This week, I'm cross-posting two entries in the series that The Hegemonist
is running, "Foreign Service Interviews." As I mentioned in Installment One, I urge you to check out TH,
which is a great blog by a serving FS Officer who recently suspended
blogging - and has thankfully resumed - when the State Department
announced what appeared to be impossible pre-clearance guidelines for
what is a rather instant medium.
Here, I address the question, "Please share your best FS story or greatest FS achievement." Please note: I've done many other - mostly routine - jobs in the course of my Foreign Service career. But in terms of story value, this one beats out the other "achievements."
They always say that consular officers have the best stories, and in my own experience, several forays into the consular world confirm that. Especially if human relations are high on your priority list. My "proudest achievement" dates back to the early '80s, when as Deputy Principal Officer I was also Consul in Alexandria, Egypt. Alas, the Consulate General is no more, a victim of the early '90s James Baker sacrifice of a slew of constituent posts in key regions of the world to make way for new US embassies in the former Soviet Republics. At least there's still a cultural center. But I digress.
A letter arrived at my office, addressed to the US Embassy in Cairo but with a return address in Alexandria. The writer, an American citizen in Alexandria, had no idea there was a US Consulate in her city. At the time, it was the second largest city in Africa, Cairo being the first. And why should she know? She was a young mother with several little boys, and she was sequestered in an apartment in a foreign city.
Here's the back story: my "Amcit" - let's call her "Lisa al-Siyasi" - had met a charming Saudi student at college in the States, gotten married, and had several children. Things hadn't worked out - he was rich, she wasn't, but there were probably more important incompatibilities - and they got divorced. Mr. al-Siyasi returned to Saudi Arabia, and sometimes vacationed at his parents' penthouse on the Mediterranean in Alexandria. Some years later, he cajoled Lisa into a summertime visit for her and the kids to the exotic Middle East. She took up his invitation for what in his mind was a one-way trip back to the bosom of his family.
That's about as much as I learned from Lisa's letter, plus this: she desperately wanted to escape. But she had no money, and her ex-husband kept her and the kids under virtual house arrest.
The only thing I could think of was to write her a letter on Consulate stationery, "convoking" her to the US Consulate. The ruse worked: an appointment was made, and her ex-husband even brought her to my office. Luckily, while he was busy looking up information in the Commercial section, Lisa and I had a few minutes to discuss her situation and get crucial information on her status and her family back in the States. Visit over, she was returned to her gilded cage.
Working with the State Department and the Embassy in Cairo, we established contact with Lisa's family in the States. They really didn't have much money, but they were able to scrape together enough funds to buy tickets for Lisa and her boys to return home. But how to arrange the "great escape?"
Mr. al-Siyasi and his rich-Saudi-playboy lifestyle was the key. Lisa and I were able to talk on the phone (a working phone in Egypt in those days was a rarity) while Mr. al-S. was sleeping well into lunchtime, working off his late nights and hard-partying. We cooked up a plan that centered on his being out of commission during the morning hours.
With key assistance from the Levantine manager of the local TWA office, and from an Alexandrian taxi service that we knew well, we procured tickets and arranged for an early morning pickup. Lisa and the boys were able to slip out of the apartment and were whisked off to Cairo while Mr. al-S. got his beauty sleep.
The part of the plan that caused us the most heartburn was the airline schedule: flights from Cairo to Europe and beyond had already left by the time our taxi man delivered Lisa and family to the airport hotel. Her tickets - issued under a variation of the name "al-Siyasi" - were for a flight leaving Cairo the next morning. We'd just have to sweat it out for another 24 hours.
In the meantime, back in Alexandria, Mr. al-S. woke up around noon to find his ex-wife and children gone. I was not surprised, therefore, to find him at the Consulate soon thereafter. I took the precaution of asking one of the Consulate's US Marine Security Guards to hang out in my office in civvies, but with a nightstick handy in case things got physical.
Whether it was the Marine's presence, or Saudi stoicism, I'll never know, but the meeting passed calmly enough. I feigned ignorance of Lisa's whereabouts, and he went off. But I knew that wasn't the end of the story.
Next day, Cairo airport. Lisa and boys show up at the TWA counter, and Mr. al-Siyasi is there. And he starts shouting in Arabic, "this woman is stealing my children!" to the gathering crowd. Lisa, who had feared this very outcome, was mortified.
Now, readers in the US Embassy circuit will recognize the term "expediter," those indispensable fixers who shepherd travelers through the complexities of customs, immigration, and security with minimal fuss and delay. We had arranged for such a man to help Lisa and the boys at the airport that day. But this man was not your garden-variety expediter. He was a retired Egyptian Army brigadier general, and his response to the shouting Mr. al-Siyasi?
"This Saudi is threatening this American lady," he told the Egyptian security guards present. I should note that in Egypt - home of the Pyramids, center of Arabic-language culture - there is a certain resentment of wealthy Gulf Arabs - but most especially Saudis - who flaunt their riches and their lack of culture and treat Egyptians like poor cousins, or much worse.
"This Saudi..." - well, that was more than sufficient to trigger the appropriate response, and as the sputtering Saudi was being dragged away, Lisa and boys were able to continue their check-in and their trip to freedom.
So ends my story, which remains my proudest achievement, and was accomplished in the years before US adoption of the Hague Abduction Convention, which might have complicated things. And we all had Mr. al-Siyasi to thank for having abducted his ex-wife and kids in a country where Saudis are loathed. It's not always as "easy" for Americans in similar situations.
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Note: This anecdote also illustrates another career essential, "job satisfaction."
