Word: ambassadors
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Rudolf Bing, who scoffed at U.S.-trained artists, refused her a major role. (Sills' belated 1975 Met premiere, following Bing's retirement, earned a 20-minute standing ovation.) Her rise seemed inevitable. Witty, smart, tough and down-to-earth, the ebullient performer--nicknamed Bubbles--became a fine-arts ambassador, guest-hosting the Tonight Show and performing with the Muppets. She also raised funds for special-needs kids (her son is autistic, her daughter deaf). After retiring from the stage in 1980, she led such institutions as City Opera and the Met, democratizing opera by staging contemporary productions and introducing supertitles...
...President's official entertainments set off an international incident. In 1803, when the new British ambassador, Anthony Merry, and his wife Elizabeth arrived for their first official dinner, Jefferson, no friend of the Crown, determined to insult them. He not only invited their French counterparts, though the two countries were at war, but also escorted Dolley Madison, rather than Mrs. Merry, to the dinner table. The ambassador's personal secretary claimed that the affront caused the War of 1812. Though that's a stretch, "the Merry Affair" certainly contributed to the continued bad blood between the young...
Twentieth century Washington hostesses wielded such political power that they achieved wider public acclaim. Perle Mesta, known as "the hostess with the mostest," became Harry Truman's ambassador to Luxembourg, the inspiration for the Irving Berlin musical Call Me Madam and the subject of a 1949 cover story in this magazine. Bill Clinton posted Pamela Harriman as his ambassador to France. It was the least the President could do for a woman who used her talent for entertaining, and her husband's money, to bring fractious Democrats together in the 1980s, eventually uniting them behind the young Governor of Arkansas...
...Saudi leader at the center of the investigation is Prince Bandar bin-Sultan, who in 2005 wrapped up more than 20 years service as the Kingdom's ambassador in Washington, D.C. Widely praised as an astute player on the global diplomatic stage, Bandar - also known for his intimate access to the highest levels of the U.S. government and his friendship with both President Bush and his father, former President George H. W. Bush - assumed a less visible role as a top national security advisor to the Saudi ruler, King Abdullah...
...Minister for Africa, Asia and the UN will be the newly ennobled Lord Malloch Brown, better known on the world stage as former U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown. Well-connected in Washington, Malloch Brown also ruffled some American feathers. Last year John Bolton, then U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., said Malloch Brown was the author of "of the worst mistake by a senior U.N. official that I have seen." That comment followed a speech by Malloch Brown in which he criticized the U.S. government for permitting "too much unchecked U.N. bashing and stereotyping," adding that "the prevailing practice...