About
The adventures, observations, and struggles of an expat in Moscow, Russia...
RSS Syndication
Recently Flickred
Currently Reading
The New Russian Business Leaders by Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, Stanislav Shekshnia, Konstantin Korotov, and Elizabeth Florent-Treacy.
Previous Entry
Next Entry
One of the cool things about ????????????? ??????????? (? ??????), the Moscow university where we ACTR students studied for the last year, was that each week they brought in a well-known guest speaker for assembly lectures. Sometimes the lecturers were really boring. At other times they turned out to be kind of interesting. Still they were great for improving my listening comprehension and always a welcome excuse to be absent from my regularly scheduled classes.
In February MYM invited Alexander Vershbow, the US Ambassador to Russia, to give a lecture titled Global Security in the 21st century. I think that all of us American students came to the auditorium expecting him to speak in English with a Russian interpreter. But, to our surprise, he walked up to the podium alone, leaving his Russian translator seated with the university rector at a table not far away. He then proceded to read, word for word, a Russian translation of his lecture.
My first thought was “Good for him. This lecture could quickly become long and painful if we had to listen to both him and his interpreter.” It didn’t take long at all, however, for my sentiment to change. As Mr. Vershbow read the translation in his monotone, heavily accented Russian, I noticed the sighs and yawns of students (not that they were generally attentive in these lectures in the first place) and professors across the auditorium. When this was finally all over he conducted a question and answer session with the students and faculty. For this he used his interpreter. Though he seemed to understand the gist of questions asked of him, it just became clearer that his Russian wasn’t quite sharp enough to be reading university lectures. A few instructors even bemoaned the state of his Russian in classes afterwards.
So, why am I mentioning this now, five months later? It’s not my intent to bash Ambassador Vershbow’s Russian language skills. In fact, as a fellow student of Russian, I can only relate to his difficulties. I don’t care what the linguistically correct folks say about ‘no language being inherently more difficult for foreigners to learn’, I’ve studied quite a few other languages and Russian kicks all of their asses. I’m glad that he’s learning Russian and hope that he keeps it up during his appointment here.
After that speech I began to wonder how many of America’s ambassadors do not fluently speak the langauge of the country they are serving in.
I bring this topic up now because Reagan has just brought to my attention a blurb in Mother Jones about President Bush appointing some of his top fundraising baseball buddies (Dubya used to be a co-owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team) to ambassador positions. Most of these appointees have little or no political or international experience. They also don’t speak the languages of the countries they serve in. MJ gives the following examples:
George Argyros
Pioneer Posting Service: Spain. 2001 - present.
Personal Donations to GOP in 2000: $123,000
Baseball Affiliation: Former owner of Seattle Mariners.
Diplomatic Distinctions: No Spanish.
Mercer Reynolds III
Pioneer Posting Service: Switzerland 2001 - 2003.
Personal Donations to GOP in 2000: $373,173
Baseball Affiliation: Co-owner of Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals.
Diplomatic Distinctions: No German or Italian. Only basic French. A.k.a. “Fundraiser-in-Chief.”
Stephen Brauer
Pioneer Posting Service:Belgium, 2001 - 2003.
Personal Donations to GOP in 2000: $415,830
Baseball Affiliation: Co-owner of St. Louis Cardinals.
Diplomatic Distinctions: No French. No Flemish.
Jeffrey Marcus
Pioneer Posting Service: Belgium. Four days in 2003.
Personal Donations to GOP in 2000: $275,000
Baseball Affiliation: Co-owner of Texas Rangers.
Diplomatic Distinctions: Appointed, but never showed due to divorce proceedings.
Craig Stapleton
Pioneer Posting Service: Czech Republic. 2001 - 2003.
Personal Donations to GOP in 2000: $60,500
Baseball Affiliation: Former co-owner of Texas Rangers. Married to Bush cousin, Dorothy.
Diplomatic Distinctions: Czech 101. Reportedly walked out and slammed door on Czech prime minister during Iraq war rift.
So what do you think about all of this? Should the United States require its ambassadors to have at least professional language proficiency? After all, these are our highest ranking representatives to those countries. . . There are certainly intelligent people out there who have a great knowledge of politics, international affairs, history, and language who would make great ambassadors. They might not own a baseball team or anything, but maybe that’s not so important after all.
What about ambassadors from other countries? Is it the case that they often do not speak the language of the country in which they serve? Anybody know?
Responses to “Bush’s Baseball Ambassadors”
July 17th, 2004 at 11:10 am
Most of the countries do the same.
There are basically three kinds of countries. The most important, naturally, get the best ambassadors: check the credentials of American ambassadors in, say, China, or Brazil. The most unimportant also usually get good ambassadors, i.e., minor diplomats.
Most of the embassies in European countries, however, are stuffed with political or personal allies. Of course, it is the ideal sinecure, but there is another reason. One of the few duties of the ambassador that cannot be performed by lower diplomats is to be a voice of the leader (President, Premier, etc.) in cases when the official line differs from real. With unimportant countries, such need is rare. With very important countries, a personal visit from higher officials and advisers such as NSA will do. But countries which are too numerous to dispatch NSA in every one of them, and are too important to ignore require presence of someone who has leader’s trust.
Speaking of Vershbow, he is maybe the highest-profile US Ambassador in Moscow since great Jack Matlock. He often writes opeds, he was present in some difficult crises and managed to communicate American position well. He couldn’t sway Russian position over Iraq, but it was too large a task for an ambassador. However, he was instrumental in keeping Russo-American relations good despite Iraq.
July 19th, 2004 at 4:29 pm
“He couldn’t sway Russian position over Iraq, but it was too large a task for an ambassador. However, he was instrumental in keeping Russo-American relations good despite Iraq.”
If this is accurate, Russia’s position seems to be changing.
July 17th, 2004 at 9:08 am
Now, I admit I don’t know a whole lot about the processes of American government, except that it isn’t completely logical! Maybe they have found associations with baseball to be valuable to the job!? It is America’s pastime and all! ? And I bet their wives make incredible apple pie!!
For an important job like representing your country, I think the more you know about how to represent it and do the duties assigned may be more important than speaking the language. It is obvious that a near native fluency in the language of the country you are working in would be most valuable…but do we want Ambassadors who are good at the tasks required, or good at chatting with the locals? Two heads are better than one, no? ? I think it is more advantageous to have an amazing translator do the job of translating, and have an amazing Ambassador do his job.