Foreign Service Quotes

My father had been in the German Diplomatic Service, and although he had been in the United States since World War II and out of diplomacy, it was something that was very much talked about in the family. So when I went to college, it was always my intention to try to get into the Foreign Service.

The Foreign Office is a very important arm of the British state and I think Britain has a fantastic diplomatic service. We are the only country in the world spending 2% of our national income on defence and 0.7% of our national income on aid. We are the only country in the world doing both of those things.

My father was a Foreign Service officer, a diplomat and an Arabist who spent virtually all his career in the Near East, as it was called in the State Department. So I spent most of my childhood among the Israelis and the Arabs of Palestine, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

I was initially assigned to the American Consulate in Aden, not as Principal Officer but as a supernumerary officer to handle Yemen affairs. We had no resident diplomatic mission in Yemen at the time. People from Aden went up to Yemen regularly.

My father was a military attache, so I've been traveling all my life.

I did stuff for three years in Kabul that I found exciting, and a lot of that was fixing roofs, talking about sewage installation.

I could always fight overseas, but who wants to do that? They'd really have to make it worth my while.

It is good to be on your guard against an Englishman who speaks French perfectly; he is very likely to be a card-sharper or an attache in the diplomatic service.

I had to leave the Foreign Service to do the two things I joined it to do—negotiate, and make policy.

My father was a diplomat and served as Pakistan's ambassador to 14 countries. I was born in London and grew up there and studied and lived in a hostel throughout in London and became a barrister.

What is more important is that Foreign Service Officers understand business, about the needs of U.S. business and how to help U.S. companies make the right connections abroad.

I'd come back after having served as ambassador to New Zealand and found that I had real concerns about the direction in which this country was headed.

Right, well I am, I was a career diplomat for 37 years from 1960 until 1997 during the early 1980s from 1981 to 1985 I was the United States Ambassador to Honduras.

An ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country.

With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they'd go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.

I intend to ruin the Foreign Service. I mean ruin it—the old Foreign Service—and to build a new one. I’m going to do it.

I'd like to be the ambassador to the Bahamas.

My dad was a diplomat and after living in America, where I was born, he was posted to Cairo.

Over the last 40 years, more U. S. ambassadors than generals have been killed in the line of duty. But unlike this country's military, the U. S. Foreign Service is maligned, undercut and underutilized.

Next to President of the United States, Ambassador to Ireland is surely one of the best jobs an Irish American can hold.

Big mistakes were made in Benghazi, and people should be held accountable. But the brave officers who staff American posts in crisis zones know how dangerous the work is.

In the hands of a determined Secretary, the Foreign Service can be a splendid instrument, staffed by knowledgeable, discreet, and energetic individuals. They do require constant vigilance lest the convictions that led them into a penurious career tempt them to preempt decision-making.

After [Dan Fried] was initially hired into the Foreign Service in 1977, five subsequent presidents of both parties thought it would be a good idea to keep him on. That his deep understanding, his knowledge of all the players and so many of the secrets it would make him an indispensable asset, particularly when it comes to dealing with Russia.

Any Ambassador or Foreign Service Officer who has his or her head screwed on right knows that the U.S. position in the world is far more dependent on our ability to compete in world markets.

In 1939, Fitzroy Maclean, a gangly Highland aristocrat in his early 30s, was serving as a British diplomat in the U.S.S.R. Disgusted by the Soviet show trials, he quit the Foreign Service and would go on to serve with Tito's partisans fighting the Germans in Yugoslavia.