Letter of Resignation by John H. Brown, Foreign Service officer (posted ten years ago on Common Dreams)

To: Secretary of State Colin Powell

March 10, 2003

Dear Mr. Secretary:

I am joining my colleague John Brady Kiesling in submitting my resignation from the Foreign Service (effective immediately) because...

When Barack Obama selected Hillary Clinton -- with her limited experience in foreign affairs, far more limited than her knowledge of the sad affairs of her marital (martial?) heart -- a thought immediately came to my overly cynical mind, formed by the over twenty years that I had the privilege,...

"Diplomacy was not like chess, Holbrooke told me; it was more like jazz."

--Michael Ignatieff

"It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)"

--Duke Ellington

"When philosophy paints its grey in grey, one form of life has become old, and by means of grey it...

As we in recent days are being bombarded with Olympic images on the tube/social media, with the glorification of physically-pushed/exhausted "winners," and of "the most medal-winning" nations, I have a modest proposal for the next Olympics for NBC's sport broadcasts to the world:

1. Included in the next Olympics program,...

I cannot help but be infuriated by the linguistic malady, "like," that has infested our ever-evolving American language.

I am not an aggressive person, but one day, sitting as I do twice a week on a shuttle bus on the way to "teach" about public diplomacy at a local DC...

"I am not particularly concerned whether either gunpowder or propaganda have benefited or harmed mankind. I merely emphasize, at this point, that propaganda on an immense scale is here to stay. We Americans must become informed and adept at its use, defensively and offensively, or we may find ourselves as...

"A thought, once uttered, is a lie."
-- Tiutchev

I hereby propose a new portal/site (call it whatever you want) dedicated to total silence.

You would click on silence.com, no content/graphics/sound would appear on it.

"Target audiences" would love it -- the silence.

Client satisfaction from silence.com would...

Exclusive Interview: U.S. Diplomat Peter Van Buren speaks about American Public Diplomacy

Public Diplomacy (PD) is a hard term to define. Some say it's just a euphemism for propaganda. The Department of State's definition is "engaging, informing, and influencing key international audiences." For some...

"I do not like eggs in the file.
I do not like them in any style."

--Dr. Seuss

If there is one word in the English language I have come not to love, it is the word "like."

Indeed, even in my pre-adolescent youth, the "I like...

In recent years, we've had all kinds of new "diplomacies," ranging from "panda diplomacy" to "helium diplomacy."

And now, lo and behold, the Director of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, Professor/Doctor Philip Seib (who, to the best of my knowledge, has never actually practiced that...

I've looked at/listened to newly-appointed U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul's recent video presentation to the people of Russia. Based on my Foreign Service experience in Moscow as Cultural Affairs Officer (1998-2001), several aspects of the talk struck me.

First, the negative ones, from the perspective of U.S....

It has always seemed to me the real art in this business is not so much moving information or guidance or policy five or 10,000 miles. That is an electronic problem. The real art is to move it the last three feet in face to face conversation.

--Edward R. Murrow,...

Having just finished correcting (or, to be politically correct, I should say "reviewing") undergraduate written examinations, I was again struck -- as I have been for years -- by the inability of students, including the best among them, to use apostrophes "correctly." Among numerous examples: Nazi's, when referring to this...

Public Diplomacy -- according to the US State Department, "engaging, informing, and influencing key international audiences" -- was coined in the mid-1960s by Dean Edmund Gullion of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy as a term meant to be more acceptable than propaganda.

Public diplomacy continues to undergo...

Richard Holbrooke has died. At a time when many are grieving the loss of a temperamental but dedicated diplomat, one episode of his work in the Balkans -- that explosive and often forgotten corner of Europe -- is worth bringing to light.

Here is this Footnote to history (it...

Ben Barber's recent Salon article, "WikiLeaks and the sham of 'public diplomacy': Our diplomats spout jingoistic nonsense about American supremacy -- instead of engaging with the rest of the world," shows his heart in the right place but his history way out in left field.

Barber doesn't...

As a footnote to my recent piece in The Huffington Post regarding WikiLeaks -- and I am grateful for elucidating reader comments to it -- may I suggest that a dirty little secret at the State Department -- at least when I had the privilege of being part...

For all the State Department's understandable security concern about the recent disclosure of classified telegrams from its embassies by WikiLeaks, there are elements in this exposé that can actually improve how Americans and the rest of the world view US diplomacy and, most important, the United States itself. As...

Public diplomacy -- defined by the State Department as "engaging, informing, and influencing key international audiences" -- has become increasingly passé among American officials, scholars, and NGOs as a term and activity used to define how America should communicate with the outside world. Meanwhile, the governments of...

"Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither."

--Benjamin Franklin