising, only three gave money or acted as fundraiser, while half had given little or no money to the campaigns of the President they served. For a modest salary and little expenses or entertaining budgets to speak of, the Ambassador is responsible for running one of the largest US Embassies in the world, based in the (expensive) capital city of ‘our closest ally’. The resulting expectations are huge. All six former Ambassadors spent extensive amounts of time on the road, often ignored by the press, speaking with local, civic and business organizations, religious bodies and educational institutions. They all hosted hundreds of events with something in the region of 25,000 guests each, and helped the 15,000 annual American government visitors connect with their British counterparts. Promoting the largest bilateral business relationship in the world is a priority. Counselor services loom large with four and a half million Americans and Brits traveling in each
direction each year and a quarter of a million Americans making their home in the UK. All this is in addition to maintaining and nurturing the intense high level governmental interaction that covers issues from warfare to welfare, tax dodgers to terrorism, protesters to protectionism. While the work is done by career officers in a range of agencies, it is all done on the Ambassador’s watch. From my own experience and research, the Ambassadors who have made a success of the post are those that had not only a sense of mission from the President but a proactive strategy for their tenure from the outset. They saw the role of Ambassador in London as that of engaged Chairman of the board vs Chief Operating Officer. They understood that while their ‘contractual’ influence is constrained, the importance of symbolic connection, sensitive balance and intuitive negotiation skills are paramount. Which brings us to the newly nominated Ambassador, 71-year-old Lou Susman., who will hopefully be appointed by July 4th. The President shows little sign of making Mr Susman’s job easier, but with work, planning and good local advice, the new Ambassador to the Court of St James’s will, like his predecessors, be able to find a way to serve that is both valuable and unique. H
The Ambassador’s residence in London, Winfield House, photographed for a beautiful book by Maria Tuttle, the wife of the outgoing Ambassador, published last year by Thames and Hudson James Mortimer
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