Odyssey of a Diplomat

In May of 2004, I interviewed Ambassador Joseph Wilson on the occasion of the publication of his book, the Politics of Truth. The interview is posted at http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people4/Wilson/wilson-con0.html  You can also find the podcast at http://feeds.feedburner.com/UCBerkeley

In the bitter, acrimonous controversy surrounding the revelation of his wife's identity by high officials in the Bush administration, there is, for obvious reasons, an emphasis on "Who Done It?"  The "IT" being the felony of outing a covert CIA agent.  There is also an emphasis in the debate on the party preferences of the combatants:  Rowe (Republican brain) versus Wilson( Democratic Advisor to John Kerry).  What is not being emphasized sufficiently is that because of his lifelong career in diplomacy, Wilson embodies a tradition of diplomatic service and leadership, a tradition that has marked the foreign service, especially since the end of World War II.  That tradition  involves courage (see Wilson's discussion of his role as Deputy Ambassador to Iraq before the first Iraq War) but more importantly a commitment to multilateral negotiations that necessitate a sifting of evidence and a weighing of the interests of different states and actors within those states.  In picking Wilson to check out the Niger yellow cake story, the CIA was designating a former U.S. Ambassador to go back to a former posting and check out the facts. This hearkens back to the work of many of our post war diplomats:  men like Philip Habib, Jack Matlock, Samuel Lewis.  To get a sense of this tradition, check out the Conversations with History diplomacy archive at http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/PubEd/research/diplomacy.html