US ambassador visits campus

Parker speaks to students about foreign service

Years of tension and adventure as a U.S. ambassador seems to have only added to Richard Parker's energy. The author, professor and former ambassador brought his energies to campus this week in a presentation for the Career Services Office.

Parker, who is currently a scholar-in-residence at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. was the US ambassador to Algeria, Lebanon and Morocco during his almost 30-year career with the US Foreign Service.

Parker spoke to a small crowd of students at Career Services about his experiences and how to get involved in foreign diplomacy. With sparkling eyes and a face wrinkled by time and travels, Parker recounted numerous unusual stories from his service, from being kicked out of Egypt in 1967 as a suspected CIA spy to "tearing around Beirut for 20 months with a pistol in my briefcase" while ambassador to that nation.

Parker also explained to those present the process for entering the Foreign Service, and tips on how to prepare. The Foreign Service is a division of the State Department associated with international diplomacy, US representation abroad and services to Americans in foreign countries.

According to Parker, after passing the Foreign Service examination, which is considered the most difficult government exam, officers spend about 40 percent of their time abroad. They serve in a variety of 2 to 3 year posts, generally within a certain geographical region.

"I was never bored in this career," said Parker. "There's not much more you can ask for than that." As with most foreign service officers, Parker filled a number of roles on his way to the top. "I did just about everything. I did things like clearing things through customs (and) repairing hot water heaters," said Parker. But the menial labor didn't stop him from reaching the title of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, as U.S. ambassadors are officially known.

Parker was an agriculture and applied chemistry major at Kansas State University. It was "about as far as you can get from the 'right' preparation," he said. His education was broken up by a stint in the US Army, during which he was captured by the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge and after the war spent a year in Tokyo.

According to Parker, when he applied for the Foreign Service from Tokyo, he was told "We like your style. . . but you don't know anything. Go back to school." After finishing a master's degree he began his career, with the only advice being to wear sunglasses in the tropics.

After being accepted as a student of Arabic he was assigned to the embassy in Jerusalem. In the course of the next 29 years he served in embassies in Beirut, Cairo, Rabat and Algiers. He was the first Ambassador to Algeria when communication was reestablished in 1974. Algeria had severed diplomatic connections with the United States in 1967. He then replaced the Ambassador to Lebanon, who had been assassinated in 1976, and served a more peaceful Ambassadorship in Morocco from 1978 to 1979.

One student asked about any moral conflicts he may have had during his service. ""I'm sure we've all been upset at some point or another," said Parker. ""The question is do you keep serving."

Parker said objections to policy can always be made, but he felt he could accomplish more by staying on the job and arguing for changes. "Many foreign service officials resigned as a result of the Yugoslavian conflict. The policy machine keeps grinding on," he said.

Since retiring from the service, Parker has been a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a John Adams Fulbright Fellow in London. He has also written several books, including The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East, The Six-Day War : A Retrospective and North Africa : Regional Tensions and Strategic Concerns.

The next Foreign Service exam will take place in November, 1999. Students interested in the Foreign Service can get more information at Career Services.