Dan Whitman: At the Feet of the Master

Dan Whitman teaches Foreign Policy at the Washington Semester Program, American University. As Public Diplomacy officer in USIA and the Department of State for more than 25 years, he drafted and edited speeches for U.S. ambassadors in Denmark, Spain, South Africa, Cameroon, Haiti, and Guinea-Conakry. A senior Foreign Service Officer, he retired in 2009 from the Bureau of African Affairs, U.S. Department of State.

Ten of us had Vernon Walters to ourselves, in a location in Scandinavia. Even he never predicted exactly what would happen later that year, but in 1989 he brought us fresh news of subtle changes affecting East-West relations. He’d been sent as President Reagan’s ambassador to something called the Federal Republic of Germany, which no longer exists.

He was bewilderingly smart. He’d never been to college. He spoke perfect French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, and passable German. Everyone who ever met him had a Walters story. He was “General,” or “Ambassador,” depending on where he was at the time.

Talking as always without notes, he gave us updates and also reminded us of things we already half knew. Too smart for optimism, he proceeded willfully and sketched a working plan for straightening out the edges and angles of a fizzling conflict. He never said it would be settled soon. He was of the Ramrod School, figuring how to face the Soviet Union down at its own game.

Sometimes during a 90-minute brief, the listener wants to consider response, question, reflection, assimilation. None of that was called for with Walters: even the political counselor in the room settled back with a primary school receptivity. Dispute and refinement were pointless....