Word: diplomatized
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Kennan's statement contains his typical amalgam of self-effacement and presumption. The diplomat and historian has written 17 books on 19th and 20th century foreign policy; he knows very well that his current "pickings" contain 61 years of incomparable observations. He was in Germany when the Nazis rose to power, and in the U.S.S.R. during Stalin's purges. Since his departure from the Foreign Service in 1953 he has visited almost every dry surface of the globe, and he has never forgotten his notebook. From it he has now culled Sketches from a Life, which brims with diverting character...
Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Kennan is imprisoned by the Nazis. Released, he goes on to serve in Portugal, London and then, as the war winds down, the Soviet Union. In the early days, the writer regards the country less as a diplomat than as a romantic novelist manque. Leningrad is "one of the most poignant communities of the world . . . I know that in this city, where I have never lived, there had nevertheless been deposited by some strange quirk of fate -- a previous life, perhaps? -- a portion of my own capacity to feel and to love...
...Gorbachev due in Beijing on May 15, China's rulers were loath to set the stage with a crackdown. Some cynics speculated that conservatives plan to use the spasm of protest to claim a new liberal victim, possibly Hu's successor, Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang. But a Western diplomat in Beijing disagreed, suggesting that the era of fall-guy politics has ended. Said he: "Can they let another guy go down the tubes, given the growing cynicism of the Chinese people, the concern for human rights outside the country and their need for more foreign investment...
Historian Clinton Rossiter noted that the president must wear many hats, and several of them seem to fit Bush comfortably. The former vice-president has more than fulfilled his duties as chief diplomat, entertaining foreign dignitaries by the dozen, at formal dinners and baseball games...
...HAVING A BIG MAC ATTACK! The expense of maintaining Western employees in the U.S.S.R. is extraordinarily high, as much as $400,000 a year % for a one-worker office. Says a Western diplomat: "The cost of renovating a Soviet apartment to our standards is $100,000, if you can find one. And to keep the Western employees sane, you have to fly them out of the country at least four times a year." Because employees feel deprived of their comforts, some companies provide allowances, so that personnel can import such hard-to- find items as toothpaste, fruit, toilet paper...